The Westerlies The Westerlies

• 1 A Nearer Sun 02:38
• 2 So So Shy 04:21
• 3 New Berlin, New York 03:10
• 4 Saro (Arr. N. Muhly & S. Amidon) 03:56
• 5 Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself 09:16
• 6 The Beekeeper 01:07
• 7 Where's the Music 03:18
• 8 Double Situation 03:56
• 9 Lopez 06:34
• 10 The Shop 05:08
• 11 The Beach 05:09
• 12 Rue des Rosiers 04:21
• 13 Run On Down 02:56
• 14 Edomala 03:09
• 15 Ruddy Ducker 07:25
• 16 Songs my mother taught me 03:47
• 17 All to Ourselves 03:33
• Total Runtime 01:13:44

Info for The Westerlies

These four childhood friends from Seattle formed The Westerlies in New York in 2011. Following their critically acclaimed Wayne Horvitz tribute, Wish the Children Would Come On Home, this self-titled release is a double-disc set featuring 14 original compositions by all four band members, as well as pieces by Ellington and Ives and a British folk ballad arranged by Sam Amidon and Nico Muhly. The Westerlies bring together jazz, improvisational, classical and folk feels and approaches, reflecting their individual musical interests and sensibilities as well as their studies at Juilliard and the Manhattan School of Music. The listener can hear each composer gently tugging the ensemble in the direction of his own taste, and the band follows, expressing their friendship through musical empathy.

As Andy Clausen explains: “For this project we very consciously wanted to take our time in the composition, workshopping and rehearsal of the music. We spent four weeks off the grid, spending eight, sometimes ten hours a day workshopping and rehearsing this music – which seems totally crazy and luxurious looking back. We wanted to go into the studio with as close to perfect technical mastery over these pieces as possible so the recording process could be more about experimentation and shaping the performances to be as expressive as possible.”

The high-res (24/192) recording is a collaboration with producer/engineer Jesse Lewis (Roomful of Teeth, Brooklyn Rider, Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma), and it pushes the expressive palette and sonic limits of this unusual instrumentation. Zubin Hensler acted co-producer: “Part of what first drew us to Jesse was his ability to produce recordings that sound perfectly polished while still full of life and complexity. He certainly did a fair amount of editing, but he was brilliant at pulling performances out of us in the studio that would make the editing fluid and musical… Our goal was to create a sort of sonic continuum with Chamber Music Blend on one side and Folk Music Intimacy on the other. Thus the massive number of mics – we essentially wanted to capture every possible angle so as to allow for extremely expressive mixing. There are definitely some techniques used at times that are not typical for chamber music or jazz albums, such as hard compression, dramatic reverb automation, delay, distortion, overdubs, but I think they were all used for expressive purposes that grew out of the compositions themselves. This is what excites me more than anything else about Jesse’s work – he accesses the creatively expressive studio techniques that are so common in popular music forms and harnesses them for use in more abstract art music. It’s brilliant.”

So this is not conservative music: it exudes warmth and beauty, with bursts of humor, surprise, and genuinely quirky attitude. As influences the Westerlies cite Kronos Quartet, Brooklyn Rider, Nico Muhly and Sam Amidon (“All is Well is very influential in the way that they approached drawing contemporary classical and experimental improvisation elements into a folk context.” – Zubin), Wayne Horvitz, Bill Frisell, Roomful of Teeth, Goat Rodeo, and American Brass Quintet. Zubin: “Those groups all have direct influence on us as a whole. But, additionally, we each have very distinct and sometimes contrasting influences that we each bring to the ensemble. Willem’s the only one who spent time as a classical trombone major in college, Andy has definitely studied the compositions of Third Stream far deeper than the rest of us, Riley performs classic jazz arrangements more than the rest of us, and I spend most of my non-Westerlies time in the experimental indie-pop/rock/electronic world. So I view our influences as a sort of Venn diagram, where some things intersect, but some are very unique.”

In another way the music is anchored in their shared experience of Seattle and New York. As Riley Mulherkar relates: “I think elements of the Northwest seep into everything we do, both in the spirit of the music (i.e. the uniquely Pacific Northwest character of “The Beach” and “Lopez”), and also more specifically in the artists and communities we take inspiration from – local mentors like Wayne Horvitz and Bill Frisell, the thriving improvised music scene, the jazz education programs. When we came together as a band in New York it was because of these shared values and communities, so it certainly finds its way into every note we play. New York is like no other place I know of in terms of its strength of community. This band formed as a result of a community we had in college – a small group of artists and students having dinner every Sunday in Zubin’s apartment – and today we continue to rely on and look to our New York communities for inspiration. The incredible new music scene led us to discovering Jesse Lewis, and the wealth of jazz in the city certainly influences the way I play and write – I first played “Where’s The Music?” with my band at Jazz at Lincoln Center before bringing it to The Westerlies. Then there’s also just the element of crazy in New York – the hustle and bustle of the city, the intensity of the people, and the urgency of every moment that infects every New York musician, whether they like it or not.”

Last word goes to Willem de Koch: “We’re a lighthearted group of guys and we try to let that come through in our music.”

Riley Mulherkar, trumpet
Zubin Hensler, trumpet
Andy Clausen, trombone
Willem de Koch, trombone

Produced by Jesse Lewis

The Westerlies
are a New York based brass quartet comprised of four friends from Seattle, Washington. Avid explorers of cross-genre territory, The Westerlies are a collectively run ensemble dedicated to the cultivation of a new brass quartet repertoire that exists in the ever-narrowing gap between American folk music, jazz, classical, and indie rock. The Westerlies have premiered over 40 original works for brass quartet since their inception in 2011, and crafted an approach that Dave Douglas had described as “Swinging, grooving, clean and tricky playing. This is the group that, once you’ve heard them, you’ll realize they always needed to exist. Unique, original, exciting. And simply killing in the best sense.” The Westerlies music exudes the warmth of their longstanding friendships, and reflects the broad interests of its members.

Their 2012 - 13 Season included engagements at The Festival of New Trumpet Music, Juilliard in Aiken Festival, The Juilliard School, Shapeshifter Lab, and The Earshot Jazz Festival, and collaborations with Dave Douglas, Bill Frisell and Juilliard Dance. In addition, The Westerlies were invited to perform the music of Wayne Horvitz at The Stone in May 2013. The project was later recorded during the The Westerlies annual residency on Lopez Island, WA and will be released on Songlines Recordings May 13th, 2014.

Riley Mulherkar has been recognized by the New Yorker as a “brilliant teen-aged trumpeter,” and in 2011 was named as a “rising jazz artist” by Wynton Marsalis in JET Magazine. Born and raised in Seattle, Riley is in his 4th year of study at The Juilliard School.

Zubin Hensler is a Brooklyn-based trumpeter, composer and chief electronic music producer for Mason Jar Music. A graduate of Manhattan School of Music, he has performed with The New York Composers Orchestra, Wayne Horvitz, Abigail Washburn, the Wood Brothers, and Adam Larson.

Andy Clausen is a NYC-based trombonist, composer and current Juilliard student. An active bandleader since 14, Clausen has released two albums of original music, and performed alongside Wynton Marsalis, Bill Frisell, Dave Douglas, Joe Lovano, Andrew D’angelo and Kurt Elling.

Willem de Koch is a trombonist, composer, and current student at the Manhattan School of Music. Willem has shared the stage with Seattle Symphony, New York Youth Symphony, Wayne Horvitz, Miguel Zenon, and George Duke, and played under the baton of Leonard Slatkin, Kurt Masur, George Manahan, and Gerard Schwarz.

This album contains no booklet.