Steve Dawson and Funeral Bonsai Wedding - Last Flight Out (2020)

The idea of FUNERAL BONSAI WEDDING came to Steve Dawson while
riding a bus in his hometown of Chicago. Every day he passed a
florist with three windows, each with a sign. “Funeral,” read
one. “Bonsai,” another. “Wedding,” read the last.

However random, Dawson realized the words sounded natural when
put together, much like the group that would share its title.
Indeed, when FUNERAL BONSAI WEDDING released its self-titled
debut album in 2014, the collaboration appeared like it
shouldn’t work. As the songwriter-singer behind Dolly Varden, an
acclaimed Americana band from Chicago, Dawson’s roots are
country and soul. He is joined by three Chicago jazz musicians
— vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz, drummer Charles Rumback and
bassist Jason Roebke — known for their inventiveness on
Chicago’s legendary free jazz scene, having participated in
projects with people like Ken Vandermark, Ryley Walker, Thurston
Moore, Nicole Mitchell, Jeff Parker, and Nels Cline, among many
others.

Put together, the music of FUNERAL BONSAI WEDDING is unlike all
of the above. On Last Flight Out, every sound is inverted:
Adasiewicz’s vibes serve as the lead instrument, Dawson’s voice
often leads to chants, and Rumback and Roebke shift time to move
the music to side pockets as they move it forward. The closest
comparison to the ephemeral blissed-out melodies is Van
Morrison’s epic Astral Weeks, which aims for transcendence amid
ordinariness. To reach those otherworldly heights, Dawson had
to invert the process he was conditioned to within the context
of a rock band.

“It’s all about the energy,” says Dawson of the group’s sound.
“The way these musicians approach music is really different than
the way most rock bands approach music. It’s about timing and
the way they listen and respond to each other. Things are
looser. There’s more spontaneity. In rock bands you learn a song
and play it basically the same way. With these guys we nail
down the basic structure but within that structure you have a
lot of freedom.”

The musicians first played together in 2005 at Chicago’s Elastic
Arts, a hothouse for experimental jazz. “It felt like I was
floating,” Dawson remembers. That performance led to the group
defining its sound in the studio and conducting a handful of
shows including its debut at Constellation, a free jazz
performance space and a summer performance at the Pritzker
Pavilion in Chicago’s Millennium Park. After pausing for a few
years, Dawson invited Funeral Bonsai Wedding to join him for a
2017 residency at the Hideout. By then original drummer Frank
Rosaly had relocated to Amsterdam and was replaced by Charles
Rumback. They were joined by Quartet Parapluie, an all-female
classical string ensemble whose members have also moonlighted
for groups like Belle and Sebastian, Iron & Wine, and Kanye
West.

Afterward, everyone on stage knew what they needed to do next:
Make a record and expand the scope of what FUNERAL BONSAI
WEDDING could become.

This time out, Jason Roebke played a bigger role in writing the
string arrangements to accompany Dawson’s songs, enhancing them
in ways that made even the most downcast lyrics glow with
beauty. “Jason added to the meaning of the songs. It’s pretty
incredible. I had been playing with him for many years, but it
shows me he’s paying attention to the full songs — not just his
part, but the whole picture,” Dawson says. “It’s really
wonderful.”

By shedding traditional song structures, and inspired by the
open space created by his new collaborators, Dawson found
himself gravitating towards more impressionistic lyrics, which
happened to fit the surrealistic world that emerged since the
last record. Those details creep into Last Flight Out through
lyrics and moods that hover on the edge of both hope and
despondency — A state that reflects the everyday news cycle.
“The songs go unexpected places,” Dawson says. “I let my
imagination go where it will. I didn’t try to confirm it to a
traditional narrative.”

The first thought had to be best thought since LAST FLIGHT OUT
was recorded in a single day at Kingsize Sound Labs in Chicago
with John Abbey at the controls. The band was fresh from a
headlining performance at Constellation and wanted to capture
that energy in just a few hours.

For Dawson, the magic of FUNERAL BONSAI WEDDING comes from that
blind trust. If Dawson hadn’t seen that florist window, if he
hadn’t agreed on a lark to improvise on a stage he’d never
played, if he hadn’t decided to put his songs in the hands of
musicians he barely knew at the time — He would have been stuck.

FUNERAL BONSAI WEDDING is the sound of starting over and not
knowing what’s next until it happens.