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Meridian Odyssey
Meridian Odyssey is a band comprised of five musicians who are committed to creating a multi genre experience rooted in the history of jazz, rock, funk, and R&B in a forward thinking context. All of the members of the group have worked together in various situations previously, but the first time they have performed and recorded as a group was for their debut record. Throughout the coronavirus lockdown, drummer Xavier Lecouturier and guitarist Martin Budde went back to Big Lake Alaska, where Martin grew up. Over the months, they assembled a studio in his fathers aircraft hangar and invited the three other musicians to rehearse new music to livestream and record. The product is an album that reflects a multitude of sentiments regarding the year it was recorded. Each member of the band contributed original music to the record, leading to a diverse approach in composition and genre mediums throughout.
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Meridian Odyssey: Second Wave
by Paul Rauch
The human qualities that are attributed to friendship, draw a remarkable parallel to those qualities that bring musicians together and allow them to communicate without fear. There is the willingness to make oneself vulnerable to emotional discretion, to communicate and embrace others without the encumbrances of ego. There is hard work involved, and a unity that is earned through honest interpretation of one's personal humanity. The actual circumstances that bond friendship, or musical integrity, are distinct and variable. In the ...
read moreMeridian Odyssey: Earthshine
by Jack Bowers
Meridian Odyssey is a sextet comprising young musicians from the improbable jazz territory of Big Lake, Alaska, and Earthshine is their second recording together, with trumpeter Noah Halpern having been added to the quintet since the ensemble's 2021 debut album, Second Wave. On Earthshine, there are nine original compositions by members of the group, two of which ("The Front of the Mirror," Reflecting") are roughly a minute or so long. Mirror" was written by and features bassist ...
read moreMeridian Odyssey: Second Wave
by Dan McClenaghan
Seattle's Origin Records opened 2021 on a hopeful, turning-of-the-page note with Second Wave, by the group Meridian Odyssey. The band comprised five young (twenty-something) Seattle-ites who took advantage of the time on their collective hands, and the low air fares resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, to journey to Alaska, where guitarist Martin Budde's fathera pilotowns an airplane hangar which served as a recording studio. Where the plane, the hangar's previous occupant, ended up is uncertain. But the saxophone, guitar, bass, ...
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