John O'Gallagher - The Anton Webern Project (2013)

The Anton Webern Project is the debut Whirlwind release from John O' Gallagher, the Grammy-award winning alto saxophonist who is known as one of the most compelling improvisers, composers and music conceptualists at work today on the avant-jazz scene. The California native has released many critically-acclaimed albums but it's his new, ambitious project that shows his diverse talents pushed to exciting limits.

This recording features reworkings and adaptations of the music of Anton Webern (the Austrian composer known for his innovations in twelve-tone technique and the musical movement known as 'Serialism') for O' Gallagher's star-studded, seven-piece ensemble. Within one hearing of the album the listener is transported into a unique sound-world thanks to the leader's masterful amalgamation of the theories pioneered by the Second Viennese School with his vision of contemporary jazz. The Anton Webern Project is a testament to seemingly limitless spirit of the ever-searching and evolving improvising musician, and is a vital addition to the advancement and appreciation of Webern and twelve-tone music.

In John's own words (this excerpt taken from the liner notes of the album):

"I remember the first time I heard the music of Anton Webern. It was in a music history class at Berklee in the late 1980s. His music seemed other worldly and shrouded in a mysterious process that no explanation by the teacher could unravel. This seed, planted early on in my musical development, grew into a love and fascination for twentieth century classical music. Often cited as the father of serialism (which took hold in the 1950s), it seems that there are still many preconceptions that even educated listeners have about Webern’s music. With this project one of my goals was to present his music as clearly melodic and beautiful in ways that most listeners may not be aware of. Each of the 8 Webern pieces I selected to arrange for this recording spoke to my imagination as having an unusual kinship and translatable essence to modern jazz and this ensemble in particular. I chose to stay as close as possible to the source material’s themes and counterpoint with only minor changes in places that required it. Additional material was composed to provide solo sections for improvising, as well as introductions and codas where needed. All the solo sections are either based on harmonies/trichord structures extracted from the twelve-tone rows each piece uses, the rhythmic structures of the compositions, or the harmonies that result from the counterpoint. Each piece demanded its own solutions to create a sense of a unified whole. One question that would help guide me as I conceived this project was “what would Webern’s music sound like if he were a jazz musician living in New York City today?” This recording is one possible answer to that question."

John O' Gallagher - alto saxophone
Matt Moran - vibraphone
Pete McCann - guitar
Russ Lossing - hammond organ, rhodes, piano
Johannes Weidenmuller - double bass
Tyshawn Sorey - drums
Margret Grebowicz - voice