Riley Mulherkar - Riley (2024) [Hi-Res]

Riley Mulherkar, an exceptionally talented young trumpet player with a bevy of accolades and work with A-list collaborators under his belt, is stepping out on his own with a simmering, unexpected new artistic statement in his debut solo album Riley. Alongside producers Rafiq Bhatia, whose band Son Lux did the Oscar-nominated score for Everything Everywhere All At Once, and critically-acclaimed pianist Chris Pattishall, Mulherkar has spent the past five years refining this expansive, ambitious record which blends his bone-deep immersion in the jazz tradition with the openness and curiosity that's informed his diverse collaborations as a soloist and as a co-founder of celebrated brass ensemble The Westerlies. Riley, his opening recorded salvo as a soloist, was made possible by a grant from the SPACE on Ryder Farm in Putnam County, New York — an idyllic setting where Mulherkar went about writing many of the album's five original compositions. He had worked with Bhatia and Pattishall on their respective solo projects, making their collaboration on his album even more organic. "The three of us developed a mutual love for working on each other's projects," Mulherkar says. "They're two of the best listeners I've ever worked with — I think that's evident in how they play and how they produce, because a huge part of this music is the sound design." That emphasis on production and sound design is probably the album's biggest departure from Mulherkar’s previous output, both with The Westerlies and as a soloist. But it is to an end that is, as he describes it, absolutely rooted in a reverence for the feeling of the music, rather than orthodoxy around style. Take his version of "King Porter Stomp," one of the oldest songs in the jazz canon — which, in Mulherkar and his collaborators' hands, moves from familiar, warm improvisation to pulsing, spacey electronic exploration in the space of four minutes. "The way that that song is realized is absolutely not acoustic, and absolutely not traditional," he says. "But it gives me the feeling I get when I listen to King Oliver or Jelly Roll Morton play that song." Mulherkar’s stunning, raw take on jazz chestnut "Stardust," by contrast, is set in a much more conventional arrangement — yet sounds totally timeless. "It never gets old, no matter how many times I hear it or play it," he says. "That song is always a vehicle to get in touch with the ancestors of this music." That blending of the past and the present to sobering — and on other songs, celebratory, or melancholy, or mysterious — effect grounds Riley, a personal statement that's nevertheless expansive in its reach. "This whole record is, hopefully, reflective of my relationship to the music," he says. "It's all history and it's also all right now."



Tracklist:
1.01 - Riley Mulherkar - Chicken Coop Blues (2:35)
1.02 - Riley Mulherkar - Ride or Die (3:15)
1.03 - Riley Mulherkar - Looking Out (2:29)
1.04 - Riley Mulherkar - King Porter Stomp (4:01)
1.05 - Riley Mulherkar - No More (feat. Vuyo Sotashe) (4:16)
1.06 - Riley Mulherkar - Stardust (6:15)
1.07 - Riley Mulherkar - Hopscotch (5:20)
1.08 - Riley Mulherkar - Looking Up (2:28)
1.09 - Riley Mulherkar - Honey Man (4:03)