INCLUDED WITH PURCHASE! Download (from Dropbox and/or VIMEO) of complete "Video Album" in-studio live performance of Book of Water, PDF of liner note booklet, Album cover photo.
From the Liner Notes:
It was at some point in 2017 that guitarist/composer Eric Hofbauer began weighing the idea of a long-term, multi-ensemble project in five parts, or books. Each book, he decided, would be comprised of five movements, or chapters. The Chinese philosophical construct of Wu Xing, or Five Elements (also known as Five Agents), was not necessarily on his mind, though he’d long been an informal student of mythology and world religions. It was hard to deny the perfect fit: five books, one for each of the conceptual pillars of Wu Xing: wood, fire, earth, metal, water.
The Book of Water, recorded live before a studio audience, features a freewheeling, improvisatory aesthetic but also rigorous compositional detail. It’s the first in a series that is above all for Hofbauer a process of inquiry. “The five agents are not absolutes,” he explains, “but their characteristics serve as ways to navigate, organize and explain relationships in nature, between people, in medicine, decorating, design and music. It’s about a balance between elements, yin and yang, embracing chaos and order, understanding impermanence and the natural patterns and cycles of all things interconnected. In a way that’s exactly what I’ve spent my entire career trying to do: figure out who I am as an artist and deal with those ‘meaning of life’ conundrums that humans have valiantly tackled for millennia through religion, art, philosophy, and that have manifested for me in improvised music. The Five Agents seemed like the logical next project, a way to interconnect all my influences and interests while continuing to search and study.”
Instrumentation for the remaining Five Agents projects will vary widely, but The Book of Water involves a time-honored jazz sextet lineup with three horns: tenor saxophonist Seth Meicht, trombonist Jeb Bishop and trumpeter Jerry Sabatini. On a superbly polished film of the entire live performance, you can see the horn players in action, arrayed across from Hofbauer, bassist Nate McBride and drummer Curt Newton. The deftly played parts, the subtle cues and flowing transitions, the exertion of the solos, the intimate focus on sound (particularly from Hofbauer’s close-miked archtop guitar): the way these things translate on film bring the listener that much deeper into the moment.
credits
released June 14, 2019
Eric Hofbauer’s Five Agents
Jerry Sabatini – trumpet
Seth Meicht - tenor sax
Jeb Bishop – trombone
Eric Hofbauer – guitar
Nate McBride – bass
Curt Newton – drums
Recorded Live in front of a studio audience at Rotary Records, West Springfield MA 3/25/2018
Eric Hofbauer / The Five AgentsBoston, Massachusetts
Hofbauer is one of the most genuinely original guitarists of his generation, 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.
– Mario Calvitti, All About Jazz Italia...more
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