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| "Eine Quartett Des Grauens" - A spontaneous soundtrack to F.W. Murnau’s 1922 film Nosferatu The Dylan Jack Quartet to release new EP recording "Eine Quartett Des Grauens" A spontaneously composed soundtrack to F.W. Murnau's 1922 film Nosferatu Dylan Jack (drums), Jerry Sabatini (trumpet) Anthony Leva (bass), Eric Hofbauer (guitar) "There's a raw and honest spirit and a highly refined sense of detail in the music of Dylan Jack, a gifted drummer, and composer hailing from the North Shore of Massachusetts. There's also a roiling spontaneity and brilliant clarity in the sound of his quartet..." – Music Critic David Adler Album release date: October 27th, 2023 Available from Creative Nation Music Live music accompaniment for silent films was born out of necessity over 100 years ago, but today it's a choice, a creative modality of its own. For Boston-based drummer Dylan Jack, this lost art seemed a potential way to reach new audiences and depart from musical routine. "I've always been inspired by the Art Ensemble of Chicago and their performances involving intermedia, " Jack says. "I think that combining art forms like they did is the future of creative and improvised music." To that end, Jack decided to go for the jugular: a spontaneously composed soundtrack to F.W. Murnau's 1922 film Nosferatu. In terms of a narrative arc with built-in tension, Nosferatu is pretty ideal, and Jack had been considering it for some time. Enticing the members of the Dylan Jack Quartet — guitarist Eric Hofbauer, trumpeter Jerry Sabatini, bassist Anthony Leva — was simple (no biting required), and after a couple of public performances in different theaters, the group entered the studio to capture what they'd done. A prime example of German Expressionism, Nosferatu stands as perhaps the most influential horror film of all time. The gangly semi-human figure of Count Orlok, based of course on Bram Stoker's Dracula, is something you don't soon forget. (Despite the name change, Murnau got sued by the Stoker estate and lost.) The fingered silhouette climbing the stairs, hovering over a sleeper's bed, laying in a coffin with fangs exposed — these images are as iconic as it gets. Jack's quartet captures the dark foreboding and lost innocence of it all, with subtle harmonic implications, stark instrumental timbres, extended techniques and modest use of effects. And although the band followed a basic game plan — incorporating Jack's precomposed themes to depict Orlok, the cooing lovers Hutter and Ellen, and the sinister real estate agent Knock (Hutter's boss) — all else was improvised, with no second takes. In rehearsals, Jack recalls, the four organized themselves in a semicircle. "We all faced a big screen television and went for it." The performances were the same but with a bigger screen and more space to spread out. The recording, however, was different: iso booths for guitar and drums, semi-isolation for bass, Sabatini on trumpet "right in the open, " Jack says. "We set ourselves up so we could see the television in the studio. Then we played through the first two acts and stopped to listen and watch. We finished the final three acts after lunch. The rehearsals and performances made it so much easier. It really helped that this group has worked together for so many years." Bouncing off one another and the film as it unrolls, the players achieve a remarkable synthesis: Leva with fat and woody frequencies, Hofbauer with crisp close-miked archtop guitar and subtly deployed reverb and chorus, Sabatini with open and muted timbres and gothic-sounding tones at the bottom of the trumpet range: all of it aptly conjures "the call of the deathbird, " to use a phrase from the film's parchment-style inter-titles. Note the entrance of what I'll call doom-trumpet when we first meet Knock, and how Leva responds with a deep implied groove while Hofbauer introduces metallic and subtly processed sounds. Sabatini's growls and smears turn to grotesque, ashen-faced horror when Hutter reaches "the land of phantoms, " Orlok's domain. There's also the use of silence or near-silence, like the record-scratch moment when Hutter foolishly boasts to tavern guests that he's en route to visit Orlok. Cue the doom-trumpet, which persists as the scene changes to a "werewolf" (hyena? wild dog?) on the prowl. Leva's hovering whale-like arco bass is key at such junctures as well. Trumpet turns from doom to daylight as Hutter awakes to continue his journey, but the horn sounds its very darkest, practically like a tuba through ocean-like reverb, when Hutter and Orlok finally meet at the end of Act I, and when Orlok looms about subsequently (there are five acts in all). "I play more of a supporter's role in the film, " Jack says of his drumming. "I felt my job was to build in certain parts when I felt things need to go elsewhere." The snare crescendo roll with brushes on the line "your wife has a lovely neck" is a notable example. But Jack's signal contribution is perhaps in terms of tempo: the initial drum beat on the opening frames, or the way the tambourine kicks in when locomotion is involved — often via horse-drawn carriage, but also when wild horses are herded across a field, or when Hutter paces about while he packs his bags or washes up and gets dressed, or when Knock (by now an escaped inmate) is chased through town and fields in a climactic Act V scene. The brief moments without any figures onscreen — human, animal or vampiric — are some of the most compelling. The looming Carpathian Mountains of Central Europe have a menace all their own, though if you shot those landscapes now with 12- megapixel wide-color capture, they'd look another way. F.W. Murnau, using the available tech, didn't have to do much to make them demonic. Imagine his reaction upon hearing the Dylan Jack Quartet, marshalling their resources to make this early 20th-century artifact brand new again. About The Quartet DYLAN JACK Dylan Jack is a percussionist, composer, and educator participating in multiple genres within the Boston music