Urbanus (album)
Encyclopedia
Urbanus is the seventh album by jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 vibraphonist
Vibraphone
The vibraphone, sometimes called the vibraharp or simply the vibes, is a musical instrument in the struck idiophone subfamily of the percussion family....

 Stefon Harris
Stefon Harris
Stefon Harris is an American jazz vibraphonist. In 1999, the Los Angeles Times called him "one of the most important young artists in jazz" who is "at the forefront of new New York music" and "much in demand as a star sideman"...

. It was released in August 2009 on Concord Records
Concord Records
Concord Records is a U.S. record label now based in Beverly Hills, California. Originally known as Concord Jazz, it was established in 1972 as an off-shoot of the Concord Jazz Festival in Concord, California by festival founder Carl Jefferson, a local automobile dealer and jazz fan who sold his...

, Harris's first release with the label
Record label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...

, his previous six releases were on Blue Note Records
Blue Note Records
Blue Note Records is a jazz record label, established in 1939 by Alfred Lion and Max Margulis. Francis Wolff became involved shortly afterwards. It derives its name from the characteristic "blue notes" of jazz and the blues. At the end of the 1950s, and in the early 1960s, Blue Note headquarters...

. The self-produced
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...

 album was Harris's second with his band Blackout, the first being 2004's Evolution. It reached number 15 on the Billboard Top Traditional Jazz Albums chart
Billboard charts
The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the United States. The results are published in Billboard magazine...

 and was nominated for the 2010
52nd Grammy Awards
The 52nd Annual Grammy Awards took place on January 31, 2010, at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. Neil Young was honored as the 2010 MusiCares Person of the Year on January 29, two days prior to the Grammy telecast. Only ten of the 109 awards were received during the broadcast...

 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album
Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album
The Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album was an award presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for works containing quality contemporary jazz performances...

.

Overview

Urbanus, Latin for urban, features Harris's band Blackout, drummer
Drummer
A drummer is a musician who is capable of playing drums, which includes but is not limited to a drum kit and accessory based hardware which includes an assortment of pedals and standing support mechanisms, marching percussion and/or any musical instrument that is struck within the context of a...

 Terreon Gully
Terreon Gully
- Career :Gully has performed with various musicians and genres, including the Christian McBride Band, saxophonist Ron Blake, vibrophonist Stefon Harris and Latin band Yerba Buena....

, keyboardist
Keyboardist
A keyboardist is a musician who plays keyboard instruments. Until the early 1960s musicians who played keyboards were generally classified as either pianists or organists. Since the mid-1960s, a plethora of new musical instruments with keyboards have come into common usage, requiring a more...

 Marc Cary
Marc Cary
Marc Cary is a post bop jazz pianist based out of New York City. Cary has played and recorded with several well-known musicians, including Dizzy Gillespie, Betty Carter, Arthur Taylor, Abbey Lincoln, Erykah Badu, Meshell Ndegeocello, Stefon Harris, Lauryn Hill, Ani DiFranco, Jackie McLean, and...

, saxophonist Casey Benjamin
Casey Benjamin
Casey Benjamin is a saxophonist, keyboardist, producer and songwriter from South Jamaica Queens, New York City. He attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts and the The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in Manhattan...

, and bassist
Bassist
A bass player, or bassist is a musician who plays a bass instrument such as a double bass, bass guitar, keyboard bass or a low brass instrument such as a tuba or sousaphone. Different musical genres tend to be associated with one or more of these instruments...

 Ben Williams. Harris has called this effort a continuation of the work the same band accomplished with its 2004 release, Evolution. The album incorporates jazz with element of hip hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...

 but is closer to pre-1970s jazz and funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...

 than the earlier work by this quintet
Quintet
A quintet is a group containing five members.It is commonly associated with musical groups, such as a string quintet, or a group of five singers, but can be applied to any situation where five similar or related objects are considered a single unit....

.

The album was recorded in the days leading up to Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...

's inauguration, an event that Harris said filled the band with a sense of pride. Promotion began in May 2009 with a show in Kalamazoo, Michigan
Kalamazoo, Michigan
The area on which the modern city stands was once home to Native Americans of the Hopewell culture, who migrated into the area sometime before the first millennium. Evidence of their early residency remains in the form of a small mound in downtown's Bronson Park. The Hopewell civilization began to...

 at the Dalton Center of Western Michigan University
Western Michigan University
Western Michigan University is a public university located in Kalamazoo, Michigan, United States. The university was established in 1903 by Dwight B. Waldo, and as of the Fall 2010 semester, its enrollment is 25,045....

, where Harris completed his residency
Artist in residence
Artist-in-residence programs and other residency opportunities allow visiting artists to stay and work so that they may apply singular focus to their art practice....

.

