Finding Love in an Oligarchy on a Dying Planet Rob Garcia

• 1Beautiful Dreamer04:50
• 2People Are Everything04:29
• 3Terror, Fear and Media04:22
• 4Precious Lives05:50
• 5Mac n Cheese (Bank Fees, Dead Bees, Killing Trees, Shooting Sprees, War Thieves, Mac n Cheese)04:04
• 6Act Local #101:25
• 7Finding Love in an Oligarchy on a Dying Planet04:57
• 8The Journey Is the Destination04:16
• 9Guns Make Killing Easy07:24
• 10Greenland Is Turning Green05:21
• 11Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier03:15
• 12Whatever Gets You By06:09
• 13Act Local #201:42
• Total Runtime58:04

Info for Finding Love in an Oligarchy on a Dying Planet

Forget for a minute how few drummer composers have as much of a gift for melody as Rob Garcia. Or for that matter what an acerbic, smart lyricist he is. It’s impossible to imagine an album that more accurately captures the state of the world in 2016 better than his new release Finding Love in an Oligarchy on a Dying Planet. Isn’t that the challenge that pretty much everybody, other than the Donald Trumps and Hillary Clintons of the world, faces right now? Garcia’s critique is crushingly vivid, catchy as hell and just as erudite. He offers a nod back to the fearlessly political Max Roach/Abbey Lincoln civil rights-era collaborations, and has an aptitude for bustling Mingus-esque 50s noir. His first-class band includes Noah Preminger, a frequent collaborator (who has a killer new album of his own just out) on tenor sax, along with Gary Versace on piano and Masa Kamaguchi on bass, with Joe Lovano and Kate McGarry guesting on a couple of tracks each.

A cover of Stephen Foster’s Beautiful Dreamer opens the album, pulsing on an uneasy triplet beat until Preminger’s crafty lead-in to Versace’s spirals sends it into genunely surreal doublespeed territory, a time-warping nocturne. People Are Everything, a similarly uneasy jazz waltz, has Kate McGarry’s austere, Britfolk-tinged vocals channeling a similar angst and a hope against hope. Time and time again, Garcia’s message is that we’re all in this together, that it’s our choice to either sink or swim isn’t one that future generations will have.

Preminger’s tightly unwinding spirals sax over Versace’s insistent, acerbic piano deliver a vivid update on 50s noir postbop in the almost cruelly catchy Terror, Fear and Media: Garcia’s own artully terse propulsion so tight with the rest of the rhythm section, ramping up a practically punishing, conspiratorial ambience. Those guys are just hell-bent on scaring the bejeezus out of us, aren’t they?

Joe Lovano guests on the languidly aching ballad Precious Lives with a wide-angle vibrato, Versace following with masterfully subtle, blues-infused variations before handing back to the sax. Actor Brendan Burke narrates Garcia’s rapidfire, spot-on critique Mac N Cheese (Bank Fees, Dead Bees, Killing Trees, Shooting Sprees, War Thieves, Mac N Cheese) ) over a broodingly tight Angelo Badalamenti noir beatnik swing groove, a crushingly cynical, spot-on Twin Peaks jazz broadside.. Garcia follows this with the first of two tightly wound solo breaks, Act Local #1

The album’s title track makes plaintively shifting postbop out of a simple, direct Afro-Cuban piano rifff, then takes the whole architecture skyward, a showcase for both Preminger and Versace to sizzle and spin; it has the epic ominousness of a recent Darcy James Argue work, Versace adding a carnivalesque menace. The Journey Is the Destination makes a return to furtively stalking straight-up swing with Lovano again, McGarry rising with a determination that stops short of triumphant: where this will all end up is far from clear.

Guns Make Killing Easy opens as a surrealistically creepy, upper-register piano-bass duet and the swings morosely as Versace leaps with a clenched-teeth, macabre intensity balanced on the low end by Garcia’s coldly inevitable groove, Preminger adding nebulous suspense as the whole thing starts to go haywire and then turns into a requiem.

