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Unsung Heroes Garners 5 Star Review In Downbeat!

Posted on August 1st, 2011

Unsung Heroes – 5 Star Review in Downbeat!

My Unsung Heroes recording project continues to gain plaudits from the critics. One of the most notable of these appeared in the July 2011 issue of Downbeat, arguably still the most prestigious jazz publication extant. Reviewer Eric Fine gave Unsung Heroes the honor of its highest possible rating, the coveted 5 stars. This is my first 5 star rating, and in my experience very rare for a “straight ahead” jazz CD in this day and age. Thanks to Eric and Downbeat for this recognition of UH’s quality!

Unsung Heroes has been getting good reviews all around. If you’d like to sample some of the critical opinion, I’ve pulled some of it together here:

UH Play Alongs Now Available, Audio Stems Coming

I’m still chipping away at the mountain of additional Unsung Heroes content to come, but some significant progress has been made! I’m happy to announce that all the Unsung Heroes Vol. 1 play alongs are ready for download through the website and Bandcamp page. They’re available for all the Unsung Heroes instrumentation as well as being suitable for other axes such as trombone and guitar. Play along with the original performance as recorded, or stretch out for more choruses with alternate versions cutting out the other horn solos! Charts for your instrument are included. You can download UH play alongs here:
http://brianlynch.bandcamp.com/I’m happy to report success in my trial run on the Unsung Heroes audio stem project, and I will be getting these multi track audio file versions up for download as soon as possible! We are going to have some fun with these. Cryptic? – perhaps, but stay tuned….

Buy The Unsung Heroes CD at: http://hollisticmusicworks.com/store/cds/unsung-heroes-cd1/
or through Amazon and CD Baby

Download Unsung Heroes Music at: http://brianlynch.bandcamp.com/

 

 

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In Praise of Phil Woods & the Quintet…

Posted on October 26th, 2009

I just finished a five night gig here at home (NYC) with the Phil Woods Quintet, who I’ve been playing with for almost 18 years now (I started with Phil in March 1992 at Chicago’s Jazz Showcase, the one in the Blackstone Hotel). We haven’t been playing as much in the last few years as when I started with Phil, and this was the first gig in a few months for us. It’s always an occasion for me to play with Phil, and every time the Quintet convenes special music is made. A few thoughts about this unique group:

No band out here today plays a more varied repertoire than the Quintet. In five nights of two shows each at Birdland, not one quintet tune was repeated (a couple of the features of myself and pianist Bill Mays were). In my 30 + years as a professional jazz musician this is an unique situation – and it’s been the norm for a week long gig with the Quintet for most of my tenure. This is possible due to the rarefied skills of the seasoned musicians that comprise the Quintet (along with Phil, Bill Mays, and myself, drummer Bill Goodwin and bassist Steve Gilmore, who have been part of the PW5 since the beginning for an incredible 34 years) and the method that we are able to practice in performance. We have a book of more than 100 tunes that Phil will call sets from, and we are able to recall the style and feeling of each chart even if we haven’t seem that piece of music for months. Indeed, we often will bring new pieces of music into the gig,  sight read them down for the first time in front of the audience, and be able to give a convincing performance. We have done record dates in that fashion; no rehearsal, just put the charts on the stand, run over the “head” and other ensemble sections one time, and record. These are musicians who have played and listened to a lot of music and have the skills of the studio ace alongside the creativity and soul of a top jazz player.

You’d have to possess these kind of skills to hang on the same stage as Phil. I’ve never played with anybody with more musicianship; he sets quite a standard and it’s been a great thing for me to try to match it. Every time than I hear him play is a marvel to me. I think he is at a peak of musical expressivity and control now, which is saying a lot. I’ve spent a lot of time on the bandstand with legends (Horace, Buhaina, Eddie P.) and the experience of playing with Phil has been and is every bit as important to me. I keep growing as a musician from this encounter!