The album was nominated for the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album but lost to the Joe Zawinul
Joe Zawinul
Josef Erich Zawinul was an Austrian-American jazz keyboardist and composer.First coming to prominence with saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, Zawinul went on to play with trumpeter Miles Davis, and to become one of the creators of jazz fusion, an innovative musical genre that combined jazz with...

 album 75
75 (album)
75 is a live album by Austrian-American jazz musician Joe Zawinul and his band the Zawinul Syndicate. It was recorded in 2007 at two of bandleader Joe Zawinul's final performances in Switzerland and Hungary. The album was produced by Joachim Becker and originally released in 2008 by JVC Compact...

. The other nominees were Sounding Point
Sounding Point
Sounding Point is the debut album by jazz guitarist Julian Lage. It was released in March 2009 on EmArcy Records. It premiered at number 13 on the Billboard Top Contemporary Jazz Albums chart and was nominated for the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album...

by Julian Lage
Julian Lage
Julian Lage is an American jazz guitarist and composer.A former child prodigy, Lage began performing in public at the age of six. His talent led him to be the subject of the 1997 Academy Award nominated documentary Jules at Eight. At age 13 Lage performed at the 2000 Grammy Awards...

, At World's Edge
At World's Edge
At World's Edge is the ninth album by jazz keyboardist Philippe Saisse. The 2009 release was Saisse's first on Koch Records. It was produced by Saisse and Roy Hendrickson and was nominated for the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album....

by Philippe Saisse
Philippe Saisse
Philippe Saisse is a French Grammy Award-nominated Smooth Jazz and New Age music keyboardist, producer and arranger.He was born in Marseille and raised in Paris. After studying at the Conservatoire de Paris he won a scholarship to the Berklee College of Music. He became the protege of Gary Burton...

, and Big Neighborhood
Big Neighborhood
Big Neighborhood is the fourteenth solo studio album by jazz guitarist Mike Stern. The 2009 release was produced by Jim Beard and released by Heads Up International. It debuted at number five on the Billboard Top Traditional Jazz Albums chart and was nominated for the 2010 Grammy Award for Best...

by Mike Stern
Mike Stern
Mike Stern is an American jazz guitarist. After playing for a few years with Blood, Sweat & Tears, he landed a gig with Billy Cobham and then broke through with Miles Davis' comeback band from 1981 to 1983, and again in 1985. Since then, he launched a solo career, releasing more than a dozen albums...

.

Tracks

The opening track, "Gone", composed by Gil Evans
Gil Evans
Gil Evans was a jazz pianist, arranger, composer and bandleader, active in the United States...

, is a modern version of "Gone, Gone, Gone" from the opera Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess is an opera, first performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It was based on DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy and subsequent play of the same title, which he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy Heyward...

. It has a go-go feel that Harris attributes to keyboardist Marc Cary and bassist Ben Williams's Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

 roots. D.C. is said to be the birthplace of the go-go style of funk. Harris plays the marimba
Marimba
The marimba is a musical instrument in the percussion family. It consists of a set of wooden keys or bars with resonators. The bars are struck with mallets to produce musical tones. The keys are arranged as those of a piano, with the accidentals raised vertically and overlapping the natural keys ...

 on his interpretation of the Buster Williams
Buster Williams
Charles Anthony Williams is an American jazz bassist.-Biography:Williams has gained prestige among jazz musicians as a solid supportive player. Since the early 1960s, he has made subtle swing, a precise rhythm and superb technique the landmark of his playing...

 standard
Jazz standard
Jazz standards are musical compositions which are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive list of jazz standards, and the list of songs deemed to be...

 "Christina". Drummer Terreon Gully contributed the track "Tanktified". "Shake It for Me" features a Harris marimba solo and piano solo by Marc Cary.

The reworking of Jackie McLean
Jackie McLean
John Lenwood McLean was an American jazz alto saxophonist, composer, bandleader and educator, born in New York City.-Biography:McLean's father, John Sr., played guitar in Tiny Bradshaw's orchestra...

's "Minor March" is the collection's track most resembling modern bop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...

, even being called hard bop
Hard bop
Hard bop is a style of jazz that is an extension of bebop music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz which incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in the saxophone and piano...

 in one review. Casey Benjamin plays the vocoder
Vocoder
A vocoder is an analysis/synthesis system, mostly used for speech. In the encoder, the input is passed through a multiband filter, each band is passed through an envelope follower, and the control signals from the envelope followers are communicated to the decoder...

 on the Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder
Stevland Hardaway Morris , better known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and activist...

 cover, "They Won't Go (When I Go)".

"The Afterthought" is a track written by Cary, originally for his 1995 release Cary On, in honor of his grandparents. Benjamin co-wrote "For You" with Sameer Gupta and is again featured on the vocoder. The shortest track on the release, "Blues for Denial", features Cary on acoustic piano. Lastly, "Langston's Lullaby" was named after Harris's son, who in turn was named after poet Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance...

