The Garden
Release date: September 3, 2021
Label: Rainy Days Records
64th GRAMMY Award Nominee: Best Contemporary Instrumental Album
Pianist, composer and singer Rachel Eckroth’s new album, The Garden, unveils fresh sounds from her evolving artistry. Steeped in synth orchestration, The Garden reflects a nuanced exploration of sonic impulses and inquiries alongside Eckroth’s signature layered compositions and glimmers of trance-inducing vocals. With contributions from acclaimed guitarist Nir Felder, saxophonists Donny McCaslin and Andrew Krasilnikov and modular synth master Austin White, and a core band featuring bassist Tim Lefebvre and drummer Christian Euman, The Garden emerged conceptually while Eckroth was writing new music during the pandemic. “Everything on the album has a different feel to it — different colors and textures,” says the West Coast artist. “It felt like a garden. So we just rolled with it.”
Eckroth revels in new experiences across rich, diverse musical settings. The multifaceted artist continually refines her expression, frequently collaborating as a featured guest with creative visionaries who have included Rufus Wainwright, St. Vincent, KT Tunstall, Donny McCaslin, Tia Fuller and Chris Botti. But composing during the pandemic afforded Eckroth and partner Lefebvre unique opportunities to compose and perform together. From their home in Arizona, they dug in to each other’s expressions and began developing a duo sound. “Especially during Covid, we were making music pretty much every day together,” says Eckroth. When Eugene Petruhanskiy greenlit a possible release from Eckroth for Rainy Days, she and Lefebvre considered what they might create around a synth-forward recording. The textural-minded musicians began soundscaping across familiar territory and new domains. Almost immediately, the Prophet 6 emerged as a key element for record’s sound. “It ends up on a lot of my live gigs,” says Eckroth. “I’ve used it on all the tours I’ve played with other people. I’m a pianist, but the record doesn’t have a lot of piano. The Yamaha CP 70 served the ‘meat’ of some of the songs. And the Korg minilogue is an instrument I use really well for some reason; it’s very intuitive.”
The band assembled somewhat naturally, as well. Eckroth had Euman in mind from the start, and zeroed in on McCaslin early in the composing process. “Christian was really great on my music in LA, and he can pretty much play anything,” she says. “I’ve had Donny’s sound in my head for a while, so I had the idea, ‘This would really work out with Donny — I hope he says yes’ [laughs].” Remaining personnel unfolded as the record developed, and soon the artists were ready to record in person and track remotely.
As a moving image slowly coming into focus, “Dracaena” opens with a bass and drums figure that rapidly engages all three faculties of The Garden’s sound: synth work, compositional arcs and unbridled improvisation. A compelling feature for McCaslin, the album opener features his twisted melodicism, lamentation and fullness of texture. “Low Hanging Fruit” reflects Eckroth’s appetite for slick, snaky melodies and syncopation. Played in unison with Lefebvre’s bass, Eckroth’s piano line creates atmospheric displacement that expands and contracts through the music. Ghostly tones and Felder’s mood-shifting guitar introduce “Dried Up Roots,” one of The Garden’s only lyric tunes. Euman’s elastic groove serves the leader’s lucid dreamlike vocal on the Eckroth-Lefebvre original.
Album title track “The Garden” proffers a richly textured statement from Eckroth who, at different moments, contributes piano, Prophet 6 and Mellotron. She and McCaslin play off one another’s ominous lyricism in a series of trades that lead into a short, potent feature for Lefebvre. Against a strong compositional pulse, Lefebvre desired a “free floating” feeling on “Black-Eye Susan.” Initially conceived with drums in mind, the album’s penultimate track is its only selection to feature White’s distinctive sound. “He does a lot of interesting modular synth improvisation, so we asked him to play along and it turned out real cool,” says Eckroth. The resulting composition is meditative and layered, a vessel for creativity and nuanced restraint. “Oil” slips and crunches and builds into a kind of anthemic closer. The music ebbs, flows leaves room for breath catching as well as deliberate exhaling. Another blistering solo from McCaslin brings the record full circle from the opening track.
Eckroth began composing for big bands and large ensembles early in her career. Those years spent writing very deliberately and creatively using different textures and compositional arcs have had a compelling influence on her songwriting and her artistic identity as a solo artist. The Garden captures her experiences as a collaborator in a variety of contexts over the course of her career so far. Its quiet confidence signals a new direction for the renaissance artist and her fellow musicians. “We just want to make this weird music that we’re hearing,” she says. “It’s bold because we’re just doing what we do. We don’t need to show off, we just want to play what feels good to us.”
