mixed and recorded at Brooklyn Recording
mastered by Gene Paul @ DB Plus
Produced by John Hollenbeck
All compositions by John Hollenbeck
2004 Grand Blvd. Music ASCAP/GEMA
This recording is dedicated to my grandmother, Madeline Heath. Special
thanks to the Hollenbeck and Schroeder families for their continued love and
support. Also thanks to IAJE, ASCAP, The Air Force Falconaires, Jamie
Begian Big Band and Patrick Zimmerli for their work in the creation and
premiere of "A Blessing" and "Folkmoot"
REVIEWS:
THE NEW YORK TIMES Ben Ratliff
JOHN HOLLENBECK LARGE ENSEMBLE
FEBRUARY 20, 2005
Like Mr. Holland, the drummer John Hollenbeck is a rhythm-section player who
leads a quintet and recently grew his music to big-band size. It's pretty
clear he's the leader: rhythm provides the guiding wisdom of each piece. "A
Blessing" (Omnitone), the first recording of his Large Ensemble, suggests one
logical extension of Mr. Holland's group, toward multiple personalities. Mr.
Hollenbeck is clearly interested in a huge area of contemporary music, from
minimalism to African music to art song to funk to free and straight-ahead
jazz. (He never sounds like he's mocking any one style, or overreaching: he
figures out a way to make everything his own.) It's a real ensemble record,
without many solos in the traditional jazz sense; the musicians play in tight,
arranged sections, but also go to the other extreme, teasing out weird timbres
and textures. Some tracks are dead serious, like "The Music of Life," with a
Sufi-philosophy text sung by Theo Bleckmann over clouds of slowly changing
chords. Others have a dry and brainy sense of humor, and try ideas that might
look dreadful on paper, like putting a shard of "April in Paris's" melody over
a reggae rhythm and ambient horn arrangements. In some wily way, it turns out
not to be dreadful at all.
THE IRISH TIMES
MONDAY JUNE 27, 2005
JOHN HOLLENBECK LARGE
ENSEMBLE A Blessing Omnitone ****
Drummer and composer
Hollenbeck, who counts Brookmeyer, Schneider, McNeely, Ligeti, Gil Evans and
Brian Eno as influences, uses the conventional big band basics, plus the voice
of Theo Bleckmann, in decidedly unconventional ways. Relatively straight-ahead
funk, reggae, free improv and classical elements are blended in what is,
notwithstanding some soloists, essentially a composer's work throughout. They
yield beauties in the 16-minute Irish Blessing, the chant-like The Music of
Life, Folkmoot and the quirky April in Reggae, with its adeptly kaleidoscopic
mix of ensemble and brief solos. Equally impressive, but vastly different are
Weiji, Abstinence and RAM, each a rigorously controlled combination of the
free and the formal. And it's all done with striking clarity, authority and
originality. www.omnitone.com
ALL MUSIC GUIDE by Dave Lynch
Drummer, composer, and bandleader John Hollenbeck reveals the wide and deep
range of his talents on the first album by his Large Ensemble, an 18-piece
aggregation of some of the most skilled musicians on the New York City
creative music scene, including Hollenbeck's frequent partner in musical
exploration, vocalist Theo Bleckmann, and two members of the Claudia Quintet.
Hollenbeck succeeds brilliantly in keeping the listener off balance, revealing
new facets of his artistic vision and the capabilities of his players as the
album progresses, yet never losing sight of A Blessing's overarching
conceptual form.
The CD begins with a blessing and ends with a prayer, deeply humanistic and
touchingly hopeful messages bracketing the far-reaching journey at the album's
heart. That trip starts at the title track, as the moody, subtle atmospherics
of piano, bowed vibes, and bass beneath Bleckmann's vocal build through an
expressive soprano saxophone interlude into thoroughly scored full-ensemble
territory that fully reflects Hollenbeck's compositional acumen. Front-line
instruments including woodwinds, mallets, and voice unwind chant-like melodic
lines over a harmonic backdrop that shifts as the rhythm tightens and the
melodies knot up in counterpoint, finally ascending to a plateau of
shimmering, Steve Reich-ian minimalism beneath Bleckmann's final heartfelt
wish -- a traditional Irish blessing that everyone has heard but has never
been offered more poignantly -- that life offer up its best for its travelers.
