TREY ANASTASIO
''TREY ANASTASIO''
APRIL 30 2002
59:12
1/Alive Again
Trey Anastasio / Tom Marshall/4:39
2/Cayman Review
Trey Anastasio / Tony Markellis / Tom Marshall/4:15
3/Push on 'Til the Day
Trey Anastasio / Russ Lawton / Tony Markellis/7:37
4/Night Speaks to a Woman
Trey Anastasio / Tom Marshall/4:01
5/Flock of Words
Trey Anastasio / Tom Marshall/4:33
6/Money, Love and Change
Trey Anastasio / Tom Marshall/4:07
7/Drifting
Trey Anastasio / Russ Lawton / Tony Markellis/3:43
8/At the Gazebo
Trey Anastasio/3:11
9/Mr. Completely
Trey Anastasio/4:35
10/Ray Dawn Balloon
Trey Anastasio/3:29
11/Last Tube
Trey Anastasio / Russ Lawton / Tony Markellis/11:22
12/Ether Sunday
Trey Anastasio / Russ Lawton / Tony Markellis/3:40
Shelagh Abate /French Horn
Trey Anastasio /Orchestral Arrangements
Cyro Baptista /Percussion
Sharon Bryant /Vocals
Dana Colley /Saxophone
Jocelyn Crawford /French Horn
John Dunlop /Cello
Lisa Fisher /Vocals
Ann Greenawalt /Horn (English), Oboe
Dave Grippo /Sax (Alto), Sax (Baritone)
David Gusakov /Violin
Jennifer Hartswick /Trumpet, Vocals
Mike Hopkins /Double Bass
Karen Kevra /Flute
Curtis Rance King, Jr. /Vocals
Steve Klimowski /Clarinet, Clarinet (Bass)
Russ Lawton /Drums, Vocals
Tony Markellis /Bass, Vocals
Laura Markowitz /Violin
Andy Moroz /Trombone
Craig Olzenak /Clarinet (Bass)
Ray Paczkowski /Keyboards
Nicholas Payton /Trumpet
Troy Peters /Conductor, Orchestral Arrangements
Margaret Phillips /Bassoon
Russell Remington /Flute, Sax (Tenor)
Ana Ruesink /Viola
Tom Toner /Marimba
Rob Volo /Trombone
Peter Wilson /Timpani
REVIEW
by Robert L. Doerschuk
Playing a more active leadership role than on Phish albums and his own previous solo efforts, Trey Anastasio tips his hand by branding this album with his own name and building it around a new, show-oriented band. There's less left to chance and more control evident in his use of written arrangements. Some of the miniaturist moments, such as the sober intro to "At the Gazebo," reflect an ear for nuance in strings as well as brass parts. Equally impressive, if only in terms of endurance, is "Last Tube," with jazz lion Nicholas Payton blowing lightning licks over a roaring, one-chord clip. Even so, Anastasio keeps things groovy with his amiably nasal vocals and Summer of Love guitar solos; the result is an agreeable balance of loose feel and tight execution on most tracks, quite similar in feel to what Michael Bloomfield achieved with the Electric Flag, especially on "Push on 'Til the Day." While the artifact quality and live vibe of this music come as no surprise, the show band emphasis of Trey Anastasio suggests that this artist may be placing a little less faith in the voodoo of improvisation and more in the payoff guaranteed by musicians who can tear up the same charts night after night. As Joni Mitchell forecast, something is lost but something is gained in the effort.
BIOGRAPHY
by Jesse Jarnow
Since co-founding the seminal improv rock outfit Phish in 1983, guitarist, composer, and songwriter Trey Anastasio has explored a wide variety of musical pathways ranging from atonal fugues and elaborate charts with Phish to adventurous free jazz on his first solo project, Surrender to the Air (1996), to collaborations with the likes of Tom Marshall, Les Claypool, Philip Glass, Stewart Copeland, and others. After Phish went on long-term hiatus in late 2000, Anastasio focused on a myriad of projects, including Oysterhead and his eight-piece solo band.
Born Ernest Joseph Anastasio III in 1964, Anastasio attended Princeton Day School in Princeton, New Jersey, where he met future songwriting partner Tom Marshall. As a teenager, he helped his mother, Dina, write songs for children's records. At the University of Vermont, he teamed up with bassist Mike Gordon, drummer Jon Fishman, and guitarist Jeff Holdsworth to form Phish. After being suspended from the university for a semester for a prank gone awry, Anastasio transferred to the highly experimental Goddard College outside of Burlington, where he studied intensely with composer Ernie Stires while writing and rehearsing Phish's complicated early material. Soon after, Holdsworth was replaced by keyboardist Page McConnell.
Phish remained Anastasio's primary musical outlet for the duration of the '80s and the '90s, as his original work progressed from lengthy prog-influenced compositions, such as "You Enjoy Myself" of the mid-'80s, to the more focused (though still complex) songs of Rift (1993). While Phish placed more and more emphasis on group improvisation, Anastasio's charts gradually fell by the wayside. In 1996, he organized and produced Surrender to the Air, a big-band free jazz excursion with Sun Ra saxman Marshall Allen, organist John Medeski, avant-garde guitarist Marc Ribot, experimental drummer Bob Gullotti, and many others. Though Anastasio was nominally the leader of the project, he played as an equal member of a large group of downtown heavyweights.
The transformation of Anastasio's work from composition-based to improvisation-based was completed in 1997 and 1998 with The Story of the Ghost and The Siket Disc, two Phish releases chiseled out of hours of collective jamming overseen by producer John Siket. Anastasio's ongoing collaboration with Tom Marshall also resulted in a bevy of new material, far too much for Phish to assimilate into their already gigantic live repertoire. Though Anastasio brought some of the songs to his newly formed side trio, he still felt he was holding back. Phish performed at a massively successful New Year's celebration in Big Cypress, Florida, and in 2000 came the release of Farmhouse (entirely written and produced by Anastasio), but given the band's increasingly unfocused live performances, Phish decided to take a hiatus of an undetermined length beginning in October of that year.
Anastasio went right to work, scoring an arrangement of the Phish song "Guyute" (one of his last multi-sectioned compositions) for the Vermont Youth Orchestra with mentor Ernie Stires. Following its performance, he hit the road with a horn-bolstered version of his side trio and almost a dozen new songs, many of which returned to the complicated work of years past. Soon after, he wrote and recorded an album with Oysterhead, a power trio including Anastasio, Primus bassist Les Claypool, and former Police drummer Stewart Copeland, beginning a new chapter in his musical history. His time spent with Oysterhead was experimental, but not permanent. By early 2002, Anastasio prepped for his proper solo release for Elektra. His groovy cool self-titled album was issued that April and Anastasio returned to the road for a string of U.S. tour dates.
The live effort Plasma appeared in April 2003, showcasing more than two hours of performances from Anastasio's 2002 summer/fall trek of North America. Seven brand-new tracks and a few covers were sprinkled into the double-disc set as well. The all-instrumental Seis de Mayo was released in April 2004, followed by Shine in 2005 and Bar 17 in 2006. The stopgap but quite effective The Horseshoe Curve, comprised of various tracks recorded between 2004 and 2007, appeared in 2007 while Anastasio was doing time at a court-ordered drug rehab program. The unified Time Turns Elastic, which paired the guitarist with Don Hart, was released in 2009. TAB at the Tab, a live album with the traditional four-piece expanded to a septet to include additional horns, was recorded at Atlanta's famed Tabernacle theater and released in 2010. After touring with Phish for almost two years, Anastasio returned to the studio and emerged with Traveler.
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