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Leaving Los Angeles

Christopher Lucas Wilson

Label: Self Produced
Released: 2019
Views: 342

Tracks

1. Speak Low 2 Eloise's Blues 3 Softly As In A Morning Sunrise 4 Everything Happens To Me 5 My Romance 6 Trilingual 7 I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face 8 Gee Baby, Ain't I Good To You?

Personnel

Album Description

LINER NOTES: July 2, 2019— In Leaving Los Angeles Christopher Wilson reminds us once again why we need music. He offers us new compositions and standards in a mature voice that we instantly trust... What is voice? We know whether we are listening to Oscar Peterson or Thelonious Monk, whether we are reading James Baldwin or Alice Munro. We can name craft elements that make one work different from another, but voice remains ineffable. As writers and musicians, we know the importance of voice early on, having found it and trusted it in those we admire. Then we set off to do something new and wonderful, and go to great extremes trying to make ourselves distinct—and often blunder into imitation and appropriation. I can’t picture Monk imitating anyone, or worrying over whether he was sufficiently distinct. And I’m fairly sure that my mother did absolutely nothing to develop an individual voice, except for smoking a pack of cigarettes a day—and telling the truth. Some of us are lucky that way. Others are lucky enough to find a mentor who reminds us that the artform is bigger than our egos. Christopher Wilson lives in a beautiful house. I haven’t gotten out to the coast to visit Christopher and his family, but I’ve entered his house while he played Baker’s in Detroit. Where there might be walls, there are giants—Ellington, Basie—holding up a roof. Fortunately for us, this roof serves also as a bandshell. Wilson’s voice, crisp and mellifluous, moves through the great rooms like sunlight where curtains have parted... In “Eloise’s Blues” and “Trilingual,” Christopher has composed bright, crisp tunes that allow him to explore the range of a trio. Wilson brings standards to life—” Speak Low,” “Softly as a Morning Sunrise”—channeling some of the voicings of Ella Fitzgerald and Wynton Marsalis and making them new. Wilson’s unhurried elegance allows “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face” to escape from cliche and carry forward the sober vulnerability of actual love. Like all the great versions, Christopher lets the stunning melodies and cadences perform their magic. He plays the damn songs. He lets them sing... —Michael Lauchlan, author of Trumbull Ave., Wayne State University Press, 2015

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