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A Brief History of Magnificent Bird
In the aftermath of a year off the internet, I've become low-central obsessed with Lewis Hyde'southward book The Gift, in which he argues that the move of a gift—or a work of art—from one individual to another helps to ascertain the customs in which the gift or artwork circulates.
Today, my fifth album, Magnificent Bird, is released into the world, and information technology is, for me, about fundamentally, an expression of my community. There are no hired guns: only musicians whom I cherish as much for their humanity and friendship as I practise for their artistry. So I thought it would exist appropriate to mark the unveiling of this projection with a little history & chronology of a dozen-and-a-half musical relationships that have fabricated this record possible.
1989 - At our respective homes in Rochester, New York, Ted Poor and I play boogie-woogie duets: me on piano, Ted on drums. Nosotros're too on the same Little League team; he often plays get-go-base of operations, I'm over at shortstop for a quick 6-3 on a footing brawl to the left side of the infield. Twenty-five years afterwards, he plays drums in The Ambassador, my first piece for the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Ted was so incredibly generous on this project, recording three,287 versions of "Hot Pink Raingear" before we arrived at the approach heard on the album. His sense of rhythm lights a room, and he is my oldest friend — not just on this LP, but in life.
2006 - The Nickel Creek bus drops Chris Thile (as well as Sean and Sara Watkins) at my parents' firm in Santa Rosa, California. Nosotros showtime playing music at around 1am. 15 years, hundreds of cups of coffee, and dozens of alcohol-fueled arguments about the "right" approach to rhythm in the music of J.Southward. Bach afterwards, Chris is one of my closest friends, and also a hero. We all know what a monster, one time-in-a-generation talent he is. What is possibly less apparent is the insane work ethic that undergirds his seemingly effortless command of his instrument, an ethic I got to witness up close while opening some 60 shows for Punch Brothers. The merely person whose approach to rhythm is every bit continually mind-boggling as Ted Poor'southward is Chris', hence the mando-drums on "To Be American."
2007 - I come across Alex Sopp through her new music ensemble, yMusic. I will forever be spoiled past the fact that she'southward the first flutist I work with: her tone singing, her sense of phrase totally intuitive and poetic. Over the course of xv years, we share with each other many, many, many photographs of our cats. Her collaborative spirit was axiomatic in her work on this album: for "Hot Pink Raingear," I asked if she could play a synth riff on some "messed up whistles and flutes," and she sent dorsum, xxx-six hours later, xiv unlike tracks of various antique current of air instruments. I wish I had kept all of information technology for you to hear, but sometimes less is more.
2008 (part one) - I hear Elizabeth Ziman sing at a tiny buffet in Park Slope, Brooklyn. I am instantly in dearest with her voice and songwriting. I would happily heed to her sing tax returns or technical manuals or the transcripts of municipal water supply hearings; she is magic. Somehow, after an most xv year friendship, this is the get-go time we've worked together on record; her singing on "Sit Shiva" is, for me, what makes the song.
2008 (part two) - Outside a rural uncomplicated school in Switzerland, I am approached by a young human, who, seeing my banjo instance, announces that he "plays folk music, besides." It's Paul Kowert, who that autumn would join Dial Brothers as its bassist. Years later, we travel effectually the state while I'm opening for his band, playing chess over coffee, getting lost on long walks in unfamiliar cities, talking endlessly about music. He is a 1 of the well-nigh supremely gifted bass players of our time.
2009 - Holcombe Waller and I are set upward on a West Declension co-bill bout by a friend who warns me that Holcombe is extremely flamboyant. I write to Holcombe, and in a postscript, mention—sort of in jest, sort of not—that I'm xviii% gay. He writes back, "I've worked with less." A friendship is built-in. Need help understanding obscure financial instruments or fledgling cryptocurrencies? Enquire Holcombe. Need a quick tutorial on the history of energy policy in the Northwest? Enquire Holcombe. Need the nearly sublime falsetto (but as well booming bass-baritone) you've ever heard? Ask Holcombe. Happily, we at present live less than a mile from 1 another in Northeast Portland. Holcombe, tin can I borrow some sugar??
2010 (part one) - I'grand playing a gig in upstate New York accompanied by a string quartet. At soundcheck, one of the violinists mentions that she "writes a trivial music, too." Next thing I know, that kind and serenity musician—Caroline Shaw—has won the Pulitzer Prize. Over the years, we email with eccentric frequency about Lunchables (can't recall how that 1 started), and have occasionally appeared together in concert. What I admire most almost Caroline is the absolute honesty of her music. Many of the states work for years building up artifice, then tearing it down. Not Caro: she knows, and seems ever to have known, who she is. When I first heard her overdubs for the record, I cried.
2010 (part two) - Casey Foubert and I have known each other for a few years when he begins to mix my 2nd anthology, Where are the Arms. Working on that record reveals to me the uncanny depth of Casey's musical knowledge, spanning, as it does, obscure 60'southward piano-driven folk-pop to free jazz. One of the most versatile and multivalent artists I've ever encountered, Casey is the only musician who has played on all of my records (with the exception of Book of Travelers, which is just me). He's also a profoundly curious person, and a super generous spirit. He at present lives with his family in rural Illinois, and I love that in that location's a bit of that energy on this album.
