Ben LaMar Gay

Contents:

• BEN LAMAR GAY
• BEN LAMAR GAY
• BLU, JAZZ, ELECTRONI. IT ALL FLOWS THROUGH BEN LAMAR GAY.
• BEN LAMAR GAY
• BEN LAMAR GAY’S CERTA REVERI IS A PANMIC DREAM WORTH REMEMBERG
• BEN LAMAR GAY

BEN LAMAR GAY

Open Arms to Open Us liv up to NPR's claim that "there is no one universe for Ben LaMar Gay, he jt sonic booms om one sound to another. " On the album, rerd at Internatnal Anthem studs Chigo, Gay terweav jazz, blu, ballads, R&B, raga, new mic, nursery rhyme, Tropicália, two-step, hip-hop, and beyond his most lorful and munible work yet, an exprsn of his signature omni-genre, "Pan-Amerina" brew.

Composer, sger, and stmental polymath Ben LaMar Gay releas his new album, Open Arms to Open Us, November 19 on Internatnal Anthem / Nonuch Rerds. " 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. 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.

BEN LAMAR GAY

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. 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.

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.

” But Gay’s work is not limed to album releas. WNYC's New Sounds dit s latt episo to "some of the excg new mic g out of Chigo, " cludg three albums released through partnership between the Chigo-born label Internatnal Anthem and Nonuch Rerds: Jeff Parker's Sue for Max Brown and Forfolks and Ben LaMar Gay's Open Arms to Open Us. Ben LaMar Gay is on the latt episo of BBC World Service's Mic Life, jog Angel Bat Dawid nversatn wh Qur'an Shaheed and Dr.

BLU, JAZZ, ELECTRONI. IT ALL FLOWS THROUGH BEN LAMAR GAY.

About Ben LaMar Gay. Ben LaMar Gay is a poser and rist who mov sound, lor, and space through folkloric filters to produce electro-atic llag. Ben LaMar Gay’s mil lov range far and wi.

BEN LAMAR GAY

Ftgly, also featur Gay’s own versn of an alphabet song, sung Igbo by performg artist, choreographer, admistrator and tor Onye Ozuzu. )Gay creds his mil magpie approach to his father’s rerd llectn and lovg that mic. ”Gay, like many mic-fiendg kids of his generatn, got to beatmakg first, before pivotg to tmpet high school.

At a certa pot, Gay beme disenchanted wh life Chigo and mped to Brazil, whose mic had always served as “the first portal to the world, to the real world, outsi of the bubble Uned Stat. It’s Gay’s name on “Open Arms to Open Us, ” but he’s jt as quick to ce the spotlight to a wi array of voic and stments. Gee Lewis, the legendary avant-gar jazz trombonist and tirels electronics novator and tor, recently ught one of Gay’s shows.

”Opener “Sometim I Fet How Summer Looks On You” starts wh a gurgle of synths and quicksilver dm rolls, Gay’s voice purrg agast the teemg backdrop, as nonchalant as a murmured bossa nova. But Gay is quick to add that he’s actually drawg on Chigo’s own blu tradn, always pullg and phg agast the rhythm. ”Gay says that song is about a fay member (“a low-key ditn”) and most of the other songs on the album serve as portras put to sound.

BEN LAMAR GAY’S CERTA REVERI IS A PANMIC DREAM WORTH REMEMBERG

” Gay rov om the “jungle” cri of De Ellgton tmpeter Cootie Williams to avant shrieks of the AACM to the stomp of an HBCU marchg band, as he and backg volists nt the origal tent for the album was to feature a live band, though the panmic quickly dashed that ia, leavg him to build up each song layer by layer, sometim wh a full band, sometim wh iends sendg their Brish-Rwandan sger, actrs, dancer and choreographer Dorothée Munyaneza first met Gay 2018 when both were ved to Dance Gatherg Lagos, Nigeria. ”When Gay reached out to her to ntribute vols to the album, Munyaneza set up a makhift stud her bathroom and rerd the vols for “Nyuzura.

“You’re hearg some real ep Rwandan culture there, ” Gay says enthiastilly.

” Ftgly, the plucked strgs unrpng the track e om a cara Gay bought while travelg through the not that acpany the album rollout, Gay mentns a trip back to Alabama to vis his extend fay, a great nt notg while they walked across farmland that she uld still hear the hammerg of her late father out there, even s on. That phantasmal sound, that sublimal beat, untethered to time but bound to the Earth, rmed Gay’s approach to the album. The embedd snatch of Igbo, Kyarwanda, the spoken word terlus and overheard nversatns, held together by the voicelike ton Gay elics on his muted r, all speak to an as-yet unnamed future: “When they get olr and they bee between 35 and 40 and they put this rerd on like, ‘Oh, that’s Uncle Benji sayg this to me.

BEN LAMAR GAY

In an illumatg prologue to his send full-length album, Chigo stmentalist, poser, and volist Ben LaMar Gay wr of his doubts as to what he uld leave behd for “the young people my life” when faced wh “the cmblg of societal fas. It’s a remarkable piece of mil pathfdg, sprawlg s ambn and surprisgly precise s attack, an album where a zher jam (“Nyuzura, ” featurg Brish-Rwandan sger Dorothée Munyaneza) giv way to triangle-assisted drone (“Slightly Before the Dawn”), which then ces the floor to hip-hop tuba bounce (“Drs Me New Love”) Gay’s visn of mil “Pan-Amerina”—reachg beyond the sawdt and sp image of classil Amerina to clu North and South Amerin culture—bds the project together. In addn to rich barone vols, an, balafon, r, zher, and a host of percsn stments, LaMar Gay also ntribut some fantastilly sharp songwrg on Open Arms, such as the geoly gloomy, mor-key dread of “Oh Great Be the Lake” and the grandiloquent “Aunt Lola and the Quail, ” a wealth of ias never g at the expense of all this, Open Arms is very much a llective work.

Ben LaMar Gay.