Arnold Hammerschlag - No Face, No Name (2015)

Arnold Hammerschlag - No Face, No Name (Skirl, 2015)

Personnel:
Arnold Hammerschlag: trumpet

Sam Barfeld: violin

Will Holshouser: accordeon

Brian Glassman: bass
Aaron Alexander: drums

Tracklisting:
01 - Reflection

02 - Boat Float

03 - No Face No Name

04 - Waiting

05 - Jo

06 - Slow Road

07 - Sailor Song

08 - Picnic House

09 - Bert

10 - The All New Bunny Hop

On his long-awaited second release, No Face, No Name, trumpeter/composer Arnold Hammerschlag blends influences from Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America with cinematic scope and wide-ranging jazz invention. The album, out now on Skirl Records, features ten original compositions that offer Hammerschlag’s unique twist on a mash-up of folk traditions, performed by an unconventional ensemble: Sam Bardfeld (violin), Will Holshouser (accordion), Brian Glassman (bass), and Aaron Alexander (drums).

“The idea behind the album is that each composition is like a painting in a museum,” Hammerschlag says. “All together they make up an exhibition – a whole world.”

Hammerschlag originally conceived the project under the title “Songs From Sun, Sand and Stone,” an evocative concept that illustrates the way that his music conjures landscapes. These compositions bring to mind at once the actual places where the trumpeter’s inspirations originated and an imaginary terrain where all of them overlap and dissolve into one another: the vivid Klezmer-meets-rock of “Boat Float,” the title track’s summoning a Middle Eastern crossroads cafe, a bridge between Brahms and Piazzolla on “Jo.”

The unusual quintet was born from Hammerschlag’s experience playing in a wedding band led by Klezmer- jazz pioneer Greg Wall. “In the space of one wedding we would play several different styles of Jewish, Israeli and Yemenite music, along with sets of jazz and rock and roll and top 40,” the trumpeter recalls. No Face, No Name places those sudden shifts in tone within the space of a single composition, often layering one style atop another to create bold and original juxtapositions.

The title No Face, No Name is derived from a Zen Buddhist koan relating to the practice of contemplating one’s face before birth, a spiritual grounding for the blank but richly loaded slate from which Hammerschlag approaches his compositions. It’s also a playful nod at the fresh start provided by the twelve-year wait since his debut CD, Sailing Neptune’s Waters. The mesmerizing piece “Slow Road,” with its suggestion of a mysterious caravan wending its way through an unchanging desert landscape, thus becomes something of a mission statement: “It’s an analogy for a journey that unfolds gradually over time,” Hammerschlag explains. “Most of the things I’m interested in – meditation, composition, tai chi – can’t be hurried. You grow with them over a lifetime.”

Hammerschlag’s journey began in Seattle, where he came of musical age alongside fellow jazz originals like Jim Black, Cuong Vu, Andrew D’Angelo, and Chris Speed. He studied under Jerry Granelli, Julian Priester, Jay Clayton, and Jim Knapp at Cornish College of the Arts, where he co-founded the ahead-of-its-time band Timebone. Hammerschlag arrived in New York City in 1994, where he’s since worked with a host of artists including Greg Wall, Matt Darriau, Michel Gentile, Owen Howard, Pete Epstein, Alex Harding, Tricia Woods, Chris Komer, Brent Arnold, Katie Down and Phil Haynes. [Official site]

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