2011 - Information technology's a dark and dreary evening in Peterborough, NH, when I notice myself sitting at the pianoforte in a piddling cabin, singing standards with a young woman named Amelia Meath. We proceed in touch here and there, and then a few years after, I hear a band called Sylvan Esso and call back, that voice sounds familiar! Over the last few years, Amelia and I take had long, deep phone calls about everything from literature to TikTok to systemic racism to the music biz. She encouraged me, while we were working on "Linda & Stuart," to embrace the cerebral dissonance betwixt the cheerful groove and the sense of grief that pervades the lyric.
2014 (office 1) - Driving from the Denver Drome, Chris Morrissey tells me that he does a nifty BBC newscaster impression. I immediately effort to one-upwardly him. (Mine is better.) Every yr on his birthday, to commemorate my small victory of superior British dialect, I leave Chris a three-infinitesimal voicemail in a preposterous BBC phonation. Chris is a complete musician, and a consummate human being. One of the things that drew me to him when we offset met was how emotionally available he was. So glad he'southward on this articulation.
2014 (function ii) - A recording studio in New Jersey. yMusic has a new cellist on the session. We go through one take of my arrangement of Beck's "Mutilation Rag," for the Vocal Reader album, and Gabriel Cabezas, maybe 22 years old, says, without a trace of attitude or ostentation, "oh, this is a twelve-tone row, correct?" What a punk! 1 memorable night years afterwards ends drunkenly at my house, where we cook both carbonara and cacio e pepe after a long conversation about how the best pasta sauces are emulsified using the cooking water.
2014 (part three) - I'thousand not sure that the classroom at the fancy private school in Laguna Beach, California, was where I offset met Joseph Lorge, just information technology sticks out in my retention for some reason. He'south at that place with a friend of his, a songwriter, who performs two beautiful songs as part of a master course that I was giving. By 2017, Joseph has become indispensable to my process as a studio artist. He records and mixes Book of Travelers, and acts as mix engineer and house psychologist during this project. He is alpine and shy, quietly hilarious, with a middle of gold. His ears and imagination are astonishing; without him, this record would not be.
2015 - In the lobby of the newly opened Ordway Theatre in St. Paul, Minnesota, I am accosted by a blonde homo with a cheerful face and intense eyes. "I have a question to inquire you," he says, betraying the slightest hint of a Northern European accent. "On your song 'Charming Disease,' from your album Where are the Arms, is information technology 3 clarinets or one claviola that appear suddenly in the second verse?" This was Pekka Kuusisto, a true magician of the violin, and i of my dearest friends. I take addicted memories from 2019 ("the before times") of walking down to the water—his house in Finland sits confronting the Baltic Ocean—in nothing but towels, freezing our asses off before retreating to the warmth of his woods sauna, which I approximate is what Finns do in February? When his violin enters halfway through the tune, I feel the chill of that numinous, Scandinavian air current insinuate itself into the harmonic field.
2016 (part one) - St. Paul, once again! Sam Amidon and I have known each other for a decade by this point, but it'south over burritos at Chipotle that we bail for existent, talking about our shared dear of Herman Melville and obscure jazz records. If I'm reading a great book, Sam is often the first person I want to tell. In a world chock with highly individualized voices, Sam's artistry—from his singing phonation to his banjo and dabble playing—stands out for its idiosyncrasies and emotional depth.
2016 (part two) - On a bout omnibus somewhere in Montana, Andrew Bird and I get to talking about how folk and orchestral music can coexist. A few years later, nosotros work closely on Time Is A Crooked Bow, a cycle I orchestrated comprising six of his songs. Getting to hear him sing every night was a real master class. Andrew has magnetic rock star energy, merely he is also a kind, gentle, quiet and deeply thoughtful soul. And no one plucks the violin quite the mode he does. When I wrote the riff he plays on "To Be American," I knew it had to be him.
2017 - From time to time, I caput uptown to hear the NY Combo. One evening, I'thousand hypnotized by a sound—serene, expressive, otherworldly— emanating from from the principal clarinet chair. Eventually I muster the nerve to write to Anthony McGill and tell him what I huge fan I am. Information technology's thrilling when he tells me that he knows my music and would love to do something together. And now, at terminal, nosotros have.
2019 - Nathalie Joachim sends me mixes of her album Fanm D'ayiti. Information technology is so damn gorgeous. Nosotros've been coincidental acquaintances for five years at this point, only now I am *a fan*. Over the course of the pandemic, we talk more frequently, counseling each other about the various challenges of being an creative person in these confounding times. She joins the Creative Alliance with the Oregon Symphony, where I serve equally Creative Chair. This June, the Oregon Symphony will present the earth premiere of an orchestral song cycle drawn from Nathalie'south anthology that made such an impression. The combination of Nathalie & Alex on the championship track, forth with Holcombe's song feature, has me feeling that my cup truly runneth over.
Appendix A:
Tony Berg is a joyous contrarian whom I've known for a dozen years, during which time he has shown me only generosity of spirit, resources, and wisdom. He co-produced Book of Travelers (which we recorded at his old home studio in LA), and was an indispensable early on sounding board for the songs on this album. And at present he's got a dog named Bing-Bong. How about that?
Having said all that, may I remind you that tour begins on Monday?
The workings of the music business are murkier than ever, only the lesser line is that even an art-house haven like Nonesuch can't afford to keep putting out interesting music if no ane is paying for it. I'k so grateful to all of y'all for your connected back up, and hope you'll consider picking upwards a re-create of the record in one format or another if y'all've non withal done so.
All my best, and hope to see you at a gig in the adjacent few months,
Gabriel
Source: https://gabrielkahane.tumblr.com/
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