Jason Nazary
For the last fifteen years, Brooklyn-based drummer Jason Nazary has lent his immense talents to myriad projects spanning an aesthetic gamut from Anteloper, his electronics-drenched duo project with heralded trumpeter Jaimie Branch; to the heavy noise & soul group Little Women; to the psychedelic indie rock band Bear in Heaven; in addition to being a first-call sideman for a number of groups led by the likes of Darius Jones. But Nazary has also spent considerable time in the last number of years crafting a hyper-modern and wholly unique cocktail of modular synthesizers and effects to cohabitate with his analogue drumming – an approach deftly employed in his solo project So Ghost, in addition to his work within ensembles.
Like everyone, Nazary’s world was inverted by the COVID-19 pandemic and the one constant in his life – live music and real-time collaboration – was suddenly and summarily thwarted. With a wealth of time on his hands, and not wanting to remain stagnant, Nazary began asking himself: “What kind of music does one make during lockdown?” His answer is found in Spring Collection, his stunning and expansive solo album to be released on LP, CD, cassette, and in digital formats June 25th via Finnish Label We Jazz Records. Nazary writes that, “With Spring Collection, my aim was to capture the spirit of spontaneity & collaboration lost in the absence of live music.” This aim is fulfilled and then some. Nazary enlisted some of his favorite collaborators over a wide aesthetic region – Jaimie Branch, David Leon, Ramon Landolt, Matt Mitchell, Grey McMurray, and Michael Coleman – to work on remote tracks which he then edited, layered, re-worked, and added to/played along with, culminating in this nine track album which casts light on a host of styles, approaches, and dispositions of the various participants.
Of the quarantined compositional process, Nazary reflects: “I would begin my days with a cup of coffee and all the cables of my modest little modular set up in my lap, slowly discovering new sound worlds as I connected one cable after another – these became the beginnings for the pieces in Spring Collection. With these unformed sketches, I would record an improvisation, an exploration of sonics: a small kit of bells, shakers, pans, pots; their resonance captured in fine detail with ultra sensitive microphones. These became, in effect, a conversation first with myself, but later one I knew I had to open up, make social. In the desire not to diminish my collaborative impulses, I felt compelled to involve some of my favorite musicians in the process alongside me.”
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Current Release
2021
We Jazz Records
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