Later, a jazz sensibility takes over in "RAM," with its brassy punctuations
and swing, while masses of caterwauling horns let loose over a mechanistically
pounding, skewed rhythm in "Weiji" and the thus-far definitive version of
Hollenbeck's opus "a-b-s-t-i-n-e-n-c-e" builds to climax suggesting quite the
opposite of the title itself. The catharsis is invigorating and fully realized
as the album winds its way through myriad episodes of contrasting moods, even
as solo instrumental spotlights for trombone, piano, and saxophone battle with
complex underlying arrangements for the listeners' attention. There's so much
to hear that multiple spins are absolutely mandatory.
In
the liners, Hollenbeck is quoted describing Bleckmann as the band's "secret
weapon," and that pretty much nails it. Bleckmann is a beautifully evocative
singer in a "conventional" song, but his wordless voice is also a stunning
instrument, somehow both warm and otherworldly. He's in the mix here and there
throughout, taking on the role that, for example, a theremin, shakuhachi, or
didgeridoo might fulfill in your not-so-typical big-band arrangement.
Ultimately, A Blessing is like any of John Hollenbeck's other, smaller-group
releases to date -- stylistically unclassifiable while fully engaged in
expanding the diverse genres and styles it draws upon. To use a term that has
probably gone out of fashion during times of fragmentation and discord,
Hollenbeck's music is "holistic," and summed up best in "The Music of Life"'s
selfless prayer for healing at this album's conclusion. The world and all its
inhabitants could benefit greatly by taking this type of blessing to heart.
Brainy Drummer John
Hollenbeck Breaks the Big Band's Big Habit
John
Hollenbeck Large Ensemble's A Blessing by Francis Davis for
The Village Voice
July 12th, 2005
Due
to DNA or sheer habit, big bands remained dance bands by implication long
after people stopped dancing to them. Although retaining the classic
instrumentation, the John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble (note the billing) is
about as far away from Goodman and Basie as can be. Not that Hollenbeck, who's
worked with Meredith Monk as well as Bob Brookmeyer and others in jazz,
ignores rhythm and dynamics—he is a drummer, after all. But A Blessing's
rhythms are cyclical and subdivided, its dynamics generally organized around
pitch. The only failures are the first and last tracks, settings for an Irish
funeral prayer and a poem by Hazrat Inayat Khan, both sung by Theo Bleckmann,
whose high tenor is more pleasing blending wordlessly with the horns.
"Abstinence," the most swaggering and exciting of the seven Hollenbeck
compositions, isn't going to move any bodies outside of an interpretative
ballet company, but it'll have your pulse racing as it piles theme upon theme
into multiple crescendos. As full of small detail as Hollenbeck's writing for
his Claudia Quintet, this is beguiling music for large ensemble. Just don't
expect a big band.
By
Paul Olson for allaboutjazz.com
Jazz
and contemporary composition, playfulness and prayer, intensity and sweetness:
in the musical world of composer/percussionist John Hollenbeck and on the
brand new CD by his Large Ensemble, A Blessing, all these elements
mingle. Fans of Hollenbeck’s Claudia Quintet or any of his other groups
(Quartet Lucy, Bleckmann/Hollenbeck Duo) will be prepared for just how well
those ingredients mix, but newcomers to his work may be in for a pleasant
surprise. This is ambitious, modern big band music, brilliantly arranged and
deftly performed and recorded.
Many
of Hollenbeck’s regular musical collaborators appear on A Blessing—Claudia
Quintet cohorts Chris Speed and Matt Moran, Quartet Lucy saxophonist/English
horn player Dan Willis, vocalist Theo Bleckmann—but the emphasis is the group
sound (even Bleckmann’s voice blends into the ensembles like another
woodwind). At the same time, no matter how dense the parts—even in the thick,
coalescing, coming-together of the entire ensemble of “RAM” or the Charles
Ives-style xenochrony of “Weiji”—it is possible, even easy, to pinpoint
specific players. Notable, too, are the trademark Hollenbeck complex, shifting
rhythms: the steady pulse of “Folkmoot” switches into a powerful math groove;
“April in Reggae” alternates swing time and reggae riddims. Somehow, it all
sounds natural, right; these are not academic exercises. They are
songs.
