On his third album for 577 Records, Ornette Coleman’s drummer G. Calvin Weston hits us with notes both on and off the beat, that mark the time and space of sound, with edgy and sharp melodies. If you listen carefully, you’ll hear an obsessive bass-line that incites the explosion of rhythm.

Dust and Ash is like a sand storm that changes direction with the wind and tries to imprison the traveler. If you hear it without anchors or safety nets, it is like an abstraction that draws a perfect shape. It is like a voyage without departure or arrival points, in which a woman’s voice allows itself to be cuddled by the shadows of a piano and dances with them to become a waterfall of notes before taking off.

More than ever, G. Calvin Weston’s playing is the rage of thunder, the melting of sound in a carpet of drums. The sound of the vital resistance of a native Philadelphian, the rage of blood that follows the edgy melodies of The Phoenix Orchestra, a boutique of sounds to be found, discovered, caressed, without questions that would compromise its flying.

Listen to this album to keep getting lost.
Listen to this album to be found.
Listen to this album to forget those thoughts that want to tame your vitality.
Listen to this album to imagine a story, your story.

This music is like a gift, a source of doubts, catharsis, and passion.

G. Calvin Weston has blazed a harmolodic, funkadelic trail through modern jazz. Listen to the man who funked-up Ornette Coleman's Prime Time Band in the 1980s and worked with legends such as James Blood Ulmer, Tricky, John Lurie and The Lounge Lizards, James Carter, and Marc Ribot.

“Weston lays down a ferocious groove with ecstatic shouts … tugging rhythmic displacements that tease like thunder and lightning throughout.” — All About Jazz

“Adventure has been coursing through the blood of Weston, a drummer of relentless invention, ever since his sojourn with Ornette Coleman when Weston was still a teenager.” - New Yorker 

credits

releases May 24, 2019

The Phoenix Orchestra
G. Calvin Weston: Drums and Pocket Trumpet
David Dzubinski: Piano and Keyboard
Elliot Garland: Electric Bass
Tom Spiker: Electric Guitar
Carlos Santiago and Benjamin Sutin: Violins
Ajibola Rivers: Cello
Kayle Brecher: Vocals

Recorded at Undercarriage Studios, Philadelphia, Pa
Engineered and mixed by Tom Spiker
Mastered by Jeremy Loucas at Sear Sound, New York City
Produced by Kenichi Nagatomo
Co-producer: G. Calvin Weston

Graphic design by Sergio Vezzali

1- With Open Wings by David Dzubinski, Kayle Brecher (Penchant Four Music, BMI)
2- Dust and Ash by Jeff Monjack, Tom Spiker, G. Calvin Weston (Apocalypse Vision Publishing Company, BMI)
3- Incarnate by David Dzubinski, G. Calvin Weston (Penchant Four Music, BMI, Apocalypse Vision Publishing Company, BMI)
4- Abstraction by David Dzubinski, Kayle Brecher (Penchant Four Music, BMI)
5- Dance with Shadows by David Dzubinski, G. Calvin Weston (Penchant Four Music, BMI, Apocalypse Vision Publishing Company, BMI)
6- Thunder improvised drum composition by G. Calvin Weston (Apocalypse Vision Publishing Company, BMI)
7- Endurance by David Dzubinski, G. Calvin Weston (Penchant Four Music, BMI, Apocalypse Vision Publishing Company, BMI)

Note from G. Calvin Weston:
This album is dedicated to my son Calvin Dominic Weston-Wilkerson, May 10, 1990 - May 7, 2009
Rest in Peace

577 Records is an independent record label based in Brooklyn, New York operating since 2001

577 Records
Brooklyn, New York
www.577records.com
©+℗ 2019 vinyl edition