.

Critical reception

Opinions of this release were mixed. John Kelman in All About Jazz
All About Jazz
All About Jazz is a leading jazz music website for enthusiasts and industry professionals based in Philadelphia in the United States.Founded by Michael Ricci in 1995, the Web-Site is maintained by a volunteer staff of writers, editors, and musicians, and provides coverage of all genres of jazz from...

 called Urbanus "an impressive group effort...with plenty of cross-over potential and all-ages appeal" but Michael G. Nastos of Allmusic quipped that the "music bears mixed results". He went on to decry Benjamin's vocoder as "one of the silliest devices ever conceived" but then did call Benjamin "one of the best young alto saxophonists in modern jazz". He conceded that there is a "majority of excellent music played on this album" but closes unfavorably writing that the band "wants to appeal to exactly what its title suggests, an urban crowd less interested in innovation or expansion as it is the beat."

Andrew Gilbert in his review in The Seattle Times
The Seattle Times
The Seattle Times is a newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, US. It is the largest daily newspaper in the state of Washington. It has been, since the demise in 2009 of the printed version of the rival Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Seattle's only major daily print newspaper.-History:The Seattle Times...

wrote that "not every track...is a ringing success" and that it "sometimes feels overstuffed with ideas". He does however call the musicians "masters of their musical domain" that create "bustling electroacoustic textures".

Tracks

  1. "Gone" (George Gershwin
    George Gershwin
    George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...

    , Ira Gershwin
    Ira Gershwin
    Ira Gershwin was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs of the 20th century....

    , DuBose Heyward
    DuBose Heyward
    Edwin DuBose Heyward was a white American author best known for his 1925 novel Porgy. This novel was the basis for the play by the same name and, in turn, the opera Porgy and Bess with music by George Gershwin.-Life and career:Heyward was born in 1885 in Charleston, South Carolina and was a...

    , Gil Evans
    Gil Evans
    Gil Evans was a jazz pianist, arranger, composer and bandleader, active in the United States...

    ) 6:07
  2. "Christina" (Charles A. "Buster" Williams
    Buster Williams
    Charles Anthony Williams is an American jazz bassist.-Biography:Williams has gained prestige among jazz musicians as a solid supportive player. Since the early 1960s, he has made subtle swing, a precise rhythm and superb technique the landmark of his playing...

    ) 6:39
  3. "Tanktified" (Terreon Deautri Gully
    Terreon Gully
    - Career :Gully has performed with various musicians and genres, including the Christian McBride Band, saxophonist Ron Blake, vibrophonist Stefon Harris and Latin band Yerba Buena....

    ) 7:00
  4. "Shake It for Me" (Timothy Reginald Warfield Jr.) 3:00
  5. "Minor March" (Jackie McLean
    Jackie McLean
    John Lenwood McLean was an American jazz alto saxophonist, composer, bandleader and educator, born in New York City.-Biography:McLean's father, John Sr., played guitar in Tiny Bradshaw's orchestra...

    ) 3:35
  6. "They Won't Go (When I Go)" (Stevie Wonder
    Stevie Wonder
    Stevland Hardaway Morris , better known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and activist...

    , Yvonne Lowrene Wright) 7:37
  7. "The Afterthought" (Marc Cary
    Marc Cary
    Marc Cary is a post bop jazz pianist based out of New York City. Cary has played and recorded with several well-known musicians, including Dizzy Gillespie, Betty Carter, Arthur Taylor, Abbey Lincoln, Erykah Badu, Meshell Ndegeocello, Stefon Harris, Lauryn Hill, Ani DiFranco, Jackie McLean, and...

    ) 4:59
  8. "For You" (Casey Benjamin
    Casey Benjamin
    Casey Benjamin is a saxophonist, keyboardist, producer and songwriter from South Jamaica Queens, New York City. He attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts and the The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in Manhattan...

    , Sameer Gupta) 6:06
  9. "Blues for Denial" (Stefon Harris
    Stefon Harris
    Stefon Harris is an American jazz vibraphonist. In 1999, the Los Angeles Times called him "one of the most important young artists in jazz" who is "at the forefront of new New York music" and "much in demand as a star sideman"...

    ) 2:19
  10. "Langston's Lullaby" (Benjamin, Harris) 7:56

Personnel

  • Stefon Harris
    Stefon Harris
    Stefon Harris is an American jazz vibraphonist. In 1999, the Los Angeles Times called him "one of the most important young artists in jazz" who is "at the forefront of new New York music" and "much in demand as a star sideman"...