JEROME WILSON
ALL ABOUT JAZZ
"Rachel Eckroth's music has many facets to it. Its atmosphere, moodiness, and basic rhythmic sense make for an eclectic and attractive stew of varied sounds. It has a haunting presence which lingers in your head and is fun to listen to." Read this review here.
JEFF GARDNER
TUCSON WEEKLY
As the absurdity of the last 18 months would have it, it took musician and singer Rachel Eckroth returning to the desert to release an album titled The Garden—admittedly, it’s not a standard album, either. So the story of how The Garden came to be might actually make sense in its own scattered, jazzy way. Read this feature here.
KEVIN JOHNSON
NO TREBLE
Pianist, vocalist, and songwriter Rachel Eckroth has just released a new album called The Garden, which showcases her compositional prowess with a killer lineup of musicians. The mostly instrumental album was written over the past year and a half. Eckroth’s husband and musical partner Tim Lefebvre is part of the core band. Read this announcement here.
LUDOVICO GRANVASSU
ALL ABOUT JAZZ
Jazz is not a competitive sport and "Best Ofs" are misnomers. End of the year listicles have no bearing on the artistic standing of the albums they include, or on those they neglect, just like a five star review doesn't make the album it graces any better than it already is. Read this feature here.
ED MASLEY
AZ CENTRAL.
Two albums made by Arizona artists will compete in the same category at the 64th annual Grammy Awards, which will be broadcast live on CBS and Paramount+ from Staples Center in Los Angeles on Monday, Jan. 31. Read this feature here.
EDITOR
BASS MAGAZINE
Read the album announcement and listen to the single release "Dried Up Roots" here.
PAUL
BESTOFJAZZ.ORG
"That is exactly why this album is so enjoyable. It creates the ambiance of jazz, yet Rachel curates a much larger experience, exploring different, divergent paths: as she describes, as surprising as a garden." Read this review here.
MIKE FLYNN
JAZZWISE
Pianist, composer and singer Rachel Eckroth’s evolving artistry and fresh sound is unveiled on her new record, The Garden, which drops today from the innovative St. Petersburg-based jazz label Rainy Days. Read this review here.
MIKE JURKOVIC
ALL ABOUT JAZZ
"It is fun to listen to. Stay tuned." Read this review here.
JOHN CHACONA
JOHN CHACONA
"When Eckroth adds languid vocals to Felder’s bluesy guitar solo on the wounded “Dried Up Roots,” she threatens to crash playlist algorithms everywhere." Read the full review here.
KIRA GRUNENBERG
THROW THE DICE
"The album as a whole sounds the way a vibrant, illustrative oil on canvas painting would look if taken is as a steady unveiling rather than a singular overall glance." Read the full review here.
DAVE SUMNER
BANDCAMP
"This phenomenal electro-acoustic set from Rachel Eckroth wanders freely from one extreme to the other, but wherever it chooses to plant itself, it always finds an equilibrium between electronic and organic sounds." Read the Best Jazz on Bandcamp - September article here.
SIMON RENTNER
WBGO
Listen to The Checkout podcast, featuring Rachel Eckroth here.
PETER QUINN
JAZZWISE
Read the 4-star review here.
GEOFF STANFIELD
TAPE OP
Included on the Staff Favorites of 2021 list here.
RALPH MIRIELLO
NOTES ON JAZZ
Listed on the Best of Jazz 2021 article here.
MIKE JURKOVIC
ALL ABOUT JAZZ
Listed on Mike Jurkovic's Best Recordings of 2021 list here.
ED MASLEY
ARIZONA REPUBLIC
"Rachel Eckroth has just learned that she's a first-time Grammy nominee when the writer from her former hometown paper calls to talk about the nominated album and her upcoming appearance at the Nash in downtown Phoenix." Read the full feature here.
VIC ALBANI
ALL ABOUT JAZZ
Read the full review in Italian here.
BRETT CALLWOOD
LA WEEKLY
"Grammy-nominated keyboardist, singer and songwriter Rachel Eckroth is in the midst of a super-productive career spell." Read the full feature article here.
JOHN FORDHAM
THE GUARDIAN
"a synth-textured, vocally subtle, instrumentally formidable one-off." Read the article here.
LUDOVICO GRANVASSU
ALL ABOUT JAZZ
Featured on New Release playlist here.