The last thing you’d expect to come out of Brooklyn in these modern times is a country band more comfortable in overalls than in skinny jeans.

But wander into a crowded listening room on the banks of the East River and this is exactly what you get–JP & the Gilberts, modern storytellers in a timeless setting, road-worthy and with chops to beat the band.

Not content to re-imagine the past, songwriting duo J.P. Gilbert and Trevor Williams have embraced their disparate backgrounds as North Jersey crooners and South Texas honky-tonkers as a means of looking to the future.

Part accordion-laden string band from the western plains, part sea of achingly intimate guitars, and developing a reputation as the ‘youngest old-timers east of the Mississippi,’ JP & the Gilberts will release their much-anticipated debut album, Introducing…, in late 2011.

Packed with tales of heartbreak from start to finish, Introducing… is whiskey-drinking music for the new millennium. Highly intoxicating; not to be consumed alone.

The band features:

JP Gilbert, guitar, vocals
Trevor Williams, bass, vocals
Lily Maase, guitar
Tim Monaghan, drums
Alex Hills, accordion

Buy My Book is a sextet that performs Christopher Tordini and my original compositions. Pieces vary from simple to complex; some songs feature open sections for improvisation and others are through-composed. Peter Matthews of Feast of Music called our compositions “spatial” and “occasionally ecstatic.”

Jeff Davis, drums
Alex Hills, piano, accordion, compostions
Greg Ruggiero, guitar
Becca Stevens, voice
Christopher Tordini, bass, compostions
Masahiro Yamamoto, saxophone

Audio

Recording of our full show at the Bowery Poetry Club – 8.4.2009
(Tommy Crane, drums)

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Photographs

Brooklyn-based thrash/jazz/chamber/prog band Abacus independently released its debut album on April 29, 2010. Available on vinyl and as a digital download, the album includes ten songs composed by Michael Kammers and recorded by Trevor Williams (Datus, Pep Rally) at the Rad Pad in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

“I formed Abacus to give voice to a music that is a confluence of certain paradigms, techniques and textures that are typically prohibitive, and that consists of as few compromises as possible for the performer and listener,” said Kammers.

As the band name suggests, the music is mathematical, employing serialism and overlaying complex polyrhythms. The band playfully extends this thematic influence in performance, donning lab coats and goggles and exuding a focus more common to a surgical theater than to a rock show.

Led by Kammers, who also plays saxophone and keyboards, Abacus features Greg Chudzik, bass (David Crowell Ensemble, Signal Ensemble), JP Gilbert, guitar (J.A.C.K., JP and the Gilberts), Alex Hills, keyboards (Buy My Book, JP and the Gilberts), and Tim Monaghan, drums (J.A.C.K., Golem).

Abacus is currently playing shows in support of the record release.

www.abacusabacus.com

Audio

Purple Stuff is a collaborative project with Christopher Tordini. Our aim was to take a step back from our more serious work and experiment with creating fun pop/rock tunes. We even sing.

Audio

Relative:

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Awkward Sculptures:

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You can purchase our tracks here.

This piece is based around the 60 minutes in an hour. 60 is a great number to work with since it’s divisible by so many integers (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, and 30). I chose to work with the prime numbers in the batch – except for 1 since using 1 for what I had in mind would lead to constant sixteenth-notes – since these prime numbers would in fact give me all of the other dividends through repetition. I wrote a baseline that had a note every 2, 3, and 5 sixteenth-notes. The rhythmic phrase repeats itself every 30 beats since 30 is the lowest common denominator for 2, 3, and 5. Treating every beat as a minute in an hour I repeated the rhythmic phrase twice to complete one statement of the whole baseline and to give me my 60 minutes/beats. The piece is split into three 60 beat sections. The first section is in 4/4, the second section is in 3/4, and the third section is in 5/4. The bass line is the same in each of these sections but the different feels paints it in a new light so that you don’t even notice that it’s unchanging. The melody and harmonic movement was determined by the implied harmony of the bass line, the harmony of which was really just based on what I was hearing–no crazy method here, just my subjective ear. The rhythms of the melodies were not tied to the the 2, 3, and 5 of the bass line but I instead chose to weave them around the fixed pattern and accentuate it when I felt it was necessary. The chordal harmonies change from section to section as the different meters change how the bass line is divided bar to bar.

This recording is from my senior recital at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York City on April 10, 2006. Alto saxophonist, John Beaty takes a solo over the C section. See below for personnel and charts.

Audio:

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And a video of the same performance:

Takuya Kuroda, trumpet
Joe Beaty, trombone
Masahiro Yamamoto, soprano saxophone
John Beaty, alto saxophone
Colin Killalea, tenor saxophone
Meilana Gillard, bass clarinet
Kenny Grohowski, drums
Christopher Tordini, electric bass
Alex Hills, piano, compositions, arrangements

This piece was inspired by the vocal arrangements performed by the Bulgarian Women’s Choir.

Kelly Watson, alto flute
Masahiro Yamamoto, soprano saxophone
Curtis Macdonald, alto saxophone
Colin Killalea, tenor saxophone
Alex Hills, composition, arrangement

Audio

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Video