Piano player Holly Bowling has launched crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter to cover the costs of recording their new album Seeking All That's Still Unsung, an instrumental piano record of Grateful Dead music.
I've released several other solo records with the direct support of fans and the music community in the past and I love the freedom that's given me to make the records I want to make as an independent artist. My favorite part of the crowdfunding process is the personal connection it's given me to every person who helped me make the records. Crowdfunding allows this to be a team effort, with you guys directly involved in the release of this album, while also allowing you guys access to some unique perks! I'm excited to do it again.
Piano player Holly Bowling will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of the Phish album Billy Breathes @ Cutting Room, New York, NY on December 30. The show is billed as a pre-show before the Phish concert at Madison Square Gardens (just 3 blocks away).
Listen to her rendition of Train Song live @ The Grey Eagle, Asheville, NC - 2016/09/11.
Piano player Holly Bowling has unveiled the tracklisting for her new album Better Left Unsung on which she reimagines the music of The Grateful Dead for solo piano. She has launched a crowdfunding campaign on PledgeMusic to cover the costs. It's the follow-up for her acclaimed Distillation of a Dream: The Music of Phish Reimagined For Solo Piano album.
Tracks:
Help On The Way > Slipknot!
Franklin’s Tower
Cassidy
Bird Song
Wharf Rat
Unbroken Chain
Crazy Fingers
Cryptical Envelopment > The Other One
Row Jimmy
Terrapin Station (Suite)
Eyes Of The World (6/18/74 Louisville, KY)
China Doll
Dark Star
Better Left Unsung will be released as a 3LP set, 2CD and digitally.
I’m recording a solo piano album of the music of the Grateful Dead! It’s over two hours worth of music and has been a labor of love over the past year that I can’t wait to share with you all. It includes a solo piano “jam transcription” of one of my favorite versions of “Eyes Of The World”, from Freedom Hall in Louisville, Kentucky, 6/18/74 as well as a a rendition of the entire Terrapin Station Suite.
Watch classically trained piano player Holly Bowling tackle the Phish tune Sand. Filmed at the Starlite in Southbridge, MA on May 9th. She plays a 120+ year old piano.
Live dates:
05/16 Columbus, OH @ Woodlands Tavern
06/19 Chicago, IL @ Taste of Randolph Street
07/28 Hamden, CT @ The Ballroom at The Outer Space
2015 was a rather good year for music. In the next four days HCTF lists the 20 albums that will be in regular rotation for many years to come.
Today: countdown from number 20 to 16. Go here for 5-1 | 10-6 | 15-11.
20 The Brighton Beat: Off We Go
The funky afrobeat big band thrives on stage. They managed to transfer the excitement of a live show to the studio on their sophomore release.
Joe DiGiorgi at Headline Studios, NY did an excellent job. He got a rock sound for Hit The Bricks, a widescreen cinematic feel for Summer Lullaby and put the percussion and brass up front for the two parts of Stand With The Herd. The bass gets a boost when the band goes funky, most notably in the title track.
19 Holly Bowling: Distillation of a Dream: The Music of Phish Reimagined For Solo Piano
A classically trained piano player transcribed the spontaneous jamming of the Vermont quartet. A sprawling double album that sparkles.
Bowling had to bottle the on stage spontaneity. (...) The instrumentals The Horse and The Inlaw Josie Wales were fairly easy by comparison, but she didn't shun the challenge of A Song I Heard The Ocean Sing and The Squirming Coil.
The Dutch jazz trio Kapok invited some guests for their third album and a good time was had by all.
With the sound Morris Kliphuis' horn the trio stands out as colorful bird amidst a flock of squabbling pigeons. With drummer Remco Menting's command of complex rhythms and guitarist Timon Koomen's progressive tone they are a truly "unusual" jazz trio. Throw in their ability to find inspiration to write about subject like muscle spasms - the ambient/post-rock mashup Myoclonus or sing the praise of Cacti and extensive plains in Pediplen and you have a band with an open mind and sense of Zappa-esque humour.
17 Richard Lomax & The Tontine: Down There For Dancing
English multi-instrumentalist is a man of many moods. And also the sole guy on Earth who can rock out while wielding an Omnichord.
Even when Lomax gets mad at someone, like he does in Every Fucker Fucks You (so why not fuck them first?), he picks up a scalpel instead of an axe, wrapping his wrath in an aloof manner plus a some memorable guitar outbursts - efficiency superseding blind fury.
Marcel Hulst made a wonderfully delicate solo album, even foregoing capitalizing the song titles.
(...) a great blend of indie, folk and Americana, a prime example of soft music that doesn't need to be played loud to make its mark. Highlights: the use of double tracked vocals adding urgency to the message of in Canada, the early Floyd-alike pastoral artificial light and the melancholic dirge all your armies.
Classically trained piano player Holly Bowling loves Phish. She attended more than 300 shows, always hoping for a major extended jam or at least hearing something new, be it a change of key, tempo, the insertion of a snippet of another song. When she witnessed the Vermont jam band deliver a monster Tweezer at Lake Tahoe on July 31, 2013 she decided to transcribe the whole thing for solo piano, all 37 minutes of it. She put it up a video of her performing it. After getting a lot or positive feedback it turned into the recording of a double album - a crowdfunding campaign took care of the studio bills.
Distillation of a Dream: The Music of Phish Reimagined For Solo Piano is a tour de force and a labor of love. The second disc is dedicated to three major jam vehicles from the band 2013 and 2014 tour: the Tahoe Tweezer obviously, The Wedge and Twist. Bowling had to bottle the on stage spontaneity. The first one is more straightforward filled with concise reinventions of studio tracks for which she choose to capture the vocals with her right hand mostly. The instrumentals The Horse and The Inlaw Josie Wales were fairly easy by comparison, but she didn't shun the challenge of A Song I Heard The Ocean Sing and The Squirming Coil.
