Quartets and Solos Noah Garabedian

• 1 Welcome Home (feat. Samuel Adams) 01:37
• 2 Fast Slow 05:35
• 3 The Most Beautiful One (feat. Carmen Staaf) 01:56
• 4 Late Stage Epiphany 06:04
• 5 Snap Pop (feat. Jimmy Macbride) 01:26
• 6 To Speak or Sing Softly (feat. Samuel Adams) 06:30
• 7 To Swim Below (feat. Dayna Stephens) 01:29
• 8 Casual Friday (feat. Jimmy Macbride) 03:24
• 9 The Mayor of Malibu 05:00
• 10 To Remain Alive 01:04
• 11 To Dance Underground 01:25
• 12 The Hawk (feat. Carmen Staaf) 06:04
• 13 Dogwood (feat. Dayna Stephens) 05:57
• Total Runtime 47:31

Info for Quartets and Solos

Bass player and composer Noah Garabedian’s music wrestles with the tension and harmony between solitude and community — a push and pull at the core of his creative philosophy. “Community and socialization are essential ingredients to music, especially improvised music,” he says. “But as I have grown older, I have learned how to celebrate and cherish being alone; how to find comfort in being by yourself.”

That balance fuels his work on Quartets and Solos. “Artistic creation doesn’t just appear out of nowhere — it comes from a deep fountain that is replenished and fed by the community that teaches you, nourishes you, and holds you,” he says. “But artistic creation is also done through your own will power... it’s about frequency and the continued drive for creation, evolution, and production.”

The album lives in that push and pull. It opens up space for expansive quartet dialogue and tightens focus for distilled, one-on-one meditations — a vivid portrait of an artist drawing power from both collective momentum and personal clarity.

Noah Garabedian, bass
Dayna Stephens, tenor saxophone and EWI
Carmen Staaf, piano
Jimmy Macbride, drums
Samuel Adams, synths, effects, programming

Recorded at Samurai Hotel Recording Studio by David Stoller, September 15 and 16, 2024
Produced, edited, and mixed by Samuel Adams
Mastered by Dayna Stephens

Noah Garabedian
Bass player and composer Noah Garabedian holds a BA in Ethnomusicology from the The University of California Los Angeles, and a Master's of Music Performance from New York University. He is a 2022 Calouste Gulbenkian In View grant recipient; 2021 Artist Fellow with Creative Armenia and AGBU; 2022 and 2016 Fulbright Specialist Grant recipient; 2011 finalist for the International Society of Double Bass Competition; 2007 finalist for the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz; 2006 John Coltrane National Scholarship recipient.

As an educator Mr. Garabedian was a visiting professor through Fulbright to teach jazz music for one month at Silpakorn University, in Bangkok, Thailand as well as at the São Paulo State Music School - EMESP Tom Jobim. He currently works with the music outreach program at Jazz At Lincoln Center, Jazz For Young People. He is also currently part-time faculty at The New School in New York City and works at the Stanford Jazz Workshop. In the past he has served as adjunct faculty at NYU, and taught with The Weill Institute at Carnegie Hall.

As a composer and bandleader, Noah has released two albums under his own name, as well as one album as a part of the trio collective, Ember. In October 2020 he premiered a commission from the Peace Resource Center at Wilmington College, entitled “The Tragedy of Hate.” His latest quartet album, “Consider The Stars Beneath Us,” was released on Outside In Music in October 2022. He is also the musical director for the dance show, “Rhythm Is Life,” featuring choreographer and world-renowned tap dancer Dormeshia.

As a sideman, Mr. Garabedian has performed and toured with Ravi Coltrane, Jeff Tain Watts, Andy Milne, Kris Davis, Ralph Alessi, Myron Walden, Nir Felder, Frank LoCrasto, Okkervil River, and Julian Pollack. Mr. Garabedian has represented the US State Department on two separate tours as a musical ambassador where he performed for the public, taught workshops on music, and collaborated with local musicians.

In October 2020, he premiered a new composition, The Tragedy of Hate, commissioned by the Peace Resource Center at Wilmington College. The piece was inspired by stories and pictures of survivors of the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of those events.

“The music glows with a banked-fire intensity, a quiet inner flame that... draws [the listener] closer to its warmth." - John Chacona, All About Music

"[His second album] is a distinctive, deeply probing, creatively conceived, beautifully executed work." - Thomas Conrad, Stereophile Magazine

This album contains no booklet.