Brooklyn alto
saxophonist/musicologist Jon De
Lucia, a musician drawn to overlooked musical nooks and
crannies, has uncovered and refurbished the long-neglected
arrangements that launched Dave
Brubeck's career in the late 1940s. De Lucia's new album
"The Brubeck Octet Project" takes a fresh look--for the first time
in 74 years--at the West Coast's alternative to Miles Davis's epochal "Birth of the Cool"
sessions with a cast of heavyweight improvisers including tenor
saxophone great Scott Robinson.
RICHMOND, Calif., June 3, 2024
/PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Ever curious about the underexplored
corners of jazz history, alto saxophonist Jon De Lucia breathes new life into one
important such chapter with "The Brubeck Octet Project," dropping
July 12 on his own Musæum Clausum
Recordings imprint. The album documents De Lucia and his octet's
rediscovery and reconditioning of the arrangements played by the
Dave Brubeck Octet, the innovative 1946-1950 unit with which the
iconic West Coast pianist began his career. It will be available in
CD and digital formats as well as a limited edition 180g
Translucent Red Vinyl release, in the style of the original Fantasy
Brubeck records.
The original handwritten charts were a bit
of a mess, hard to read. I always wanted to take the time to put
them into notation software, fix the mistakes, rehearse a band, and
record this music anew. Finally, thanks to support from CUNY and
the Brubeck and Van Kriedt families, it has happened.
De Lucia's octet predates "The Brubeck Octet Project." He formed
the band in 2016 for another project at City
College of New York (where he then taught), but it quickly
became a weekly reading band, leaving the saxophonist constantly in
search for new (old) repertoire. It was this quest that led him to
the archives at Mills College
(Brubeck's alma mater), where he found many of the Brubeck Octet's
original handwritten charts in the papers of the band's tenor
saxophonist and arranger, Dave Van
Kriedt.
"They were a bit of a mess, full of mistakes and scribbles that
made them hard to read," recalls De Lucia in the album's liner
notes. "I always wanted to take the time to put them into notation
software, fix the mistakes, rehearse a band, and record this music
anew. Finally, thanks to support from CUNY and the Brubeck and Van
Kriedt families, it has happened."
Jazz being jazz, however, De Lucia also sought ways to make his
own mark on the work—and to allow his collaborators to do the same.
He wrote new intros and backgrounds for the arrangements (by
Brubeck, Van Kriedt, and baritonist/clarinetist Bill Smith), and, more importantly, expanded
their solo spaces, giving his musicians room to have their say.
Listeners get to reap those rewards. From De Lucia's own
muscular alto workout on "I Hear a Rhapsody" to pianist
Glenn Zaleski, tenor saxophonist
Scott Robinson, and trumpeter
Brandon Lee's gleeful runs on "IPCA"
to Robinson and trombonist Becca
Patterson's thoughtful, enigmatic submissions on "What Is
This Thing Called Love," the players offer irresistible
interpretations and expressions on the historical arrangements.
As such, the music both remains a product of its time—an
experimental thrill ride of the early bebop era—and crackles with
renewed vigor and spontaneity at the hands of De Lucia and his
cohorts. "This is the first time in 74 years that this music has
been played and recorded again," the alto saxophonist writes. "I
think the results turned out great!" Indeed they have.
Jon De Lucia was born
November 26, 1980 in Quincy, Massachusetts—just outside
Boston, a garden spot for musical
studies (and jazz studies in particular). Studying with
Berklee College of Music woodwind
professor Dino Govoni since high
school, De Lucia headed directly for the Boston conservatory after graduating—where he
was quickly diverted from his ambition to write video-game
music.
Instead, he was inspired by the high caliber of classmates like
Kendrick Scott and Walter Smith III to live up to their jazz chops.
De Lucia added a performance major to his studies, and, in addition
to jazz, also studied folkloric musics from around the world. His
lens widened yet again after he graduated from Berklee in 2005 and moved to New York, where he played and studied with a
variety of jazz masters and also began exploring the world of
Baroque music.
Thus his first recording was a postbop jazz sextet session,
"Face No Face" (2006), but De Lucia's longest-lived project is his
Luce Trio, with guitarist Ryan
Ferreira and bassist Chris
Tordini, now Tatsuya Sakurai
and Aidan O'Donnell, which
improvises on the compositions of Bach, Handel, and Dowland as well
as Baroque-influenced jazz composers like John Lewis and Jimmy
Giuffre.
It was in pursuit of the lattermost composer that De Lucia
formed his Octet in 2016, a vessel for investigating Giuffre's 1959
octet arrangements for saxophonist Lee
Konitz. The Octet turned out to outlast the Giuffre project,
and De Lucia's desire to keep replenishing its repertoire led him
to the Van Kriedt and Brubeck arrangements that form the basis of
his "Brubeck Octet Project."
The Jon De Lucia Octet will perform music from "The Brubeck
Octet Project" at Birdland, 315 W. 44th Street, on Sunday 7/14,
5:30pm.
Media Contact
Terri Hinte, Terri Hinte Public
Relations, +15102348781, hudba@sbcglobal.net,
http://www.terrihinte.com
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SOURCE Terri Hinte Public Relations