His new quartet record, “Alter Ego” will be released on April 30 on Orenda Records. Zane Carney is a jazz musician, composer, and Grammy-nominated guitarist, hailed as a “massive guitar player” by Thundercat and named “the future of electric guitar” by HuffPost. Fittingly, it mirrors the bandleader’s mission: throughout his career, Carney has made a point to defy genre expectations and refuse all stylistic affiliations, his playing standing out on its own. Zane Carney’s quartet prompts the listener to probe and question jazz norms while investigating what creates those perceptions as the album shape-shifts from track to track. It calls for a full immersion in the present moment and seeks to expose a side of West Coast jazz that’s mostly unchronicled. As the record unfolds, tape crackling and hissing, it leads to “Things You Aren’t,” a vulnerable, intimate solo guitar piece, continuing the conversation between past and future.Īt its core, “Alter Ego” revels in tensions and the new possibilities they open up. This sets the stage for a stream of multilayered experiments, provocative inquiries, and jarring juxtapositions, from “Alter” to “Lost,” “Found,” and finally, “Ego.” The two standards on the record showcase distinct choices: “Oleo” revisits the classic melody with an absurdist chromatic twist, while “Minority” is turned on its head as a new-wave samba.Throughout the record, listeners may recognize guitar tones that Carney developed over the years with his various solo and group projects and collaborations, now applied in an improvisational jazz setting. The album opens with “Brain Freeze,” drawing listeners in with a meditative, haunting melody before bursting into an explosion of textures, patterns and colors, then promptly clearing the canvas for a flute/guitar battle. “The goal was to contrast our current jazz vocabulary with old technology, and see what happens when modern jazz is played with rare, modified instruments and recorded in a fully analog process” Carney added. He used old-world and new-world guitar pedals and played them through a custom Siegmund Sound King, powered by a 1940s pair of 300B television tubes. Carney is playing a custom, modified Fender, which he built using a Broadcaster neck and a Telecaster bridge pick-up, to create his signature sound. Listeners will find a compelling melding of modern jazz performance that’s been balanced by a fully analog, straight-to-tape vintage recording process. Every one of us served as a conversation-leader at different points on the record, and I think you hear that especially on songs like ‘Alter’ and ‘Lost.’” I wanted us to be as nimble and agile as possible so we could access that core flow state more readily. In order to summon that ferocity, we approached this session as one might approach an unmoderated debate: no judgement or rules, freely exploring new lands harmonically whenever a member felt like leading the charge. West Coast jazz is genreless, it’s reckless, it’s audacious, and it pushes boundaries. I wanted to capture the sparks that fly when Jerry, Gene, Katisse and I improvise together, and document the untamed, almost manic spirit that LA’s late night jazz scene has produced: there is a certain energy and freedom that transcends genre. “This is the first time my actual improvisational spirit is being expressed in recorded format. “I wanted this record to feel alive,” said Zane Carney. In addition, all tracks were mixed from the drummer’s perspective, placing the listener in the middle of the live action, on stage with the group. It consists mostly of first takes, with no editing, and aims to subvert convention. The album features a series of improvised compositions, experiments, and sketches, as well as two rearranged standards. “Alter Ego” embodies an adventurous new wave of free improvisation, along with modal jazz in its most electric, high-octane form. on bass, Gene Coye on drums, and Katisse Buckingham on woodwinds, to be released on April 30 on Orenda Records. Guitarist Zane Carney today announced the debut of “Alter Ego,” a bold and bombastic improvised jazz quartet record featuring Jerry Watts Jr.
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