Hollenbeck has created a sonic universe where a sort of focused spirituality
and a deep sense of play are interwoven. The CD is bookended by two pieces
(the epic title track and “The Music of Life”) that contain lyrics sung by
Bleckmann. “A Blessing” is the familiar Irish toast (“May the road rise to
meet you…”) and “The Music of Life” is an excerpt from Sufi master Hazrat
Inayat Khan on the beneficial, even essential role of music on our bodies and
our spirits. Both songs are stunning—the swirling, Celtic figures near the end
of the sixteen minute-long “A Blessing” seem somehow magical and
gravity-defying—but they also wrap the album in a benign envelope of
intelligent, restorative positivity that neither cloys nor condescends. It
couldn't—not when the music combines themes and motifs so playfully.
There are plenty of memorable individual moments. Bleckmann’s amazing
throughout—his voice sounds like a theremin on “Abstinence,” and its wordless
keening on “The Music of Life” defies description. Tom Christensen's soprano
solo on “A Blessing” rises above its surroundings like a kite, and Gary
Versace's skittering piano break on “RAM” is similarly remarkable.
Hollenbeck’s crisp, deeply musical drumming is always a great pleasure to
hear. The overall impression, though, is of ensemble playing.
And
originality: one may hear a score of musical influences—Gil Evans, Bob
Brookmeyer, even Stan Kenton—but Hollenbeck’s music is his own. His composing
and arranging skills naturally lend themselves to writing for a large
ensemble, and the results are an unqualified success. A Blessing is an
album that, I suspect, many of us will be absorbing—and enjoying—for months to
come.
By
David Adler for allaboutjazz.com
John Hollenbeck has made
several small-group recordings, but a large ensemble suits his advanced
compositional voice especially well. With A Blessing, he documents the
inspired large-group work he has showcased live over the last three or so
years (most recently at the Jazz Standard CD release gig on January 25th). The
drummer/bandleader’s music is a bit more abstract than that of Maria Schneider
and her forebearers (Brookmeyer, Gil Evans, et al.), but it drinks from nearby
streams and it has a personal quality that haunts the imagination well after
the album ends. The opening title track and the closing “The Music of Life”
feature vocalist Theo Bleckmann singing prepared texts — the former a prayer
read at the funeral of Hollenbeck’s grandmother, the latter a meditation on
music and spiritual healing from Hazrat Inayat Khan. At 16 minutes, the first
piece is a rubato dreamscape that builds to a soaring tangle of melodies over
a challenging harmonic rhythm. The last piece makes use of lyrical drones and
monotones, with dissonant flute and low brass textures and occasional
throat-singing from Bleckmann.
“Folkmoot,” commissioned
for a 2003 IAJE premiere in Toronto, begins in a bright, driving tempo which
later gets underlined by electric bassist Kermit Driscoll. “Ram,” inspired by
Muhal Richard Abrams, finds pianist Gary Versace and vibraphonist Matt Moran
sparring in between gruff announcements from the horns. “Weiji,” with its
insistent tom-tom patterns, hints at Ellington’s Africanist tendencies but
winds down with a much lighter, straight-eighth melodic theme. “Abstinence,”
the second-longest piece, has a restrained, rock-like feel and something of a
spy movie flavor, with curious electronic elements at the end. “April In
Reggae” (which opened Hollenbeck’s first set at the Jazz Standard) contains a
buried reference to “April In Paris.” Hollenbeck takes a stark six-note theme
and elongates it, until it coils around itself.