     – vibraphone
    Vibraphone
    The vibraphone, sometimes called the vibraharp or simply the vibes, is a musical instrument in the struck idiophone subfamily of the percussion family....

    , marimba
    Marimba
    The marimba is a musical instrument in the percussion family. It consists of a set of wooden keys or bars with resonators. The bars are struck with mallets to produce musical tones. The keys are arranged as those of a piano, with the accidentals raised vertically and overlapping the natural keys ...

    , producer
    Record producer
    A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...


Blackout

  • Terreon Gully
    Terreon Gully
    - Career :Gully has performed with various musicians and genres, including the Christian McBride Band, saxophonist Ron Blake, vibrophonist Stefon Harris and Latin band Yerba Buena....

     – drums
    Drum kit
    A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....

  • Marc Cary
    Marc Cary
    Marc Cary is a post bop jazz pianist based out of New York City. Cary has played and recorded with several well-known musicians, including Dizzy Gillespie, Betty Carter, Arthur Taylor, Abbey Lincoln, Erykah Badu, Meshell Ndegeocello, Stefon Harris, Lauryn Hill, Ani DiFranco, Jackie McLean, and...

     – piano
    Piano
    The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

    , Fender Rhodes
    Rhodes piano
    The Rhodes piano is an electro-mechanical piano, invented by Harold Rhodes during the fifties and later manufactured in a number of models, first in collaboration with Fender and after 1965 by CBS....

    , keyboards
    Electronic keyboard
    An electronic keyboard is an electronic or digital keyboard instrument.The major components of a typical modern electronic keyboard are:...

  • Casey Benjamin
    Casey Benjamin
    Casey Benjamin is a saxophonist, keyboardist, producer and songwriter from South Jamaica Queens, New York City. He attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts and the The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in Manhattan...

     – alto saxophone
    Alto saxophone
    The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in 1841. It is smaller than the tenor but larger than the soprano, and is the type most used in classical compositions...

    , vocoder
    Vocoder
    A vocoder is an analysis/synthesis system, mostly used for speech. In the encoder, the input is passed through a multiband filter, each band is passed through an envelope follower, and the control signals from the envelope followers are communicated to the decoder...

  • Ben Williams – bass
    Bass guitar
    The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....



Additional musicians

  • Y.C. Laws – percussion
    Percussion instrument
    A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...

     on "Gone"
  • Anna Webber – flute
    Flute
    The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

     on "Gone", "They Won't Go (When I Go)", "For You" and "Langston's Lullaby"
  • Anne Drummond – alto flute
    Alto flute
    The alto flute is a type of Western concert flute, a musical instrument in the woodwind family. It is the next extension downward of the C flute after the flûte d'amour. It is characterized by its distinct, mellow tone in the lower portion of its range...

     on "Gone", "They Won't Go (When I Go)", "For You" and "Langston's Lullaby"
  • Mark Vinci
    Mark Vinci
    Mark Vinci is a Saxophone player who has performed, toured, or recorded with Maria Schneider, Joe Lovano, Stefon Harris, Rosemary Clooney, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Zoot Sims, Benny Carter, Tommy Flanagan, Clark Terry, Mel Lewis, Michael Feinstein, Joe LaBarbera, and Gene Bertoncini.- Career :As...

     – clarinet
    Clarinet
    The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

     on "Gone", "They Won't Go (When I Go)" and "Langston's Lullaby" and bass clarinet
    Bass clarinet
    The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B , but it plays notes an octave below the soprano B clarinet...

     on "For You"
  • Sam Ryder – clarinet on "Gone", "They Won't Go (When I Go)" and "Langston's Lullaby"
  • Jay Rattman – bass clarinet on "Gone", "They Won't Go (When I Go)", "For You" and "Langston's Lullaby"
  • Rigdzin Collins – violin
    Violin
    The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

     on "For You"


Production

  • Larissa Collins – package design
    Album cover
    An album cover is the front of the packaging of a commercially released audio recording product, or album. The term can refer to either the printed cardboard covers typically used to package sets of 10" and 12" 78 rpm records, single and sets of 12" LPs, sets of 45 rpm records , or the front-facing...

  • Chris Dunn – A&R
  • Joe Ferla – Audio engineer
    Audio engineering
    An audio engineer, also called audio technician, audio technologist or sound technician, is a specialist in a skilled trade that deals with the use of machinery and equipment for the recording, mixing and reproduction of sounds. The field draws on many artistic and vocational areas, including...

    , recording assistant
  • James Frazee – assistant engineer
  • Mark Wilder – mastering
    Audio mastering
    Mastering, a form of audio post-production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device ; the source from which all copies will be produced...



Charts

Date Chart Peak
September 26, 2009 Top Traditional Jazz Albums
Billboard charts
The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the United States. The results are published in Billboard magazine...

15
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