Purchase / Streaming links here!
While our new album, The LAN Sessions, landed almost everywhere the day after, our fans (… fan?) using Deezer got it a day earlier for an official release date of Wednesday, June 22, 2022! Super excited to have this out in the world in more accessible formats.
Re-enter: The LAN Sessions
For those new to this music, The LAN Sessions is a remastered collection of tunes that we recorded during the pre-vax era of the COVID-19 pandemic and slowly released as video features on YouTube. All of the parts were recorded separately by each member of the band in their own home and cobbled together by our bassist, Andre La Velle.
As I detailed in my blog post when we first started this venture, I was skeptical of starting a project like this during the pandemic because it felt antithetical to our core identity, which is based in jazz and improvisation. However, the length of the pandemic forced my hand, and I’m glad it did—I’m proud of how these tracks turned out.
The Ol’ Switcheroo
For those who have been following our video releases, you may be wondering: ‘What is “Tokyo Daylight” and what have you done with “Jolly Ol’ Horizons”!?’
Unfortunately, we can’t secure the licensing for some tunes because they have yet to be released in an album form in the U.S.—that includes all Animal Crossing content (which is also why we haven’t been able to release our arrangement of “K.K. Cruisin’”). Perhaps one day we’ll be able to, but for now, that’s going to be one our tracks that you can only catch live or on YouTube.
As for “Tokyo Daylight,” it’s debuting on this release! This is our trumpeter Brandon Walsh’s fourth arrangement for the band. We recorded it back in summer 2021, but recording was wrapping up when joints started opening up again, and the adjustment to that new life (and the influx of gigs) slowed that process down to the extreme. Since Andre just finished mixing it early this year, I figured I’d wait to do the video until after the audio release. So if you dig our videos, this one will come your way soon—stay tuned!
High Concept Art
It if wasn’t obvious, the album art is actually inspired by the pandemic: each of us, masked, in our own spaces, isolated, yet together.
My original concept is shown here: I thought I’d depict myself as a masked, dead-eyed Shujin High School student sitting alone on his front porch. The ideas that I wanted to convey with this—a stale life of isolation as a musician and citizen—wasn’t as obvious I had hoped.
So, I turned to my wife (and #1 fan of the band!), explained what I was going for, and she came up with the idea for the final art, which turned out to be much more meaningful (and funnier!) than what I had thought of. Thanks, Jen!
Special Thanks
I want to give a special shout-out to our guest guitarists on the album, Colin Greggs and Yusef Kelliebrew.
Colin is a friend of mine from high school. We grew up gigging together, and after college Colin joined the Navy band. I was super happy to reconnect with him to work on this project—you can hear him on “Ideal and the Real” and both Phoenix Wright tracks.
Colin ended up having a baby boy in May 2021, so we looked for another guitarist for work on “Tokyo Daylight”. I had come across Yusef’s work with the VGM community quite some time ago and knew that he would be the first person I’d ask to collaborate with us.
Both of these guys brought so much to the table and made these tunes come alive. Very thankful for their hard work and musicianship!
Also, huge, huge thanks to the band members themselves. Brandon Walsh, Pat Hayes, Gabe Planas, Andre La Velle—these guys are all awesome and worked so hard to get these over the hump during an extremely trying time of life. Andre put in all of the engineering work, which was a huge lift. Brandon helped in that process, too, always being there to listen and give feedback. Plus, Brandon arranged two of the LAN pieces (“Can You Really Call this a Hotel” and “Tokyo Daylight”)—love his ideas and choice of tunes; it’s a great joy having him as a co-conspirator.
Last but not least, a shout-out to our jazz wives (and jazz partners) for putting up with us through this and all other jazz they have to experience lol.
Incoming
Stay tuned to the band, as we’ll have another album on the way later this year! Last October we recorded tracks for Speed Run, an album that features short versions of our tunes (mostly with one short solo each instead of five extra long ones!). Until that, dig into these and let us know your favorites!
Thanks, as always, for listening and reading—we hope to catch you at a live show soon!
Peace,
Greg
