If you’re worried that you’re a latecomer to the work of uncategorizable Chicago musician Ben LaMar Gay, take solace in the certainty that you’re not alone. Gay’s new album, Downtown Castles Can Never Block the Sun, supposedly draws from seven of his previous records, with curious names like Grapes, Benjamim e Edinho, and Confetti in the Sky Like Fireworks. But when you start googling, not one of these albums surface. In this age of Bandcamp and Soundcloud, the cornetist, composer, and vocalist recorded seven albums in seven years but never let anyone outside of his inner circle hear them. Instead, he worked with jazz and experimental artists like Joshua Abrams’ Natural Information Society, Nicole Mitchell, Jaimie Branch and Bitchin Bajas while…
Tag Archive: Ben LaMar Gay
The music of Ben LaMar Gay is sublimely ephemeral, as if made elusive by design – meant to be absorbed in the dynamic now of physical spaces rather than enjoyed in stasis via recordings. The Chicago cornettist’s 2018 debut Downtown Castles Can Never Block the Sun suggested as much. Ostensibly a greatest hits compilation, the album collected a disparate canon of pieces that had previously escaped capture, but still appeared constrained by the format.
Seven years and two studio albums later, Gay feels more comfortable in the role of a traditional recording artist; yet, the tracks presented on Yowzers remain just as eager to escape into communal spaces as his earlier works.
The malleability of the shared musical…