This kind of music is an endangered species that should be heard more and cherished for the health of the jazz idiom. There’s still a place for literate, swinging music played by experienced musicians in the tradition, and there is still a lot to be said creatively in this form. Phil, Jimmy Heath, Benny Golson, and other such bandleaders should be sought out and listened to, jazz fans!

Our next engagement will be at the end of May at Dizzy’s, unless something comes up before. It’s a shame that people don’t have more of an opportunity to hear this important group and one of the very greatest exponents of the art of jazz, Phil Woods.

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Introducing Hollistic MusicWorks

Posted on October 17th, 2009

Hello jazz fans and music people, trumpeter Brian Lynch here to announce the genesis of Hollistic MusicWorks, the online (and eventually corporate) manifestation of my musical activity in all its aspects. I’ve been wanting to get this thing going for a while already, but I’ve had trouble with how exactly to translate my ideas for a new online presence (I already have an artist website at www.brianlynchjazz.com, hosted by JazzCorner) to a designer, perhaps because I keep “flipping the script”, as my buddy Edward Palmieri 2nd refers to my propensity for letting my imagination run riot until the original idea is unrecognizable. I’ve finally  decided that I might as well do it myself, and spare others the muddle. Starting out as an humble blog, this site will hopefully extend out to cover the many aspects of my musical world I aim to present and make available to you all. Those aspects will be categorized under these labels:

HEAR – The core of Hollistic Music Works is as a vehicle to present my recorded work as an artist directly to my audience, as well as the work of other artists I’m associated with or I think my audience would be interested in. I’ll be focusing on the brave new world of the downloadable artifact, but I’ll still be producing the physical product of the CD as well. I intend from this point onward to do as much of my recorded output for myself as possible. I still will be recording for other labels from time to time though, and I’ll make those available for dissemination on my site, along with my past catalog from labels like Sharp Nine, Criss Cross, and Ken. I’ll also be putting up live shows and other such documentary audio for those who are interested. The first recording project under the Hollistic imprimatur, “Unsung Heroes” will be ready to go by the time I get the rest of this site together.

SEE - Video representation of the music is very crucial to its dissemination in this time of YouTube. I’ll be putting video up of my groups, other artists that I feel you should be digging, and links to the usual and hopefully unusual videos of interest. Hollistic MusicWorks will be producing DVDs and downloadable video of recording projects (there will be a DVD of the Unsung Heroes sessions) and educational video as well.

LEARN - I love to share my search for the music with others, and teaching has become a large force in fueling my continuing quest for development as a player and musician. I hope to present some interesting and informative material about jazz improvisation, the trumpet, and other music I’ve experienced, in some interesting ways. The goal for me is to use the technology out there in a creative and natural way so interactivity will be at a maximum.

PLAY – I’d like to make my compositions and arrangements more easily available in printed form to those who are interested in playing them, so I’ll be putting my catalog up on here. Another aspect of Play that I’ll be putting out there as an offshoot of my recording projects such as the upcoming “Unsung Heroes” will be interactive play along versions of tracks, as well as  a special multi-track version of the sessions that a practicioner can load into an DAW like Garage Band, Sonar, or Logic and record their own playing with!

THINK – I’m not completely illiterate, but writing (words) has always come hard for me. I do want to get better at finding my voice, so I’ll be struggling to blog you up some things worth reading, and I hope for it to be more than just a recent activities and upcoming gigs recital. I definitely will be sharing the process of getting HMW and its projects together with you. I will need feedback from y’all! I will also put up posts about things I’ve read, seen, or experienced, links to online things that made me think, and try to throw down a thought about music in specific or general from time to time.

So that’s the deal. Now, excuse me while I return to “WordPress For Dummies….”

BL

PS – Why “Hollistic”? Sounds kind of New Age (whatever happened to that label)? My middle name is Hollister (if you ever see me wearing a cap from that store where it looks like a dance club/surf shack inside and the monosyllabic teen staff sneer at you, that’s the only reason why).

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