Steven Lugerner Dectet - "Live at The Bunker" now available!
Steven Lugerner Dectet - Live at The Bunker
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Steven Lugerner - Bass Clarinet, Soprano & Alto Saxophone
Matt Marantz - Tenor & Soprano Saxophone
Jonah Parzen-Johnson - Baritone Saxophone
Stephanie Richards - Trumpet
Natalie Cressman - Trombone
Angelo Spagnolo - Guitar & Banjo
David Scanlon - Guitar
Glenn Zaleski - Piano & Wurlitzer
Matthew Wohl - Bass
Max Jaffe - Drumset
Recorded & Mixed at The Bunker Studio by Jacob Bergson
Mastered by Liberty Ellman
Produced by Steven Lugerner
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Press Release :::
Subsequent to his acclaimed, debut release of Narratives, multi-instrumentalist and composer, Steven Lugerner, now finds himself in front of an expanded ten-piece ensemble on a new online-exclusive EP - Live at The Bunker (Primary Records).
Having released Narratives side-by-side with another disk, These Are The Words, & touring to support both albums in 2010/11, Lugerner found himself on New Years Day 2012 wanting to re-focus his energies to his large ensemble with a desire to drastically change the instrumentation & repertoire of the band. Given the opportunity to go on tour during the summer of 2012 with a different project, Lugerner was motivated by a level of urgency to integrate these new ideas and organize his new band. With a recording date booked for April 1, 2012, the process of writing, rehearsing, performing and recording began once again.
The first step to this process was Lugerner’s decision to expand the instrumentation and personnel of his band. “Even though seven pieces was certainly a lot to work with,” says Lugerner, “I ultimately felt restrained with the instrumentation I had chosen years ago for that band - two saxophones, trumpet, guitar, piano, bass & drum set. The answers were pretty clear to me after some thought; I wanted and needed vast amounts of low-end timbres, and I also wanted to bolster the brass section, so I brought in Jonah Parzen-Johnson on Baritone Saxophone & Natalie Cressman on trombone respectively. Jonah is wonderful because he can manipulate his sound in a plethora of ways - he can play conventionally in a section while easily being able to provide unorthodox soundscapes in contrast. And after meeting and hearing Natalie at the Stanford Jazz Workshop a few summers ago, I immediately knew that what she brings to the table - her tone, her lyricism, her blend and her vibe - well, I knew all those traits would be pivotal to making this expansion a success.” During the work and performances of 2011, Lugerner eventually recognized that he was missing another timbrel element to his music that he couldn’t quite define. He identified this element when guitarist Angelo Spagnolo picked up his banjo at a casual rehearsal. Recognizing this as the sound he was missing, Lugerner invited guitarist David Scanlon to join the band so that Spagnolo could do double-duty on both guitar and banjo. The results you hear from the amps of Spagnolo and Scanlon on Live at The Bunker vary dramatically between docile, lullaby plucks and strums to the sounds of industry: metal hitting metal, vibrating machinery and broken radio signals.
Other than the addition of Parzen-Johnson, Cressman and Scanlon, the revamped Steven Lugerner Dectet retains the same skeleton as before with a slight shift in personnel - Steven Lugerner (Bass Clarinet, Soprano/Alto Saxophones), Matt Marantz (Tenor/Soprano Saxophones), Stephanie Richards (Trumpet), Angelo Spagnolo (Guitar & Banjo), Glenn Zaleski (Piano & Wurlizter), Matthew Wohl (Bass) & Max Jaffe (Drum set). You might recognize both Matthew Wohl and Max Jaffe as members of CHIVES, a collective trio with three records under it’s belt with Lugerner as it’s third member. Their kinship as a trio and longstanding history of music collaboration and creation brings an incredibly consistent core to this ensemble.
The expanded instrumentation also bolstered the number of colleagues & composers Lugerner chose to arrange works of. The underground-dirge-like “Cardboard” is originally composed by guitarist/member David Scanlon for his band killer BOB, while “Bells & Whistles” is written by Sebastian Kreuger, leader of the Brooklyn band Inlets. “Having the opportunity to arrange both these pieces opened up huge amounts of insight into the harmonic and rhythmic qualities of these composer’s music. My goal from the onset was to take these qualities and to re-represent them in a larger context. The general skeletons of each composition have only been tweaked slightly to retain their essence, but many of the harmonies and voicings within the ensemble have been colored differently, hopefully producing my own stamp upon these preexisting ideas….”
What you hear on Live at The Bunker is a purely live aural experience - no cuts, edits or touchups. It is a recording that bears the fruit of meticulous rehearsals, explorations from previous gigs, and one long day at The Bunker Studios in Brooklyn, NY. Simply said, the Steven Lugerner Dectet’s Live at The Bunker EP release full embodies ten different musical personalities successfully coming together to produce a single frame of sound, a single sonic idea.