As Many, as One (Biophilia Records)
Julien Knowles
Released April 26, 2024
AllMusic Favorite Jazz Albums 2024
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About:
The album title “As Many, as One” isn’t present as a track title, but reveals itself across the album under broader concepts. I think it’s important to shed light on a few of these themes as they become clear with each track:
“As many as one.” Meaning that something singular (in this case, myself as an artist) can embody something much larger than one, the smallest natural number. It’s the idea that “one” has the power to carry significant weight on its own.
“As Many, as One.” This is where the comma plays a significant role, separating the statement in half to pay homage to the many people it took to create this recording, and the unity with which everyone embodied musically. The phrase “it takes a village…” immediately comes to mind, and this album is just one instance of this concept in life.
“Not two, and not one. Two and one.” This is the overarching concept the album revolves around, introduced to me in Shunryū Suzuki’s book on Zen Buddhism called Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. An excerpt reads: “Our body and mind are not two and not one… Our body and mind are both two and one. We usually think that if something is not one, it is more than one; if it is not singular, it is plural. But in actual experience, our life is not only plural, but also singular. Each one of us is both dependent and independent.”
Track Listing:
1. Opening (Julien Knowles) 01:11
2. The Boot (Julien Knowles) 04:55
3. Desire Path (Julien Knowles) 09:05
4. Adam’s Street Banana (Julien Knowles) 03:37
5. Moon Theater (Julien Knowles) 09:18
6. Solo Intro//etuds J (Julien Knowles) 01:18
7. Etude j (Julien Knowles) 06:23
8. s.m.s (Julien Knowles) 06:37
9. End of the Night (Louis Cole) 04:38
10. Kintsugi (Julien Knowles) 09:03
11. Duende (Julien Knowles) 07:36
12. Sunrise Movement (Julien Knowles) 06:38
Personnel:
Julien Knowles: trumpet
Devin Daniels: alto saxophone (all but 1, 6, & 9)
Javier Santiago: piano (all but 1 & 6)
Dario Bizio: bass (all but 6)
Benjamin Ring: drums (all but 1 & 6)
Ela Kodžas: violin (1, 5, & 9)
Michelle Sheehy: violin (1, 5, & 9)
Damon Zavala: viola (1, 5, & 9)
Niall Ferguson: cello (1, 5, & 9)
Recorded April 19th and 20th, 2023, at Recording Studio at UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, Los Angeles, California, by Stuart Schenk
Mixing and Mastering: Dave Darlington
Photographer: Jiro Schneider
Graphic Designer: Christopher Drukker
Album Cover: Jamie Breiwick Producer: Adam Benjamin
Review:
The debut album from trumpeter Julien Knowles, 2024’s As Many, As One, showcases his bold jazz voice, both as an improviser and composer. It’s a dualistic vibe he evokes in the album’s title, a reference to a Zen Buddhist concept that our body and mind are both two and one at the same time. It’s a heady notion and one which speaks to the sophisticated and exploratory nature of Knowles’ music. A graduate of the Herbie Hancock Institute fellowship program, Knowles has a supple trumpet tone with a rich core warmth that crackles with electricity when it lands a particularly fast line. Without ever sounding too overtly derivative, his style often evokes the kinetic playing of Dave Douglas, as well as the probing, motivic style of contemporaries like Ambrose Akinmusire. Here, he is joined by several of his Hancock Institute classmates, including alto saxophonist Devin Daniels, pianist Javier Santiago, bassist Dario Bizio, and drummer Benjamin Ring. There is also a handful of tracks featuring a small string ensemble. Together, they play a cerebral, yet still earthy style of jazz that draws inspiration from the best hard-driving acoustic post-bop of the ’60s and ’70s, but with a contemporary feeling all their own. From the aptly titled “Opening,” a shimmering chamber string overture that starts the album, Knowles reveals his knack for lush orchestral arrangements. The song has an almost cinematic quality with Knowles’ trumpet bathed in sparkling violin and cello chords like the sun glowing on a field of wheat. He peppers the strings throughout the album, sinking into the wave-like piano and string swells of “Moon Theater” and offering a noir-ishly romantic reading of drummer Louis Cole’s “End of the Night.” Elsewhere, he contrasts this with more robust small group arrangements, as on “The Boot,” a swaggering Afro-Latin number built around a funky, Charles Mingus-esque bass groove. There’s also the roiling, off-kilter “Kintusgi,” which magically combines the kinetic math rock of Chicago’s Tortoise with the woozy, dreamlike melodicism of Wayne Shorter. With As Many, As One, Knowles brings every aspect of his musical and creative personality together into a vibrant union.
Matt Collar (AllMusic)
