John Lurie | "Painting With John"

John Lurie has recently shared three songs from Painting With John, a forthcoming 56-track collection of music from his acclaimed HBO/MAX series of the same name. Set for release March 15, 2024 on his own label imprint, Strange & Beautiful Music, the soundtrack includes new material written exclusively for the series, as well as, classic recordings spanning his discography. The collection will be released on limited edition, two-LP, 180-gram vinyl and digital formats. 

In the penultimate episode of Painting With John, its creator, John Lurie, sat in a Manhattan recording studio, working out musical parts for the show's soundtrack. Although he occupies an enigmatic, multi-faceted, five-decade career characterized by the unexpected, even Lurie is surprised by the music extracted from the series.  

“After the illness started," says Lurie. "I didn’t think I’d ever be able to do this again." 


Go back a quarter-century or so. As an exotic saxophonist and composer whose pieces alternately recalled cracked-mirror reflections of Thelonious Monk, or Fela Kuti, or Raymond Chandler, Lurie led the vastly influential, downtown NYC jazz ensemble, The Lounge Lizards, through dazzling albums and tours across the globe. He scored indie films and Hollywood hits, collecting a Grammy nomination for Get Shorty along the way and releasing his own surreality-TV series, Fishing with John. Then, Lurie contracted an especially potent strain of Lyme disease that turned sound and light into elemental enemies. He put down his saxophone, stepped away from the camera, and retreated. He lived in isolation and painted. And then he got cancer. 

The sum total of Lurie’s brilliant and evolving third act—including a return to music and acting, his fascinating memoir, History Of Bones, and a resurgent career as an arrestingly original watercolor painter living on a Caribbean island—makes it all the more unlikely.  As well, it makes this double LP an astounding and comprehensive compilation epitomizing Lurie’s uniquely eclectic and provocative artistry; an immersive, captivating experience at its most affecting when listened to as a complete thought, from start to finish.

The 56-track set borrows from Lurie’s library of pre-existing creations ranging from indie soundtracks, Manny and Lo and African Swim, and the exhumed discography of Lurie’s fictive bluesman, Marvin Pontiac, and even back to The Lounge Lizards, as well as several new pieces written and performed to align with the show’s panorama of narratives.  The work rises from the seeds of the blues, exults in polyrhythmic exhales of African music, rides absurdist, elliptical chants, and drapes vignettes in greasy, funky noir. In every instance, the gathered ensembles, that include such luminaries as Steven Bernstein (trumpet), G. Calvin Weston (drums), Jane Scarpantoni (cello), Clark Gayton (trombone), Curtis Fowlkes (trombone), Doug Wieselman (guitar), Evan Lurie (piano), Smokey Hormel (guitar), Michael Blake (tenor saxophone) and Billy Martin (drums), unearth the music as much as perform it; hatching and solving the mystery in simultaneous solidarity.

It’s a journey; a travelogue of genre, style, and invention as fluid and evocative as the artist.  Pure of intent, and engaging at every turn, Painting With John is both companion and stand-alone, detailed soundtrack and joyous summary.

"This may be the last thing I do,” Lurie says. “I want it to be beautiful.”