One complaint: Horn
soloists are not identified on the recording. The reeds are Tom Christensen,
Ben Kono, Chris Speed, Dan Willis and Alan Won. The trombonists are Rob
Hudson, Kurtis Pivert, Jacob Garchik and Alan Ferber. The trumpeters are Jon
Owens, Tony Kadlek, Dave Ballou and Laurie Frink. Hollenbeck, tied up behind
the drum kit, enlists JC Sanford as his conductor. Many of these players were
at the Standard, where Hollenbeck rolled out several new, non-album
arrangements, including a vivid “Four In One” by Thelonious Monk. Even when
interpreting canonical jazz, Hollenbeck goes about his art with startling
originality and vision.
John Hollenbeck
Large Ensemble
By
John Kelman
One
clear benefit of the global community we live in, with its inherently broad
reach, is that many artists have developed into stylistic integrators. On a
smaller scale, even people who live within the boundaries of the United States
can experience greater artistic diversity than ever before. Only a century
ago, people living in small rural towns would have no way of knowing what kind
of music was developing in larger urban centres; now, with the broad reach of
the internet, it’s possible that someone who lives in the most remote town can
not only hear what’s going on outside their relatively small physical
universe, they can incorporate the experience into their own musical
development.
That’s one of the reasons why the definition of jazz is such a slippery slope.
Reductionist thinking aside, the very assimilation of a multitude of cultural
and stylistic concerns is what keeps jazz alive and well, living and breathing
and, most importantly, constantly evolving. Drummer/composer John Hollenbeck
has proven over the course of his relatively short career that it’s possible
to blend a multitude of approaches while working within an idiom that's still
somehow indefinably jazz. His latest release, A Blessing, expands on
the stylistic melange of his smaller Claudia Quintet with an eighteen-piece
ensemble that offers greater textural possibilities and a grander vision.
The
recording explores the almost unlimited possibilities of one voice, five
woodwind players, four trombonists, four trumpets, and a rhythm section
that—in addition to the more traditional piano-bass-drums triumvirate—also
includes a variety of mallet instruments. There’s nothing excessive or
bombastic about Hollenbeck’s approach, which isn’t afraid to let smaller
subsets do the talking. Nor is Hollenbeck averse to finding organic ways to
emulate ideas that other artists have developed through looping and other
electronic means.
All
kinds of trace elements can be found scattered throughout A Blessing.
The sixteen-minute title track unfolds gradually, beginning with Gary
Versace’s simple piano arpeggios, Matt Moran’s bowed vibraphone, and Kermit
Driscoll’s bass creating a subtle ambient backdrop of gentle beauty for
vocalist Theo Bleckmann’s crystal pure evocation of “An Irish Blessing.” The
piece builds slowly, with Hollenbeck’s drums developing an ever-strengthening
forward motion underneath horn lines that start as long tones, but ultimately
evolve into repetitive patterns that take on a rhythmic life of their own,
resolving into a kind of post-minimalist Steve Reich-meets-Maria Schneider
vibe.
Elsewhere there are elements of primal jungle rhythms (“Weiji”), Brian Eno
ambience that builds into a free cacophony before heading for straightahead
swing (“RAM”), and a kind of free jazz reggae (“April in Reggae”). While it’s
difficult to single out any one player, Bleckmann’s voice—while most often
integrated into the overall texture of the ensemble, rather than standing
out—ranges from pristine beauty to percussive panting, and even some
miraculous throat singing over the stasis of “The Music of Life.”
Captivating and compelling from a larger narrative perspective, A Blessing
is continued evidence of Hollenbeck’s unfailing instincts and endless
imagination. A masterpiece.
AllaboutJazz.com Mark Corroto
I heard the news today oh
boy, four thousand holes in the jazz canon. And though the holes were rather
small, they had to count them all. Now they know how many holes it takes to
fill the Carnegie Hall.
With apologies to
Lennon/McCartney (and the Michael Jackson corporation that owns the music),
John Hollenbeck and his Large Ensemble release a recording of ”what the hell
is that” music. The drummer/composer and leader of the Claudia Quintet and
Quartet Lucy assembled this eighteen-piece aggregation to play not big band
music, but big music by a band of small gestures.
