Secret Society

Kick, Push

It gives me great pleasure to announce that Secret Society is about to record a new album: BROOKLYN BABYLON, the much-anticipated followup to Infernal Machines. This album will include all of the music from the acclaimed multimedia performance Brooklyn Babylon, a work I co-created with visual artist Danijel Zezelj. The recording sessions will take place from June 19-21, 2012 and the album will be released in April 2013 on New Amsterdam Records. You can help us make this recording a reality by pre-ordering the album now, or otherwise supporting our Kickstarter fundraiser, which launches today.

I hope you'll watch the above video, created by the most estimable Marc Faletti. In it, I talk about what it means to me to be going back into the recording studio with Secret Society. I am absolutely thrilled that we will be recording the music from Brooklyn Babylon, which is an album many of you have been asking me for every since the premiere at the BAM Next Wave Festival last fall.  

This record is dear to my heart. I feel like everything I've been doing musically has been leading up to this moment. My co-conspirators in Secret Society are equally excited about this recording and I hope you will be as well. Today, we are offering you the opportunity to pre-order  this recording by supporting our Kickstarter fundraiser, which runs until midnight on June 18 -- the day before we enter the recording studio. By contributing today, you'll receive a copy of the album as soon as it is ready for release. You'll also be helping us defray the not-inconsiderable recording costs.

Other reward packages include the upcoming Brooklyn Babylon graphic novel by Danijel Zezelj, an original cocktail recipe created by me for you, and the opportunity to sponsor a Secret Society co-conspirator. And if by any chance you've long harbored the desire to be an Executive Producer... 

Full details on all reward packages can be had at our Kickstarter page. Oh, and did I mention that all contributions are tax-deductible?

Making a recording this ambitious, with eighteen musicians all playing multiple instruments, is no easy undertaking. The music of Brooklyn Babylon is novelistic in scope and construction. It's an epic work that tells one big story. By ordering a reward package, you help us ensure that this music is recorded the way we want you to hear it... the way so many of you have told me you want to hear it.

Thank you all so very much for your support -- quite literally, we could not do it without you.

Celebrate Seven Years of Secret Society at LPR

TUESDAY, MAY 22
LE POISSON ROUGE
10:30 PM (doors 10:00 PM)

Lemme get a Newport

My friends, a reminder that today is the last day to get discounted tickets for the Newport Jazz Festival -- you need but click here and enter the promo code "BIGBAND." Secret Society's will be appearing there on Saturday, August 4, and the lineup for both Saturday and Sunday is outstanding. We are thrilled to be returning to this historic festival, still going strong after all these years.

Also, if for some reason you have never seen the classic concert film from Newport '58, Jazz on a Summer's Day, you need to go right now and put it at the top of your Netflix instant queue. The performances (Monk, Louis, Jimmy Giuffre, Chico Hamilton, Mahalia Jackson, a sky-high Anita O'Day) are breathtaking, and the cinematography is truly beautiful -- it's easily among the best concert films of all time.

Like 80 roman candles that backfired then slammed you

My co-conspirators and I make our return to Le Poisson Rouge for a show on May 22 -- downbeat is 10:30 PM. Tickets may be had here. 

It's a bit of a birthday gig for both me and the band: my personal odometer turns over another year at midnight that night, and May 22 is just a few days shy of the 7th anniversary of the first-ever Secret Society show. (May 29, 2005 at CBGB, for the record.) My official reaction to this is: "Holy crap have I really been at this for seven motherfucking years?" Once you start indulging your bigband habit, it's all a blur...

Seriously, though, this seems an approriate time for me to thank all of you for all of your support -- most especially those of you who have been coming to see us since those early shows at CB's and the Bowery Poetry Club. We did not get where we are because of a big record label push or a glitzy PR campaign or by riding on the coattails of famous people. Whatever success we've had, we've had because you guys started coming to our shows and telling your friends about the band. And now, thanks to you, Secret Society gets to play all over the world, and I get to make writing and performing music the focus of my life. That's pretty rad.

