The 5th of 7 large and inspiring works that began with a Festival of New Trumpet commission in 2007, here in an ensemble of 19 players including C. Spencer Yeh, Ben Vida, Ben Hall, Matt Moran, Chris Dingman, Dan Peck, Josh Sinton, Colin Stetson, the TILT brass octet, &c.
Label: Pleasure of the Text Records Catalog ID: POTTR1305 Squidco Product Code: 22166
Format: CD Condition: New Released: 2016 Country: USA Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold 3 Panels Recorded at Abrons Art Center as part of Tectonics week, New York, on May 9th, 2015, by Bob Bellerue.
"Seven Storey Mountain V, released on Wooley's Pleasure of the Text label, is the fifth of seven evening length works that began with a Festival of New Trumpet commission in 2007. Recorded live at Abrons Art Center in New York City as part of the 2015 Tectonics NY festival, SSMV continues Wooley's idea of creating an ecstatic and communal music. that is non- religious and non-genre based. The massive collective group includes international stars from the jazz, new music, electronic, and noise worlds- working together to realize Wooley's singular musical vision."-Pleasure Of The Text
"This Seven Storey Mountain is the fifth installment of Nate Wooley's meditation series. The title is taken from the Trappist monk, Thomas Merton's most famous publication. Like Merton, the most Zen Buddhist of Christians, Wooley might be the most Japanoise of all jazz improvisers.
His previous installments were released by Important Records (2009 & 2011) and his own Pleasure Of The Text Records (2013). As the chapters increase, so do the players. The first edition had Wooley joined by Paul Lytton and David Grubbs. The second Chris Corsano and C. Spencer Yeh, the third, a septet, and the fourth swelled to twelve performers. Here the count is nineteen with Yeh, Samara Lubelski, Ben Vida, Ben Hall, Ryan Sawyer, Matt Moran, Chris Dingman, Dan Peck, Josh Sinton, Colin Stetson, and the TILT brass octet.
With 19, you have power and, in Merton's terms, the majesty. Like the previous installments, the nearly fifty minute piece builds momentum through the amassing of sound. There's noise here, but a regal noise. Wooley presents the trumpets and trombones of the TILT Brass Octet like Elmer Bernstein's score for the film, The Ten Commandments. That is, if Alfred Hitchcock had directed it. The piece pulls together Yeh and Lubelski's amplified violins with the ringing of Moran and Dingman's vibraphones to effect an ethereal sound.
The journey Wooley takes us on can be disorienting, but that's the point. Noise mixed with amplified brass and mechanical sounds creates an instability. But that uncertainty and the riskiness of the journey into this darkness, might be just a test. A test of faith, or a secularist's mindfulness."-Mark Corroto, All About Jazz