Ghost Train Orchestra | |
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![]() Ghost Train Orchestra with choir at Jazz at Lincoln Center in 2018 | |
Background information | |
Origin | Brooklyn, New York, United States |
Genres | Jazz Classical Avant-garde jazz |
Years active | 2006–present |
Members | Brian Carpenter Matt Bauder Ron Caswell Rob Garcia Curtis Hasselbring Andy Laster Dennis Lichtman Mazz Swift Emily Bookwalter Avi Bortnick Brandon Seabrook Michael Bates |
Ghost Train Orchestra is a Brooklyn-based jazz and chamber ensemble led by Boston-based musician Brian Carpenter. The band formed in 2006 when an historic theater in Boston commissioned Carpenter as musical director for its 90th year celebration. For the commission, Carpenter transcribed and arranged a set of overlooked music from late 1920s Chicago and Harlem and formed a side project from his regular band Beat Circus to perform it. The following year the group started performing under the name Ghost Train Orchestra.
The band first recorded in 2009 at Avatar Studios in Manhattan and released Hothouse Stomp in 2011 on Accurate Records. [1] [2] [3] The album featured Carpenter's rearrangements and often avant-garde treatments of early jazz from the 1920s and 1930s, drawn from recordings by such artists as Tiny Parham, Charlie Johnson, Fess Williams, and McKinney's Cotton Pickers.
GTO's 2013 album, Book of Rhapsodies, featured chamber-jazz works from the 1930s and '40s culled from found 78s and rediscoveries by music historians and collectors such as Mitchell Kaba and Irwin Chusid. [4] [5] The album included compositions by Raymond Scott, Reginald Foresythe, John Kirby, and Alec Wilder.
GTO's next album, Hot Town, issued in 2015, contained more arrangements and reimaginings by Carpenter of 1920s and '30s vintage jazz. Book of Rhapsodies Vol. II, issued in 2017, featured more works by Scott, Foresythe, and Wilder.
In 2023, GTO collaborated with Kronos Quartet on the album Songs and Symphoniques: The Music of Moondog . [6] [7] In April 2024, GTO performed the album's repertoire with Kronos Quartet live at New York's Town Hall, with guest vocals by David Byrne, Karen Mantler, and others. [8]
Note: Personnel changes slightly from project to project
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This is a Nonesuch Records discography, organized by catalog number.
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Hothouse Stomp is the debut album by Ghost Train Orchestra featuring new arrangements of previously obscure music from late 1920s Chicago and Harlem, specifically Tiny Parham, Charlie Johnson, Fess Williams, and McKinney's Cotton Pickers. It was released on the Accurate Records label in 2011.
Songs and Symphoniques: the Music of Moondog is a collaboration album between Kronos Quartet and Ghost Train Orchestra featuring various arrangers and musical artists. Leading up to the album's release were the release of two singles; "High on a Rocky Ledge" and "Why Spend a Dark Nighty with You?"