Jamie Breiwick, Tim Ipsen & Devin Drobka (album release)

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Jamie Breiwick

press release: "Awake" digital album release on Shifting Paradigm Records

One of the most important qualities that a practitioner of artistic endeavors can possess is that of curiosity. The spark that impels one to see what’s out there, to find out and to know more is much the same as that impulse that sets the artist on the pathway towards creation. This sort of inquisitiveness is a quality that Jamie Breiwick shares with the subject of his musical investigations on this recording, trumpeter and multi-instrumentalist Don Cherry.

For the peripatetic Cherry, upending the jazz trumpet tradition as musical co-conspirator in Ornette Coleman’s revolutionary quartet was only the beginning of a wide ranging and well traveled arc of discovery; his explorations resulted in an incredible body of genre-defying music that influenced not only jazz musicians but creators in every corner of the music world. Breiwick has been an intrepid explorer in his own sphere, conducting heartfelt and knowing investigations of the intersection where classic jazz vocabulary and contemporary sensibility meet in band projects such as the Lesser Lakes Trio, as well as most convincingly essaying the music of such an iconic figure as Thelonius Monk in his Dreamland project.

Awake, devoted to the compositions of Don Cherry, is another such accomplished foray by Breiwick. In a program that includes both cherished favorites from the Cherry “songbook” such as "Art Deco" and lesser-known

(but no less influential) works such as "Brown Rice", Jamie abundantly exhibits the depth of his understanding of Cherry’s music even as he showcases his exuberant skill and creativity as an improvisor. His command of the the jazz trumpet continuum, from vocabulary-based specificity to the gestural and illusive approach pioneered by Cherry, is comprehensive, organic, and swinging! The imaginative treatment of Cherry’s work by Jamie, in the company of the excellent bass/drums duo of Tim Ipsen and Devin Drobka, similarly shows Jamie’s desire to make fresh, non-clichéd music using the full range of what he hears and likes.

Whenever I’m in my hometown of Milwaukee, I make it a point to seek out Jamie on one of his gigs, and each time afresh I marvel at how much music he knows, how well he plays, and how dang enjoyable it is to listen to him. Listening to this album, a most worthy addition to his expanding recorded oeveure, pleasantly reminds me of the brilliance of this estimable musician’s work. I invite you to listen to the music of Awake and enjoy its many splendors, as a prelude to a continuing engagement with the art of this important voice from the heartland.

- Brian Lynch, 2019

About Jamie Breiwick

Trumpeter-composer-bandleader-educator-designer Jamie Breiwick dwells in that nether region of America called the heartland. His native Racine is a warm valley nestled among several urban musical scenes, which makes him valuable to each of them – Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison and Minneapolis. At times he’ll think of that nether region as Dreamland, the imaginative name of the Thelonious Monk repertory band that he founded and leads. It’s named for an obscure Monk tune which, like so much of the legacy of that great and eccentric musician, needs dusting off and raising to the light of day. Breiwick is just beginning to reach his prime and, as a man gifted in enterprise as well as artistry, you can find him performing at any one of those cities in a myriad of musical groups and collaborations. He’s also a vivid and potent presence online, as the primary creator and contributor to Milwaukee Jazz Vision, a website dedicated to promoting that city’s jazz scene with articles, art, press releases and, most recently, an impressively billowing archive of Milwaukee jazz history, researched and generated primarily by Breiwick.

Jamie also runs a digital graphic arts business, B Side Graphics and regularly creates stylish posters, album and book covers, often reflecting the sleek and bold manner of classic Blue Note label album covers. Breiwick is also a dedicated and Grammy-nominated educator who teaches at both high school and university levels. He’s among the few musicians in the Midwest one might aptly apply the sometimes abused title of Renaissance Man.

Breiwick has performed with numerous notable jazz artists, including Matt Wilson, Dan Nimmer, Joe Sanders, Pete Zimmer, Adam Larson, Ralph Bowen, David Hazeltine and David Bixler. Jamie has performed with R&B artist Eric Benet, and was featured live in his recent music videos, “The Hunger” and “You’re the Only One”. Jamie was a featured artist on the nationally syndicated NPR show “SaysYou!” and has been a featured soloist with the Florentine Opera Company. Jamie’s current band projects include Dreamland (The music of Thelonious Monk), KASE, Awake Nu (The music of Don Cherry) and the Lesser LakesTrio. Among his notable past band projects were leading the eclectic fusion group Choirfight, the legendary Milwaukee band Clamnation, and performing with We Six, the faculty jazz sextet of the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music from 2005-2010.

– Kevin Lynch