Mike Holober & The Gotham Jazz Orchestra - This Rock We're On: Imaginary Letters (2024) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

A meditation on the beauty of nature and the fate of the planet, “This Rock We’re On: Imaginary Letters” is a multi-movement work by the acclaimed composer Mike Holober. Written for jazz orchestra, voice, cello, and percussion, it features art songs set for chamber ensemble that take the form of imaginary letters to or from selected “protagonists” – naturalist authors, artists, and activists who dedicated their lives to appreciating and protecting the earth we inhabit. Each of the vocal works is followed by an instrumental jazz orchestra piece that reflects upon the text of the letter. Recorded and premiered by the GRAMMY® nominated Gotham Jazz Orchestra in June 2023, a double album is scheduled for release on 14th of June 2024.

“If I had to sum up my passions in life, I would point to my first two summer jobs during college,” says Holober. “The summer after my freshman year I worked as a trip leader, canoeing and backpacking in the Northwoods of Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and Minnesota. Then the next summer, I was a rehearsal pianist for the Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, New York.”

Those early experiences have blossomed in myriad ways over the ensuing decades. In addition to the Gotham Jazz Orchestra, Holober leads his quintet and Balancing Act, an octet with voice, and co- leads the Marvin Stamm/Mike Holober Quartet. He served as Artistic Director and Conductor of the Westchester Jazz Orchestra for six years and has arranged and conducted for such world-renowned ensembles as the WDR Big Band and HR Big Band, working closely with artists like Kurt Rosenwinkel, Dr. Lonnie Smith and Miguel Zenón.

At the same time, he's remained an avid outdoorsman and steadfast supporter of environmental organizations. Holober has enjoyed countless backcountry trips to the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountain ranges, as well as the Cascades and Southwest basins and ranges. He has led canoe trips in Northern Minnesota, climbed volcanoes in Mexico and hiked in the Austrian, Swiss and Italian Alps. Closer to home, he is an Adirondack 46'er (the term for hikers who have climbed all 46 of the region's highest peaks) and has summited all of the 115 highest peaks in the Northeastern United States.

For This Rock We're On Holober channels his sentiments about preserving the Earth's natural resources and beauty through the imagined words of six “protagonists,” each one an author, artist and/or activist who has dedicated their life to the natural world. They include Rachel Carson, largely responsible for launching the environmental movement in the U.S. with her pioneering book Silent Spring; the famed photographer Ansel Adams, whose iconic images of the American West have served as inspiration for generations of environmentalists; writer and conservationist Sigurd Olson; novelist, poet and essayist Wendell Berry; Robin Wall Kimmerer, an environmental scientist and member of the Potawatomi Nation; and environmental justice activist and author Terry Tempest Williams, who also penned an insightful essay for the album.

“I tried to put myself into the heads of these people and imagine what they might have to say,” Holober explains. From there he constructed orchestral pieces in response to these texts, not in a programmatic sense but simply channeling the profound emotions summoned by these activists' vital work. Several grace notes are laced into the textures of the work – Rigby's fervent tenor underlying the vocal performance of his 8-year old son Ronan on the climactic title track, or the tender solo by saxophonist Virginia Mayhew on “Dear Virginia,” interpreting a letter from her grandfather, Ansel Adams, to her grandmother and namesake Virginia Best Adams.

In its vocal pieces This Rock We're On draws inspiration from Samuel Barber's Hermit Songs and Edward MacDowell's parlor songs, at once Romantic and contemporary, unearthing depths of emotion and human connection without succumbing to sentiment. Holober's orchestral writing reveals his profound study of jazz and classical forms, the results of which bloom vibrantly in Holober's elegant sonic tapestries, brilliant hues and intricate, imaginative orchestration, including his graceful and innovative incorporation of cello into the mix. The project's fluid blend of influences retains a solid grounding in the jazz orchestra tradition, with pieces penned with the ensemble's distinctive voices in mind and incorporating space for spirited improvisation as an organic element in the overall structures.

“My goal is always to write something that I haven't written before, to learn something and challenge myself,” Holober says. With This Rock We're On he's excelled at this goal, crafting a masterwork as broad as the horizon and as beautiful as an unsullied landscape.

“Holober has brought a profound artistic vision to bear on today's jazz scene and confirmed his standing as one of the finest modern composer/arrangers of our time, in the tradition of Gil Evans, Bob Brookmeyer and Jim McNeely.” (Ed Enright, DownBeat)

“Mike Holober's writing is in the expansive and ambitious lineage of Gil Evans, Bob Brookmeyer and Maria Schneider: music of varying moods that merges the thrust of jazz with atmospheric colors closer to the classical world. It can teem with energy or settle into a state of quiet, contemplative beauty.” (Jerome Wilson, AllAboutJazz)

Gotham Jazz Orchestra:
Mike Holober, piano, conductor
Jason Rigby, tenor saxophone
Ben Kono, alto saxophone
Charles Pillow, alto saxophone
Marvin Stamm, trumpet
Jared Schonig, drums
Nir Felder, guitar
Jody Redhage Ferber, cello
James Shipp, percussion
Guests:
Chris Potter, tenor saxophonist
John Patitucci, bass
Jamile Staevie Ayres, vocals

Tracklist:
CD1
01 - Lay of the Land
02 - On This Rock
03 - Dirt Lovers Almanac
04 - Another Summer
05 - Tides
06 - Another Summer-Epilogue
07 - To Virginia
08 - Dear Virginia
09 - Domes

CD2
01 - Refuge
02 - Tower Pulse
03 - Erosion
04 - Three Words for Snow
05 - Boundary Waters
06 - Noetry
07 - Skywoman Falling
08 - This Rock We're On


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