#jacob wick

[musicmakesyousmart]

Jacob Wick / Claire Rousay - I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart

Notice Recordings

2020

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guys // photos by @satchmo

[musicmakesyousmart]

Tyler Keen / Jacob Wick

Silt Editions

2019

[dustedmagazine]

Jacob Wick / claire rousay — I Let A Song Go Out of My Heart (Notice)

Jacob Wick photo by Gudinni Cortina/claire rousay photo uncredited

I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart by Jacob Wick/claire rousay

Trumpeter Jacob Wick has a beef with the notion that when a jazz musician solos, they tell a story. The idea props up some dubiously hierarchical relationships between musician and musician, as well as artist and audience. It also obscures the essential abstraction of music, especially instrumental music, which doesn’t necessarily say anything, but presents sounds that provoke responses. 

Percussionist claire rousay and Wick relate to each other in some pretty unjazzy ways on this tape, which was recorded in a New Orleans studio at the end of a tour of the Southern USA in 2019. But even if they’re not getting up and saying their piece like normative jazz soloists, they devote much of the piece to dealing with jazz myths of jazz. I Let A Song Go Out Of My Heart is named after a Duke Ellington song which became a ubiquitous mid-20th century standard; Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Goodman, Lena Horne, Tony Bennett and countless others have recorded it, and the duo quote it liberally throughout this performance-length program. And Wick recurrently plays “The Theme,” a lick that both Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis used to end their sets.

But neither artifact gets played straight. Wick starts “Sancho’s” (while it’s never spelled out, one suspects that three of the program’s four segments were named after drinking establishments) with that titular melody, which is so lovely that you might say that you want it to last forever, and he favors it with some exquisite vibrato. But then the trumpeter delivers just what you wish, only not quite the way you might wish it. Using circular breathing, he sustains a quavering note until the melody’s spell is broken, and then maintains a discomfiting silence. Then he repeats it again and again, varying the tone each time before breaking it into fragments that he and rousay toy with like a couple parsimonious artisans who, when confronted with broken pottery, start looking for intriguing ways to arrange the shards. On “The Friendly Bar,” the duo start with small sounds, inviting the listener to lean in. Then Wick dispels the moment by blundering in with insistent repetitions of “The Theme,” which rousay deflates in turn with perfectly off-kilter accents. 

So, what point does the duo convey by interrogating this material? Ah, gotcha! Music doesn’t tell a story, right? Still, there’s a lot of sentiment attached to the idea that it does, and rousay and Wick understand that feeling well enough to get you to wince every time they puncture your romantic notions. 

Bill Meyer

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[fuelthemedia]

CONCERT REVIEW: Dreamers live on first headlining tour

As their odyssey begins across America on their first headlining tour, Dreamers make their return to Houston, TX at the Bronze Peacock Room of the House of Blues with morgxn and Weathers. The cosmic rock trio previously took stage as a supporting artist back in mid-March at the same venue but this time are back and the main attraction. 

Dreamers consist of lead singer Nick Wold, bassist Nelson and drummer Jacob Wick. Together they’ve conjured several EPs, the full-length record This Album Does Not Exist (2016) and more recently the second part of their EP trilogy, Fly. 

Their set opened with one of the tracks from the Launch EP “Screws.” Shortly after Wold introduces themselves as Dreamers and before he could continue, a fan in the crowd yelled back, “so are we,” and the band absolutely agreed then promised that night we’d transcend from reality allowing ourselves to just have an awesome time.

The set list was a perfect balance between their entire discography including the tracks “Fake It Til You Make It,” an acoustic rendition of “Come Down Slow,” which helped give the crowd a bit of a breather, “Waste My Night,” and “DRUGS.” A little halfway through, they performed a cover of “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” as made famous by The Smashing Pumpkins and who doesn’t love a good cover, right? 

By the end of “Pain Killer,” they absolutely killed it as they jammed out heavily and extending the performance a bit but no one surely was complaining. It’s always amazing seeing a band give it their all almost to the point of exhausting themselves into a performance especially on a tiny stage such as the one in the Bronze Peacock Room that night. Wold even managed to step down and join the crowd for a bit. 

Their most successful singles that have significantly charted on Alternative radio programs such as SiriusXM and Alt Nation, “Wolves (You Got Me)” and “Sweet Disaster” were undoubtedly the makeup of the encore performance. 

It’s rare that you find yourself completely drawn to a band you’re watching live and fully immersed in every song they play, but that’s not the case with Dreamers. From this night alone, I learned by asking those who were seeing them live for the first time, that just like myself months ago, Dreamers will always posses that ability - a truly cosmic key in some sort of sense. 

I read on their Facebook Page profile that the dreamer MO is, “to find the joy in living and to chase it,” and to me that resonates perfectly with someone who is a fan of music. We obviously enjoy it and the live playlist that these bands have curated for us on this tour reminds us that there are others who can relate to what we feel or have gone through. In fact, music has a way of shaping that experience from a less negative one and into more so of a journey or an obstacle to learn from towards a desired destination or simply even a dream.  

For more information on Dreamers and their current tour:  Official Website || Facebook Page || Twitter || iTunes

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