Jazz Geese Album To Debut In August

Posted by D.A. Gutierrez in Jazz Events, News

July 26th, 2010   No Comments »

Flock of Greenland Barnacle Geese flying.

Geese like these will be featured in an upcoming jazz album by composers Stu Brown and John Hollenbeck. PHOTO CREDIT: Mark Breaks

We’ve previously covered the Jazz Lobsters Big Band here on Jazzville, NJ. But unless you’re really in the know, you may not have heard of the Jazz Geese. Don’t be too hard on yourself though. After all, these performers aren’t even aware of their own musical talent.

You see, these virtuosos aren’t just called Jazz Geese, they actually are real geese – Greenland barnacle geese to be exact. Their sounds were recorded earlier this year as they prepared to migrate from the island of Islay to their breeding grounds in the arctic.

This project is the brainchild of jazz composers and musicians Stu Brown of Glasgow, Scotland, and John Hollenbeck of New York who reportedly spent days in a remote corner of Scotland recording the sounds of thousands of geese.

Stu Brown explains the project like this:

One goose on its own doesn’t make a song but the combined sound of thousands of them makes this polyrythmic sound of several different things happening at the one time with related tempos starting simultaneously. This would then quieten down into a background sound and we started to hear the sounds of other birds such as lapwings. The lapwings had an almost electronic sound – a mixture of a radio set being tuned in and an 80s video game being played.

The resulting album will debut at the Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival in Scotland on Sunday, August 8th. Until then we’ll have to wonder what these avian artists sound like.

SOURCES:

http://breakingnews.gaeatimes.com/2010/07/05/now-a-jazz-version-of-geese-to-wow-music-lovers-37724/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_Hebrides

http://news.scotsman.com/scotland/Ever-wondered-what-a-jazz.6399794.jp

http://communities.canada.com/ottawacitizen/blogs/jazzblog/archive/2010/07/05/john-hollenbeck-wild-geese-jazz.aspx

http://blog.islayinfo.com/article.php/islay-geese-make-jazz