Charlie Ballantine, John Sims & Chris Parker
The Bur Oak 2262 Winnebago St., Madison, Wisconsin 53704
BlueStem Jazz. $20.
media release: "Befitting a guitarist from America's heartland, Charlie Ballantine mixes jazz, folk-rock, surf/instro, blues, pop, and country into a simmering pot of guitar sound and style."
- Vintage Guitar Magazine
Charlie Ballantine is a music maker who lives in the world. That may be a strange way to springboard into what should be your typical music focused press release, but Charlie is no typical musician. First off, he is a critically acclaimed, supremely talented jazz guitarist. In fact, he's the Professor of Guitar at the University of Indianapolis and Professor of Guitar at Marian University, also in Indianapolis. As a teacher it is Charlie’s duty to know, and to point to the vast repertoires of those he calls predecessors and those who have also stood as guiding lights for his students.
The palette reaches beyond the classroom, setting the output of such legendary figures as Kurt Vonnegut and Bob Dylan, among others, to new interpretation. 2018’s Life Is Brief: The Music Of Bob Dylan, garnered particular praise, Indy’s National Road Magazine musing, “Therein lies the beauty of Ballantine. Don’t try to guess what tune he’s covering. The fact that you couldn’t come up with the name is what makes his work incredible.”
Therein lies the distinction between your run-of-the-mill tribute record and the sort of thing Ballantine does best. The material gets shot through a veritable cannon of re-envisioning. In effect, the genius of these historic works, like the repertoire at hand, are not disrupted. In fact, on the other side, there is a reveal of a brand new dimension of the original work.
It is with this in mind that we present, Reflections/Introspection: The Music Of Thelonious Monk, Charlie Ballantine’s homage to the great Thelonious Monk with a body of work laying over a double LP set, one side of which is a tribute to Monk’s trio playing, and the other being a salute to his incredible quartets (Coltrane, Rouse, Griffin, to name a few) as well as each side featuring homages to his solo work.
Says Charlie of the process, “Monk has such an incredible catalogue that one of the big challenges we faced was what songs to choose and also what instrumentation to use. There is just so much timeless material from Monk’s trio work as well as his quartets with legendary saxophonists like Trane, Johnny Griffin, and Charlie Rouse that we decided to expand the project to a double LP with one LP being trio and the other LP being quartet.”
With the help of Amanda Gardier (sax), Chris Parker (drums), Cassius Goens III (drums), and Jesse Wittman (bass), Ballantine revitalizes Monk’s Blue Note period featuring re-cured versions of such gems as the album kick off, “Reflections,” “Ask Me Now,” and the title’s first focus track, “Brilliant Corners.” The aforementioned sports an alluring psychedelic video accompaniment of which Charlie says, “Basically I was thinking of how Monk might utilize a multi media scenario in today’s environment so that was all I gave the animation team and they immediately leaned into the abstract which I thought was perfect. It’s hard to nail down an aesthetic with his music so I think what they came up with represents him and his musical tradition perfectly in the modern era.”
Reflections/Introspection: The Music Of Thelonious Monk will be released on September 17, 2021 on Green Mind Records.
John Sims Born in Dallas, raised in Phoenix, cultivated in Chicago, and now living in New York, bassist John Sims draws from his diverse musical and personal background to inform his unique approach to the bass. He was first exposed to music through his parents who were both choir teachers, starting first on piano and then moving to bass at 18 a few months before starting at Arizona State University. He began his studies in Jazz with local Arizonan heroes Barb Catlin, Pete Pancrazii, and Dwight Killian before studying with ASU professors Michael Kocour and Catalin Rotaru. While in school, he started his own jazz combo program for local high school students, which lead to him being hired at Scottsdale Community College to teach combos, theory, and improvisation until he graduated from ASU in 2012 with degrees in Jazz Performance and Economics. By the beginning of 2013, he moved to Chicago, Illinois to pursue music and the opportunities available through a larger scene. While in Chicago, John performed with such notable musicians as George Fludas, Geof Bradfield, Ryan Cohan, Dana Hall, Russ Johnson, Ron McCurdy, the Chicago Jazz Orchestra, Bria Skonberg, Ron Perillo, Greg Ward, Marquis Hill, Makaya McCraven, John Wojciechowski, Eric Rasmussen, Richard Johnson, Scott Burns, Joe Magnarelli, Sharel Cassity, and Victor Goines among many other players in Chicago’s thriving scene. John also opened the legendary Chicago Jazz Festival in 2017 with pianist Dan Trudell, and drummer Matt Wilson. He could be seen frequently performing in Chicago’s most notable jazz clubs such as Andy’s, the Green Mill, the Jazz Showcase, Constellation, and Winter’s. As an educator during his tenure residing in Chicago through 2018, John worked with the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic’s “Jazz Alive” program as well as with the Chicago Academy for the Arts as their resident classical and jazz upright bass teacher. He was a featured adjudicator at the 2017 Indiana High School Jazz Festival, a finalist in the 2014 and 2017 International Society of Bassists Jazz competition, spent a week performing at NYC’s legendary club Dizzy’s with the Victor Goines Quartet, and was featured on 4 albums during the 5 and a half years he lived in Chicago.Since late 2018, John has lived in New York City already making a name for himself as a talented and reliable bassist having shared the stage with such notable musicians as Steve Cardenas, Wilerm Delisfort, Joe Strasser, Michael Kanan, Josh Richman, Donald Edwards, Joel Frahm, Darrian Douglas, Ben Paterson, Max Light, Henry Conerway III, Marianne Solivan, Aaron Seeber and many others. He will be featured on two of his colleagues’ upcoming albums that he has recorded in the 18 months he has been in New York, and he currently works with Jazz at Lincoln Center’s “Jazz for Young People” program which holds frequent seminars at NYC’s local schools to introduce students to the rich heritage of Jazz in America. John lives in Brooklyn with his wife Lizzie and wouldn’t have it any other way.
Chris Parker is a multi-instrumentalist and music educator based in the Midwest. Growing up in Bloomington, IN, he attended the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and has spent his professional music career performing throughout the Midwest and in New York City. He has performed or recorded with Dave Stryker, Rich Perry, Steve Allee, Scott Wendholt, Greg Ward, Chris Potter, Jim Ridl, Tim Armacost, Charlie Ballantine, Jamey Aebersold, Frank Glover, Greg Abate, Jim Snidero, Monika Herzig, Roger Pemberton, Rob Dixon, and many others. He maintains a private teaching studio, serves as the Vice President of Bloomington, IN nonprofit “B’ Town Jazz”, and is the student jam session coordinator for the Jazz Education Network JENerations Jazz Festival. In addition to an extensive discography as a sideman, his debut album as a leader (“Moving Forward Now”) and EP (“Interstate EP”) are available on all online music platforms.