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If the Past Seems So Bright
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Plainville
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Torchsongs
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If the Past Seems So Bright
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Plainville
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If the Past Seems So Bright
Plainville
Torchsongs
If the Past Seems So Bright
Plainville
Press
… for Plainville’s “If the Past Seems So Bright” (2011):
“One of the year’s most slyly inviting jazz albums”
-Nate Chinen, NY TIMES
“…a gorgeous, meditative tone that signals that this scrappy band doesn’t hew to any prescribed style, nor does it engage in any sort of dilettantism…although he’s a super jazz saxophonist, [Udden] openly embraces the rock, folk, and country sounds he heard in his youth… More often than not, Udden’s music opts for a more gentle, almost pastoral quality–although it retains a muscle and grit to balance the lyric softness. The more difficult Udden’s music becomes to classify, the better it seems to get.”
-Peter Margasak, DOWNBEAT, 4 stars, “Best Albums of 2011″
“…a richly engrossing project from the Brooklyn-by-way-of-Boston saxophonist that finds new ground between jazz, instrumental rock and folk…Udden’s crew is just as comfortable carving out room in indie rock’s territory, but jazz fans should be equally taken with this caliber of invention.”
- Chris Barton, LA TIMES
“His writing for the quintet incorporates pastoral rock and folk and puts more emphasis on ensemble sound; the compositions aren’t merely launching pads for soloists. Udden’s saxophones often sound like a substitute for a vocalist, never getting complex but saying a lot in a simple line. The approach…comes across like a rural version of In a Silent Way.”
- Mike Shanley, JAZZTIMES
“Plainville’s music is decentralized, band-wise, and all over the place category-wise, imagining new kinds of country and folk and pop. …overall sounds as new as anything I’ve heard from a jazz group this year.”
- Ben Ratliff, NY TIMES
(On a recent performance at the Undead Festival in New York): “Toward the wee hours of the morning, the streets were quiet and this was the most appropriate group to close the night. Plainville allowed the weary audience to mentally leave New York for a brief moment…a painting of small-town life and optimism, mixed with Southern gothic maturity, folk song simplicity, and garage rock pathos…Plainville’s writing took rock and folk die casting, and colored it with an advanced harmonic and rhythmic sense. Udden’s sound was a steampunk arrangement of ideas, as if Lee Konitz were reimagined as a folk hero, with lines that flowed in effortless threads.”
- Daniel Lehner, ALLABOUTJAZZ .com
“If the Past Seems So Bright is about the idea of returning home. But the music is so much more than that. Udden is carving out new territory with this project, which folds folk, country, and rock into the jazz tradition.”
- Steve Greenlee, BOSTON GLOBE
“This is carefully arranged music with an unruly streak — edgy, melancholy, but also at peace with itself… Is it jazz? Well, it’s not not jazz.”
- Jon Garelick, BOSTON PHOENIX
Critic’s Pick: “No one ever refers to composers of instrumental jazz as songwriters, but over the past few years, a group of like-minded local artists have made the term seem apt. If the Past Seems So Bright (Sunnyside), the latest from saxist Jeremy Udden’s Plainville project, joins releases by bassists Chris Lightcap and Eivind Opsvik (a Plainville member) to form a mini movement. This is beauty-forward jazz, serene yet deeply engaging, in which improvisation serves melody rather than the other way around. Udden favors a pastoral sound, driven by Brandon Seabrook’s folksy banjo and Pete Rende’s ’70s-style keys; on tracks like “Bovina,” the leader’s horn flutters against the loping backdrop like a butterfly. If a future-minded ensemble like Fieldwork is the Rush of NYC jazz, think of Plainville as the Band.”
- Hank Shteamer, TIME OUT NEW YORK
”…It’s not often that a youngish thirtysomething pines for days gone by, and probably even less often that the results of such wistfulness can genuinely claim eloquence….Saxophonist Udden, a New Englander by birth and Brooklynite by choice, Using banjo, 12-string guitar, pump organ, Wurlitzer, bass and drums – as well as his soft-spoken alto – the bandleader comes up with a fetching program that employs just as many folk music motifs as it does jazz strategies. Melodic jousting; simple, repeated patterns; lots of gliding rhythms. This is music that invests in small moments, where a demure sax trill can convey a near cinematic event…Riding the placid groove is Udden’s horn, full of West Coast cool’s rounded corners, and enticing in its luminous lyricism. The minimalist “Bethel,” with Nathan Blehar singing wordlessly in unison with the boss’s soprano, is a hymn that Longfellow might find redemptive…Courageous, it’s a stark opus that captivates by stressing negative space. Udden must have very vivid memories of the wind whipping through the fields in those Massachusetts nature preserves.”
- Jim Macnie, TONE AUDIO MAGAZINE
Praise for Udden’s 2009 recording Plainville:
Praise for Udden’s 2006 recording torchsongs: