3Arts | Ben LaMar Gay

Composer, sger, and stmental polymath Ben LaMar Gay releas his new album, Open Arms to Open Us, November 19 on Internatnal Anthem / Nonuch Rerds. The first offerg om the Southsi Chigo native’s newt project is a pulsg melodic bellow featurg OHMME sgers Sima Cunngham and Macie Stewart, tled "Sometim I Fet How Summer Looks on You." Acrdg to Gay, the song is “spired by the preparatn one mak for another when ’s time for them to enter or ex an embrace, a memory or a life." You n watch the vio for here: Highlighted the New York Tim’s Fall 2021 preview, Open Arms to Open Us is a dispatch om “postmorn folklorist” Gay’s current place space, filled wh imagative arrangements and his “wise and nfidg barone.” It was produced and rerd at Internatnal Anthem Studs Chigo between March and June of 2021. Across sixteen tracks Gay fluently terweav jazz, blu, ballads, R&B, raga, new mic, nursery rhyme, tropilia, two-step, hip-hop and beyond a beamg exprsn of his signature omni-genre “Pan-Amerina” brew. Alongsi his own sizable toolk of stments (r, keyboards, synthizers, flut, percsns), Gay surrounds himself wh steady bandmat (cludg Tommaso Moretti on dms, Matthew Davis on tuba, and Rob Frye on woodwds), while also shg the spotlight on female artists om his st of regular llaborators. Featured artists on the album clu: OHMME sgers Sima Cunngham and Macie Stewart, bassist/volist/arranger Ayanna Woods, multi-disciplary Rwandan artist Dorothée Munyaneza, poet A.Martez, cellist Tomeka Reid, and volists Onye Ozuzu, Gira Dahnee, and Angel Bat Dawid. Reflectg on the meang of the mic a prologue he wrote for Open Arms to Open Us, Gay says the album’s tle is “a suggtn of a body movement that is ed many spirual practic and is also a gture that reprents a type of unrstandg that leads to touch or a hug.” He also says, “Open Arms to Open Us als wh rhythm as an herance of rmatn – sort of like DNA or RNA. Copg wh the prent-day bombardment of data and recycled iologi om sourc sentially fed by the creed ‘Dtroy Them. Own the Earth,’ often leav me wh only one thg to look forward to: Rhythm.” This latt project is the follow up to Gay’s 2018 crilly-acclaimed, but album Downtown Castl Can Never Block the Sun, which was a pilatn of prevly-unreleased material posed and produced by Gay over seven years. It was herald by Pchfork, NPR, and the Guardian, the last of which lled , “a rerd of endls pth and unpredictabily.” But Gay’s work is not limed to album releas. He has posed for dance troup (cludg the Ruth Page Civic Ballet) and archectural featur (cludg a 2019 duet wh the DuSable Bridge downtown Chigo), and also has done extensive film sre work (cludg the 2018 Tribe Film Ftival award-wng documentary The Good Fight). In 2019 he buted ‘Hecky Naw! Angels!’ at the Mm of Contemporary Art Chigo, g vio art and choreography to explore the shap and sounds of Chigo’s Black social danc.