The sixteen-minute title
track sets the table with vocalist Theo Bleckmann, a frequent collaborator of
Hollenbeck, reciting “An Irish Blessing” over the the very gentle piano of
Gary Versace, bass, and bowed vibraphone. Bleckmann’s extraordinary
four-octave voice welcomes you as the other players step forward and the piece
opens up. The music gains momentum, but Bleckmann’s voice always remains in
the mix wordlessly singing the progression.
The Muhal Richard Abrams
tribute “RAM” tames a pack of hungry brass instruments into a swinging affair.
Hollenbeck displays a keen sense of arranging a traditional big band here with
an AACM Chicago blue collar feel. He ends the track with a multi-spoken babble
of voices just to remind you that you are in his altered universe.
The Kermit Driscoll
electric bass opening of “Abstinence” gives way to the wordless Bleckmann
vocals and some nice (uncredited) trombone work. The lazy track beginnings
morph into unstructured horns and a clever shift into an 1950s big town pulse.
Hollenbeck plays with the heavy beat and the power of his eighteen musicians,
flexing muscle and dropping notes onto your chest. By the piece’s end, the
wall of sound he conjures is quite impressive.
His mix of Jamaica and
swing in “April In Reggae” helps to explain Hollenbeck’s musical motivations.
If there are ingredients out there to make a tasty stew, he utilizes them,
like Chris Speed’s clarinet with a dash of raggae pulse. And, of course the
wordless vocals of Bleckmann.
Oh boy, I’m glad to count
them all
John L Walters
Friday July 1, 2005
The Guardian www.guardian.co.uk
The sound of A Blessing (Omni
Tone, £13.99) by the John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble is miles away from the
shouting, accented brass blasts and dense writing of conventional big band
scores. Hollenbeck leads from the drums with an airy lightness reminiscent of
Jack DeJohnette, while his sinuous woodwind lines and low brass sonorities
have the edginess of Jaga Jazzist or Mike Gibbs.
The title track builds to a
busy contrapuntal climax, followed by the "blessing", sung by Theo Bleckmann
while the arrangement subsides around him. Folkmoot is a colourful piece that
pays tribute to Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz, while RAM is dedicated to
Muhal Richard Abrams, ranging from free blowing to a swinging, loose-limbed
ensemble.
Weiji is structured around
a hammering rhythm, while throaty brass and squalling reeds vie for your
attention, and the 12-minute Abstinence has a hypnotic groove and slow-moving
chord sequence for low brass. The middle section shifts into free-form;
Hollenbeck's musicians sound less confident in this context. The Music of Life
features Bleckmann's overtone singing, which makes an extraordinary blend with
the sonorities of Hollenbeck's scoring.
What's more, A Blessing has
a fine cover design, by the New York graphic designers Karlssonwilker. Which,
come to think of it, was the main reason I noticed it in the first place.
Hollenbeck is an ambitious and thoughtful composer worth checking out.
John Hollenbeck Large
Ensemble - A BLESSING:
The word that comes to mind (immediately, on the first 4 bars) is
"EPIC". Not "big band", at least not in the traditional sense... it IS an
18-piece band, & it has some of the elements of what you might remember as
big-band... but John has made this his personal band, & is able to
shape it into something that you've never heard before... what he calls an
"ensemble of musicians". That's a very important distinction, too, because
(while I love lots of "big-band" music) there's a tendency, in my head at
least, to lump it all together. Hollenbeck's fantastic drumming "leads" this
group in many different directions, without ever stepping into "cliche-land"
muck at all. My particular favorite on this album, from the
perspectives of "non-cliche", as well as emphasis on the rhythms of life, is
cut 4, "Weiji".... it is truly a masterpiece, for the jazz listener as well as
those who are "bent" a bit more (like Zappa fans, in Frank's own large
ensemble era). This is an album to GET & to TREASURE... I give it my MOST
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED rating, to be sure! Rotcod Zzaj
http://home.comcast.net/~rotcod1/Z73Reviews.htm
John Hollenbeck
Large Ensemble A Blessing grammy
nomination