Misc recording Recording at Church House ATX: Progger Album 5

[progger]

Happy Thursday, Cafe Saxophone! Rather than spam other threads, I thought it might be nice to start a new one for this topic since my jazz-funk-rock band just went into a great studio for the first time since before the pandemic to record our fifth album. We're all music full-timers, and between us we've worked with a variety of pretty big names (Bruno Mars, Jon Batiste, Black Pumas, Janelle Monáe, Kool and the Gang, and... yes... even Kanye). But the music I love to play and write is directly descended from the likes of Weather Report, Headhunters, Mahavishnu Orchestra, and things like that, and it's probably pretty apparent in Progger's music.

We just wrapped a few days ago and I'll attach some fun photos here of people and gear, only a little bit of which is saxophone-centric, but I'll be editing tons of audio and video in the coming months that I'll post to this thread periodically. If you're curious what we sound like (and haven't encountered any of my Progger-spam elsewhere yet), here's where our existing music can be heard.

We recorded at a fantastic studio in east Austin called Church House which, in fact, used to be a church. So the high ceilings and spacious central room made for some great drum sounds and a wonderful vibe overall. The studio has some really lusty gear, too, including a Neve "Melbourne" console, Telefunken V72 and V76 pairs, a real Fairchild, plenty of vintage Neumann, AKG, and RCA mics, and much more. Saxophone-wise, I recorded into three mics: a vintage U67 for main capture, a Coles 4038 for more distance, and my Evno clip-on for effects pedals. (My keyboards, a Yamaha YC73 and Roland FA06, went direct.) I'm playing on a Yamaha 82z tenor with a Marantz Florida double-ring, .108", and Rigotti 4M reeds.

I'm happy to answer questions to the best of my ability, so please feel free to ask if you're curious about anything!

 

[mizmar]

If you're curious what we sound like (and haven't encountered any of my Progger-spam elsewhere yet), here's where our existing music can be heard.

Some good listening, there

 

[progger]

The record is well on its way, the mixes are being done by my dear friend Matt Meli as I type this and he's making great headway! Enough that I was able to cobble together a teaser video with a minute from one of the new tracks. I'm very much looking forward to being able to release more clips, full tunes, and... in a few months, anyway... the whole thing.

View: https://youtu.be/kWG5SMYEZD0?si=b5WgFJFFx9BzyXm7

 

[Ivan]

The record is well on its way, the mixes are being done by my dear friend Matt Meli as I type this and he's making great headway! Enough that I was able to cobble together a teaser video with a minute from one of the new tracks. I'm very much looking forward to being able to release more clips, full tunes, and... in a few months, anyway... the whole thing.

View: https://youtu.be/kWG5SMYEZD0?si=b5WgFJFFx9BzyXm7

Exciting

 

[Dr G]

More Progger, please.

 

[progger]

At long last, I get to start releasing music today! "Exposition" is the lead single and opening track for "Chronology," which will be available in its entirety on September 18 on La Reserve Records. "Exposition" is watchable on YT and streamable through all the usual platforms.

View: https://youtu.be/mnnLa3XzfuU?si=w-nZZWhSiPkOxl3X


The three searing guitar solos are done by Carter Arrington, Matt Muehling, and Akira Ishiguro, all of whom should be exponentially more famous than they already are, in my somewhat humble opinion! I'm dual-wielding tenor and keyboard/synth duties, as usual, and drums and bass are handled by the marvelous Daniel Watson and Nick Clark, respectively. Nick is the original Progger bassist who has since been stolen from us by the great Jon Batiste! We miss him but we're also supremely happy for him, he deserves that gig very much, and I'm so glad he was able to join us in the studio for a couple days.

The next single will have a lot more saxophone, promise! But for now, please enjoy my wacky poly-triadic melody, layered with a D50 synth trumpet patch, and some fantastic guitar work from these three stellar gentlemen.

 

[Ivan]

Were you put in the dark coal cellar for being very naughty, @progger ?

 

[progger]

Were you put in the dark coal cellar for being very naughty, @progger ?

Most definitely! The naughty boy who spent way too much money to make an old-school fusion record happen... not an advisable course of action, lock him up.

 

[skeller047]

You are my hero.

 

[progger]

Single number two is out today! I didn't write this one, but "Mister Brown and Mochi Jones" was written by guitarist Matt Muehling about (as you might guess) his cats. Two of his five cats, anyway, and these two were particularly awesome kitties, sadly neither is with us any longer. Some of the album artwork is dedicated to them, along with this tune! Much more saxophone shredding than in the previous single, too.

View: https://youtu.be/VaczTVPWNmc?si=3a-twoDoYoC8LbMg


If you watch the video, you might notice that the camera in my sax-and-keyboard dungeon died during the keeper take! I wasn't about to sacrifice the level of destruction Aki and I achieved during our dual-shred-fest, so some, ah, creative editing decisions were made for the video. If you just stream it on the audio platform of your choice, of course, that won't come up. At any rate, here you go!