A tight, enigmatic two-sax chart opens Greenland Is Turning Green, both Lovano and Preminger judiciously prowling around over the hard-charging rumble underneath. The second pastorale here, Johnny Has Gone For a Soldier is reinvented as pensive mood piece, while Whatever Gets You By seems to offer a degree of hope with its flashy piano, bittersweet Preminger lines and tropical heat. The album winds up with a second solo Garcia piece, Act Local #2

Throughout the suiite, Garcia’s own impactful, tersely majestic riffs and rolls color the music with an often mutedly brooding thud, as coloristic as it is propulsive. You would hardly expect the best jazz album of 2016 to be written by a drummer, and it’s awfully early in the year to make that kind of choice. On the other hand, nobody’s going to release a more relevant or important – or tuneful – jazz album this year.

Rob Garcia, drums
Noah Preminger, tenor saxophone
Gary Versace, piano
Masa Kamaguchi, bass
Joe Lovano, tenor saxophone (on tracks 4, 8, 10)
Kate McGarry, vocals (on tracks 2, 8)
Brendan Burke, spoken word (on track 5)

Rob Garcia
“A prime mover in the current Brooklyn jazz scene” (Time Out-New York) and “one of New York’s great jazz drummers and composers.” (Capital New York), Rob Garcia continues to be an strong presence in the New York and international jazz scene as a sideman and bandleader. He has performed and/or recorded with bandleaders such as Wynton Marsalis, Joseph Jarman, Anat Cohen, Sam Newsome, Judi Silvano, Woody Allen, Howard Alden, Lynne Arriale, John Benitez, John Bunch, Dena DeRose, Chris Cheek, Daniel Kelly, and Vince Giordano. Rob has also collaborated with other top musicians such as: Joe Lovano, Sheila Jordan, Dave Liebman, Diana Krall, Myra Melford, Ben Monder, Donny McCaslin, Marty Erhlich, Jerome Richardson, Reggie Workman, Bob Berg, Bill McHenry, Ken Peplowski, Scott Robinson, Howard Johnson, Sonny Fortune, Bruce Barth, Wycliffe Gordon, Warren Vache, Ted Nash, and Chris Potter, among others. He has played on over 40 albums including Grammy winners.

Rob has released 6 critically acclaimed albums as a bandleader which feature such artists as Noah Preminger, Dan Tepfer, Gary Versace, Joe Martin, John Hebert, Dave Kikoski and Mike Formanek. His CD, “Perennial” (BJUR 012) was in the “10 Best Jazz Albums of 2009” in the New York Observer. His most recent album “Finding Love In An Oligarchy On A Dying Planet” (Brooklyn Jazz Underground Records) includes some special guests including jazz legend Joe Lovano and vocal sensation Kate McGarry. His group has performed at venues such as The Ottawa Jazz Festival, The Toronto Jazz Festival, Iridium, Kitano, Smalls, The Rex, Cornelia Street Cafe, Firehouse 12. and has toured in Europe. Rob has also received grants from Meet The Composer, DCA and NYSCA to support his performances.

Rob has been a major force in artist-run organizations, a new way for jazz to continue and thrive. He is the founder and artistic director of a non-profit organization called Connection Works, which presents world-class jazz performances and educational events to the Brooklyn community. He is a member of the Brooklyn Jazz Underground, an association of independent artists with a shared commitment to creativity and community. He was also a founding member of the Douglass Street Music Collective, an artist-run rehearsal and performance space, featuring some of New York’s most creative and cutting edge musicians/composers.

Rob grew up in Pelham, New York, hearing jazz and popular music from the 1920’s and 30’s. His father, an architect who also played bass, had a collection of 78rpm records from that period including such greats as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Bix Beiderbecke. In his early teens, Rob loved classic rock. It was Keith Moon of The Who that inspired him to begin playing the drums. He began studying with Bob Merigliano, and through his influence as well as visiting New York City jazz clubs with his father, Rob’s interest turned toward jazz. He then went on to study with some other outstanding drummers such as Charli Persip, Steve Davis, and Adam Nussbaum. Rob holds a BA from NYU and a MM from SUNY Purchase.

This album contains no booklet.