scene. As a performer, Jack divides his attention between playing as a sideman with some of the city's top improvisers and leading his main creative outlet, the Dylan Jack Quartet. In 2016, Jack started the Dylan Jack Quartet, an ensemble focusing on his original concepts and compositions. Combining intricately composed segments that utilize odd meters and phrasing with free improvisations, the music is described as "... bristling with rhythmic intelligence and rich in dynamic contrast and ebb and flow. (David Adler)" In September of 2017, they released their first album, Diagrams, which received favorable reviews from the jazz press. In June 2020, they followed up with the album The Tale of the Twelve-Foot Man. Both are on the Creative Nation Music label. Jack also co-leads the duo Hofbauer-Jack with premier Boston guitarist, Eric Hofbauer who released the album Remains of Echoes in 2019 and is one-quarter of the collective Hofbauer, Jack, Leva, Sabatini, who in 2021, saw the release of Period Pieces where Jack's playing is described as "a masterclass in minimalist groovemanship..." – JAZZIZ Magazine. In 2022, Jack organized, composed music for, and produced two performances for his quartet where they performed a live improvised score to the silent film Nosferatu. Their version of the film and an album of music inspired by the characters entitled "Eine Quartette des Grauens" will be released in 2023. As an educator, Jack teaches percussion extensively to students of all ages and abilities. He is also involved in academia as a professor of the History of Jazz at Emerson College in Boston, MA. Jack received an Associates degree from Middlesex Community College, a Bachelor's degree in Percussion Performance from the McNally Smith College of Music in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and holds a Master of Music in Modern American Music from the Longy School of Music of Bard College. ERIC HOFBAUER is one of the most genuinely original guitarists of his generation, " declares All About Jazz Italia's Mario Calvitti, ” capable of renewing the language of jazz guitar with a fresh and iconoclastic approach, but without disrespect to tradition. This distinguishes him from the vast majority of his colleagues, and makes him and his work, worthy of careful consideration.” Hofbauer has been integral to Boston’s jazz scene for twenty-five years, as a musician, bandleader, organizer, and educator. Recognized in the 2019 and 2017 DownBeat Critics’ Poll for Rising Star – Guitar, he is widely known for his solo guitar work, featured in a collection of solo guitar recordings (American Vanity, American Fear, American Grace, and Ghost Frets), and as the leader of the Eric Hofbauer Quintet (EHQ). The EHQ’s series of four “Prehistoric Jazz” recordings, featuring Hofbauer’s jazz arrangements of Stravinsky, Messiaen, Ellington, and Ives, placed consecutively on the Boston Globe’s Top 10 Jazz Albums of the Year lists, and received critical acclaim from leading press such as Downbeat, The Wire, and Tone Audio. Hofbauer has also performed and recorded alongside such notable collaborators as Han Bennink, Roy Campbell, Jr., John Tchicai, Garrison Fewell, Cecil McBee, George Garzone, Sean Jones, John Fedchock, Noah Preminger, Steve Swell, and Matt Wilson. ANTHONY LEVA is a multi-disciplinary artist & educator in Cambridge, MA. Most comfortable on upright bass, Anthony regularly performs with the Unima Award-winning puppetry troupe, the Gottabees, as well as the Dylan Jack Quartet, Charlie Kohlhase’s Explorer’s Club, Eric Hofbauer, Brian Carpenter, Samodivi, and Jaggery. He is an active collaborator in the Boston Arts scene where his omnivorous appetite for creativity and collaboration spans theatre, film, puppetry, folk music (Americana, African, and Balkan), as well as jazz, improvised, and classical music. In addition to bass, Anthony also plays sintir (a North African bass lute). Anthony has recorded over 30 albums to date. Most recently Anthony made his debut on turntables and the SP 303 sampler on Book of Fire (Creative Nation Music), a duo album with Eric Hofbauer in which their acoustic performance is augmented by the addition of electronic instrumentation and the intertwined recordings of literary giant James Baldwin. In 2018, Anthony received a Master’s Degree in Modern American Music from the Longy School of Music at Bard College. Over the last 15 years, he has had the great fortune to perform and tour extensively throughout the USA, Canada, Europe, and India. In 2019, he received a USAI grant to travel to India to perform at the AHA! Theatre Festival for Children. Anthony is the community music director for Tunefoolery, a non-profit dedicated to a unique and courageous community of over 55 musicians in mental health recovery who have created a safe place where support, paid work, and learning are the foundation for healing and recovery. JERRY SABATINI has gained recognition in the Boston jazz scene as an adventurous, creative, and diverse trumpet player, composer, and educator. Known for his diverse musical tastes, Jerry performs in projects ranging from traditional Jazz to Balkan brass bands to music of the Middle and Far East to the Avant-Garde. For the past twenty-five years, he has been working with many of New England’s great bands such as The Boston Jazz Composer’s Alliance, The Makanda Project, Garrison Fewell’s Variable Density Orchestra, Mehmet Sanlikol’s Dunya, The Revolutionary Snake Ensemble, and Charlie Kohlhase’s Explorers Club. He has also shared the stage with influential musicians such as Oliver Lake, John Tchicai, Fred Frith, Elliot Sharp, Anthony Coleman, and Erkan Oğur. Since 1995, Jerry has composed and arranged for his own project, an octet called Sonic Explorers. Sonic Explorers have four independently released CDs. Sabatini has been commissioned for modern big band and jazz combo works, teaches privately, and is a frequent clinician and conductor at New England colleges, universities, and high schools. write your comments about the article :: © 2023 Jazz News :: home page |