Gregory Uhlmann, Josh Johnson, & Sam Wilkes Release Beguiling Debut Album via International Anthem
PRAISE FOR International Anthem
“A gorgeous dispatch from the extended SML-iverse...draws your attention close, making major events out of small changes of articulation and emphasis.”
“Playfully laid-back abstract jazz...a stunning instrumental interplay that demands closer listening and headphone immersion.”
“This is pretty laid-back – you might even say ‘smooth’ – but the more you stick with it, the weirder it gets.”
“A warm, elegantly woozy set which combines free playing with composition, and moves between ECM-ish chamber music and airy, soulful jazz.”
“Melodious hallucinations, strained misty breathes, subtle ambient and trance-y beds and wisps, vapours of synthesized effects, and plastique and pad pattered tubular rhythms.”
“Lacquers hypnotic whirlpools of motion to a bedrock of rhythm that’s as supple as anything.”
TRACKLIST
Marvis
Fumarole
Arpy
Frica
Hoe Down
Jicama
Unsure
Fields
Shwa
Unwinded
The Fool on the Hill
CREDITS
Josh Johnson: saxophone + effects
Sam Wilkes: bass + effects
Gregory Uhlmann: guitar + effects
“Marvis” by Josh Johnson
“Unsure” by Sam Wilkes
“Arpy” by Gregory Uhlmann
“The Fool on the Hill” by Paul McCartney and John Lennon
All other songs by Josh Johnson, Sam Wilkes, and Gregory Uhlmann
“Frica” and “Rewinded” arranged by Josh Johnson
“Hoedown” arranged by Sam Wilkes
Tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 10, 11 engineered by Bryce Gonzalez at ETA (10/25/21 and 3/6/23)
Tracks 5, 6, 7, 9 engineered by Gregory Uhlmann (9/12/23 and 9/13/23)
Mixed by Josh Johnson, Sam Wilkes, and Gregory Uhlmann
Mastered by Dave Cooley
Art and layout by Sam Farzin
The Los Angeles trio of guitarist Gregory Uhlmann (SML, Perfume Genius), saxophonist Josh Johnson (SML, Jeff Parker ETA IVtet & New Breed, Meshell Ndegeocello), and bassist Sam Wilkes (Sam Gendel, Louis Cole, Chaka Khan) release their beguiling debut album Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes on LP, CD, and digital download via International Anthem today. The trio also shares the album’s third single on streaming platforms — “Marvis,” a mesmerizing opener composed by Johnson that’s equal parts bright and warm, pensive and peaceful — with the full album to be released on streaming platforms April 3.
Listen to “Marvis” and purchase Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes here.
Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes is a collection of eleven instrumentals that bring to life a jazz-informed take on progressive electro-acoustic chamber music. It fits firmly in the form-smashing lineage of its principals’ past projects — from Music For Saxofone and Bass Guitar, Wilkes’ beloved collaboration with Sam Gendel put out by Leaving Records in 2018, to last year’s Small Medium Large, the breathtaking debut from Uhlmann and Johnson’s group SML — that have become era-defining documents of Los Angeles’s thriving new jazz scene.
Conceived during two live shows at ETA (recorded by Bryce Gonzales) and a session at Uhlmann’s house in Los Angeles, Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes’s skeletal grooves and ghostly moods revel in a kind of minimal, post-modern swing. Even in its more metaphysical and contemplative moments, the album’s compositional restraint feels daring and alluring, inviting close appreciation of Uhlmann’s fingerpicked electric guitar, the hybrid rhythm-lead of Wilkes’ bass chording, or the harmonic world-building of Johnson’s transmogrified alto saxophone.
The arc of the group’s story is one of comradery and mutual admiration. That instantaneous cualidad simpático is what makes this Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes trio special. A friendship between high-level improvisers is translated into musical moments, and executed with such curious precision that the lines between supposed opposites — composition and improvisation, jazz and chamber music, ennui and contentment — are delightfully blurred. The album’s transfixing first single, “Frica,” exemplifies this alchemic mix, receiving notices from folks at Hearing Things, The Quietus, Treble, Raven Sings The Blues, and more.
Uhlmann, Johnson, and Wilkes will celebrate the album’s release with live performance events to be held at Los Angeles’s Barnsdall Hall on April 16 (more info here) and at Constellation in Chicago on August 7 (more info here).
He can also be heard on wide-ranging records by artists such as Nate Mercereau, Harry Styles, Kiefer, Broken Bells, Leon Bridges, and Chris Cohen.
He is a frequent collaborator of Sam Gendel, Louis Cole/KNOWER, and Jacob Mann. Other collaborations throughout Wilkes’ career include: Chaka Khan, Mk.gee, Jacob Collier, Rufus Wainwright, Maggie Rogers, and Dijon.
Wilkes performs live primarily playing a Fender Precision bass while sitting down.
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