Here are a few of the things we have coming up after that May 22 LPR show:

• In early June, we are going to Brazil. Secret Society is playing the BMW Jazz Festival -- we'll be in São Paolo on June 10 and Rio de Janeiro on June 13. Brazil! I can scarsely wait. Such a staggering variety of inventive, grooving, deeply soulful sounds originating from there...
• The day after we get back from Brazil, I'm heading up to West Point where I will be the composer-in-residence for the 2012 Jazz Knights Composer's Forum. I'll be giving masterclasses, working with selected composer participants, and premiering a newly comissioned work: "Codebreaker," my tribute to Alan Turing, written to commemorate his 100th birthday.
• Immediately after the Composer's Forum wraps, I'll be taking Secret Society into the studio to record the music from Brooklyn Babylon. A lot of you have been asking me "When is the next record coming out?" and now I finally have an answer for you: it's coming out in the spring of 2013.
• On August 4, Secret Society returns to the Newport Jazz Festival. Have you seen this year's lineup? You really should. Also, if you act quickly, you can get a discounted one-day or two-day pass --- use the promo code "BIGBAND".
• There is something else cool really happening later in August that I can't tell you about yet, but stay tuned.

In my heart I have but one desire

National Cherry Blossom Festival — on now! (Image simulated.)

This week, my co-conspirators and I will mounting our second incursion into The Nation's Capital -- we'll be assembling at the Atlas Performing Arts Center for an 8:00 PM hit on Wednesday, April 4. Full details and tickets may be procured here.

Last time we were in DC (just over a year ago), it was for one of the most memorable double-headers in Secret Society history. We began the evening with a performance at Kennedy Center's Millenium Stage -- video evidence of this can be had on our YouTube channel -- after which, we joined Richmond VA's Fight The Big Bull for an underground show in an alternative venue, i.e., a house party in someone's basement. [This writeup (with photos) on CapitalBop.com captures something of the flavor of the event.]

As you might expect, the two crowds couldn't have been more different, but we of the Society pride ourselves on putting on a great show no matter the setting. Posh theatres or grimy clubs, cherry tree-lined parks or feral ghoul-infested Metro tunnels, it's all the same to us.

Lord and I can't get a single sound

It's been a crazy couple of weeks. Right after our Galapagos hit, (see the Village Voice review), I flew down to Springfield, MO, where I'd been invited to be the first (for lack of a better word) "jazz-identified" composer to serve as guest composer for Missouri State Univeristy's annual MSU Composition Festival. It was a blast -- saxophonist Randy Hamm did a superb job preparing the MSU Jazz Studies Ensemble for the wholly unreasonable demands of my music. I also enjoyed my one-on-one sessions with MSU's composition majors, who each evidenced wildly different approaches to music-making.

After that, instead of returning to New York, I took a little detour to Austin for my first-ever trip to South by Southwest. Damn but that was fun -- especially with Amanda Marcotte and Marc Faletti as my stalwart concergoing companions. I also heard friends Olga Bell and Lis Rubard perfom (with Charilift and The Loom, respecitvely), and had the distinct pleasure of meeting Chicago pianist Josh Moshier and NextBop's Anthony Dean-Harris. Saw so much oustanding music -- highlights include the 17-piece(!) Brooklyn-based neo-disco band Escort (which happens to include Society co-conpsirator Ryan Keberle on trombone); the primal force of nature known as Beth Ditto, of Gossip; Edmonton-based keyboard-driven electro-dance band Shout Out Out Out Out; and Austin's own down-and-dirty funketeers Brownout -- first on their own, and (to close things out, at 1 AM on the final night of South By) in their alternate incarnation as Grupo Fantasma... backing GZA.

It turns out Texas is so much fun I can't stay away, so I'm heading striaght back down there this weekend -- and this time I'm bringing the band. Yeah, that's right: this Saturday, March 24, Secret Society is performing our first-ever US gig outside of the Northeast, headlining the 50th annual(!) Tarleton Jazz Festival in Stephenville, TX.

As I discovered, even most Texans have not heard of Stephenville, so here's a map -- it's about an hour and change southwest of Fort Worth. Tickets are just $10 and Secret Society doesn't get to play in this part of the country much... or, like, ever. So tell your Lone Star State friends to fill up their pickups and hit the road this weekend. (Was that sufficiently folksy?  I've started saying "y'all" unironically, does that help?)

More info can be had here -- hope to see y'all soon!