For those unaware, Erica Seguine and Shon Baker are excited to announce the release of their prolific new recording, The New Days Bends Light, due out March 31st, 2023.

Since 2011, ensemble co-founders Seguine and Baker have maintained a visceral grasp of singularity through their shared compositional ingenuity and earnest comprehension of sound as energy.

In the populous and ever-growing contemporary big band jazz scene, Erica Seguine​|Shon Baker Orchestra distinguishes itself as an astute harmonic force with a boundless ability to transpose emotions and experiences within highly nuanced and melodic sonic atmospheres.

Seven acute arrangements make up The New Day Bends Light, each grappling with an array of intimate and enthralling human experiences that inspire and heal listeners. “Each composition on this album is an inner world we invite you to immerse yourself in: some joyous, some into areas considered ‘taboo’ in the real world or psychological places you may actively avoid, while others invite you to take perspective, to make meaning out of murkiness, and hopefully, to find some messy form of healing,” the collaborators share.

1. Reel (5:29)
2. States (9:50)
3. Tangoing With Delusion (9:55)
4. In Dreams (11:05)
5. Ose Shalom (10:14)
6. …and the Tire Swing Keeps Spinning… (9:08)
7. The New Day Bends Light (10:35)

This amazingly artful display of skilled musicianship opens on the vibrantly cinematic, at times swinging big band take of Celtic music within the propellant Reel and then brings us the sanguine States, the aptly-titled Tangoing With Delusion, before we are brought forth the filmic aura within the measured In Dreams (borrowed from a dynamic vision Baker had some years back), the sweepingly ornate Ose Shalom (which translates in English to: “May the one who makes peace in high places make peace for us and for all of Israel. And let us say: Amen.”), the recording rounding out on the budding rhythms and layered melodies of …and the Tire Swing Keeps Spinning… (Seguine’s most autobiographical composition to date), closing on the embroidered inflections of the titular The New Day Bends Light.

As noted above, Seguine calls “…and the Tire Swing Keeps Spinning…” her most autobiographical composition to date. Confronting the delicate subject of mental health, the tune employs the tire swing as a motif, a fixed visual in Seguine’s imagination that portrays a lost sense of composure.

A 12-tone row introduced on piano right from the start of the piece morphs over the course of ten minutes, springing across feelings of innocence, uncertainty and fear, loneliness, rage and dissociation.

Personnel:
Erica Seguine – composer, arranger (1, 3, 5, 6), conductor
Shon Baker – composer (2, 4, 7), alto saxophone, soprano saxophone (tracks 1, 3, 5, 6)
Ben Kono – alto saxophone, flute, clarinet
Remy Le Boeuf – alto saxophone, flute, alto flute, piccolo, clarinet (tracks 1-5, 7)
Peter Hess – tenor saxophone, flute, clarinet
Quinsin Nachoff – tenor saxophone, flute, clarinet
Andrew Hadro – baritone saxophone, bass clarinet, flute
John Lowery – tenor saxophone, flute, clarinet (track 7)
Nathan Eklund – trumpet, flugelhorn
John Lake – trumpet, flugelhorn
Jonathan Saraga – trumpet, flugelhorn
Adam Horowitz – trumpet, flugelhorn
Scott Reeves – trombone, alto flugelhorn
Nick Grinder- trombone
Kalia Vandever – trombone
Becca Patterson – bass trombone, tuba
Meg Okura – violin, electric violin (tracks 1, 3-6)
Tammy Scheffer – voice (tracks 2, 5-7)
Eric Burns – guitar
Carmen Staaf – piano
Evan Gregor – bass
Paolo Cantarella – drums

Official Purchase Link

www.ericaseguine.com