Canada Day III Harris Eisenstadt

• 1Slow and Steady03:49
• 2Settled08:23
• 3A Whole New Amount of Interactivity08:25
• 4The Magician of Lublin08:24
• 5Song for Sara06:36
• 6Nosey Parker06:58
• 7Shuttle off this Mortal Coil07:34
• 8King of the Kutiriba04:45
• Total Runtime54:54

Info for Canada Day III

Third release by NY drummer’s working quintet, following his highly praised Canada Day II, features the same winning combination of post-bop/post-rock grooves and creative-jazz savvy. Eisenstadt’s precise yet flexible drumming integrates the inventions of the soloists and the vibes-based rhythm section into an expressive whole. His musicians, leaders in their own right, all have great taste and distinctive personalities – this band doesn’t sound like any other. HighRes recording lays out the music in vivid detail.

Canada Day III was recorded the day after a seven-gig North American tour spring 2012. The recording was the culmination of a year of getting to know these pieces. We first played most of them during the CD release tour for Canada Day II spring 2011, actually. “Slow and Steady” is a deceptively tricky song. Half the band phrases in four while the other half phrases in six, then they switch, and switch again. I play both sides throughout. It actually grew out of some cutting-room floor material from my first orchestral work, Palimpsest (premiered summer 2011). This was the hardest song on the record to get together because of the back-and-forth between rhythmic feels. Playing it every night on the road really helped solidify it. “Settled” was first a much shorter trio piece years ago. It was originally in seven, but ended up making more sense in four, orchestrated for quintet. I opened up introductory and concluding vamp sections to let the music breathe. The changes go by slowly, then double time, then gear back down to the original tempo on the way out. I wrote a sketch of “A Whole New Amount of Interactivity” for a session a while ago and played it only once. Years later I pulled it out and got back to work. The first few sections come from the earliest version, but the bulk of it came later. Eventually, after a short drum solo, the band dissolves into a short improvisation before coalescing around a final hocketing figure. “The Magician of Lublin” was also originally for trio. I expanded it by spreading the main melody and accompaniment parts throughout the group and set the material in different tempos. The tenor-drum duo towards the end happened without pre-determination on tour. We liked it so we kept it for the session. The title comes from an Isaac Bashevis Singer short story. He’s one of my favorite authors. “Song for Sara” is dedicated to my wife, Sara Schoenbeck, who I love deeply and have been with for twelve years. I wrote the first draft in one evening and when I finished I realized it was for her. When I revised the music I was again looking for a way for it to breathe. I opened up the introductory and concluding sections, and revised the B section so that it modulates and actually feels like a bridge. “Nosey Parker” is named after a pithy line of dialogue from the wonderful BBC TV show Foyle’s War. If you don’t know it, check it out. Michael Kitchen is fantastic. Some of the material comes from the orchestral piece trimmings I mentioned earlier. It was tricky to get together early on because in many of the sections we’re playing five different parts. The orchestral trimmings didn’t have drumset, so at first I didn’t know what to play. It turned out that playing on the 1 and the 3 grounded everything. “Shuttle off this Mortal Coil” is named after the controversy about the meaning of the famous Shakespeare quote from Hamlet. I had read somewhere that it actually should be “shuttle” instead of “shuffle.” For some reason, that was in my head when I titled the song. The waltz feel in the first half of the tune jumps to a faster cut-time tempo and a slippery vibraphone line. After the DS and waltz re-cap, we jump into a twisted march that soon dissolves into an improvised cadenza and rubato finish. “King of the Kutiriba” is dedicated to one of my Gambian drum teachers, Mamady Danfa, who died recently. We spent many hours a day together for two months when I was there years ago. He was a sweet person who died far too young - a shy, skinny, unassuming guy who played unbelievably. The piece didn’t begin as a dedication. I found out he passed around the time I finished it, and though the musical content bears no direct relation to the music I learned from Mamady, its gentle spirit reminds me of him.

Nate Wooley, trumpet Matt Bauder, tenor saxophone Chris Dingman, vibraphone Garth Stevenson, bass Harris Eisenstadt, drums & compositions

Harris Eisenstadt
a drummer and composer originally from toronto, takes a fixer’s approach to music making, looking for ways to fit the pieces together. He works along jazz’s progressive fringe but doesn’t generally set out to make a ruckus. In his own music especially, he often seems intent on extracting consonance from dissonance or forging ungainliness into grace." (Nate Chinen, the New York Times). Critics have called him "one of the new generation's leading composers" (Troy Collins, allaboutjazz.com), "strong proof that jazz is still young and growing," (Greg Burk, l.a. weekly), "vital and increasingly influential" (Glenn Astarita, jazzreview.com) and "one of the most creative and skilled musician/composers incorporating traditional material to create new and vital improvised music" (Robert Iannapollo, allaboutjazz-new york).  The village voice's Jim Macnie adds, "he's perpetually building new ensembles to suit the variety of music he hears in his head—that's what composers do."



One of only a handful of drummers equally well-known for his work as a composer, Eisenstadt is among the most versatile and prolific musicians of his generation. His eclectic resume includes studies with some of the most respected names in both improvised music and west african drumming, and performances in genres ranging from film and theater to poetry and dance to contemporary classical and opera.  Most active in jazz and improvised music, as both an in-demand sideman and a bandleader, he has performed all over the globe, earned commissions from organizations such as meet the composer and the american composers forum, and appeared on more than 35 recordings over the past decade.  His latest recording, woodblock prints (no business, 2010), has received rave reviews, and recent honors include nomination for up and coming artist of the year by the jazz journalists association (2009), and rising star in the composer cateogry of the downbeat international critics poll (2009).

This album contains no booklet.