 

[AlonW]

Cute kitties

 

[MikeMorrell]

Wow @progger, I'm absolutely in awe of your band's musicianship! And your's too as a sax player and keyboard player. I absolutely love the style that your band plays And I would buy your band's CDs/downloads,.

PS just one minor minor point: on 'Progression, I found the 'extended guitar solos' from about 1.43 to about 3,00 'long' and off-track from the theme, Just as a listener jus 1 guitar solo would be enough for me before returning to theme.

 

[progger]

Wow @progger, I'm absolutely in awe of your band's musicianship! And your's too as a sax player and keyboard player. I absolutely love the style that your band plays And I would buy your band's CDs/downloads,.

I appreciate it very much! And we'll have CD, vinyl, and downloads of the whole record ready in September.

PS just one minor minor point: on 'Progression, I found the 'extended guitar solos' from about 1.43 to about 3,00 'long' and off-track from the theme, Just as a listener jus 1 guitar solo would be enough for me before returning to theme.

The committee has reviewed your suggestion, disagreed, and decided to leave the recording as-is! ❤️ 😉

 

[MikeMorrell]

I appreciate it very much! And we'll have CD, vinyl, and downloads of the whole record ready in September.


The committee has reviewed your suggestion, disagreed, and decided to leave the recording as-is! ❤️

Haha, I (truly.) humbly bow to the opinion of the 'committee'! TBH I too would go with what sounds best to the band! Please keep us posted on the release of your CD, vinyl, and downloads. I'm already a big fan!

Mike

 

[PigSquealer]

@progger , impressive talent and great quality recordings. Really refreshing to hear new music that’s made with real players on real instruments. Not AI or digital whatever. The writers, musicians, engineers and all involved crafted a huge amount of worthy music entertainment. A true group effort well done 👍.
How well done ? I just spent two days listening to the past recordings Dystopia, by Progger
Then the current two videos you’ve posted. Man that’s some tight stuff. Too bad the sax cam went dark until 6:00🙁
Looking forward to more Progger !

 

[PiccoloPirate]

Most excellent.
Listened, and after, fell asleep.
Ornette and the band appeared and said,
"why didn't we play like that." 🎶🏴‍☠️🎶

 

[progger]

Thank you all!!

@PigSquealer – The sax cam died from the first few notes of my solo for the rest of the track, it needed to be totally rebooted! The part where it "comes back in" is actually from another take... 😇 Fortunately, that part is through-composed and I played it pretty consistently for each take, so it was easy to fly it in for the video.

I edit all of Progger's videos (from "Scattering" onward, at least) and I find it to be quite an enjoyable activity. Our capable videographer, Eric Dorris, was kind enough to sit down with me for a couple lessons a few months ago and they really helped a lot... Gave me some workflow techniques that greatly improved on the stuff I'd sloppily figured out for myself over the years. So I'm rather pleased with how these videos came out, but Mochi was a particular challenge, trying to figure out what to do with an odd video situation without sacrificing my favorite take of the tune!

Eric has also done video for fusion legends like Allan Holdsworth and Kirk Covington (from Tribal Tech), he just happens to live in Austin and he's been a friend of Progger for many years. I'm very grateful to have him in our corner.

 

[progger]

Third single lands today! And I just learned that it's been added to some official playlists on YT, Amazon, and Apple Music. That's a nice surprise.

View: https://youtu.be/gLNm72hHx3w


A little story behind this one. A few years ago I was doing a fair amount of touring around the US and Europe with my friend JaRon Marshall, a pianist, producer, DJ, visual artist, beat-maker, and all around good dude. JaRon wrote this four-bar melody that I really liked, but we never made a full thing out of it. So I took the good old concept of "theme and variations," a cornerstone of western music composition for centuries, and ran with it a bit. I like how it turned out!

I started working on it in an apartment in Paris a day or two after we played at Ronnie Scott's in London, and Ronnie's might be my favorite room to play in on earth, it's just the most comfortable stage with perfect sound and a great atmosphere. It's located on Frith Street. So... "Frith Variations" came to be.

 

[progger]

And just like that, release day is here! "Chronology" is now out on all digital download and streaming platforms, as well as on CD. (Vinyl coming soon!) Plus, we've put up a fourth full video: "Deacon" is the second-to-last track on the album and it's been a crowd favorite at live shows for a few years, so it's nice to finally get a proper recording. There's some rather gratuitous tenor-on-drum battling toward the end, not quite Interstellar Space but I hope it's a fraction as fun to hear as it was to play!

View: https://youtu.be/E-fhB8CvT1E

Chronology, by Progger

11 track album

proggermusic.bandcamp.com