I am very excited to announce the release of my new record “ToNow” on Clean Feed Records. (Purchase your copy below or on the music page) We celebrated the release with a show at Black Iris Gallery (321 W. Broad St. Richmond, VA) on Wednesday May 9th. The show was also an art opening for some of my paintings.

ToNow is a contribution in music to the protests that took place at Standing Rock for much of 2016-2017 and remains ongoing. Four songs represent four different aspects: “Plains” (the landscape), “Stand” (Standing Rock reservation), “Red, White, Yellow” (colors on the reservation flag) and “Cantapeta Creek” (the epicenter of the protests). ToNow is meant to be listened to as a suite, continuing the through-compositional voice heard on Bury My Heart (2016), inspired by the events in Dee Brown’s book of the same name.

On the Title:
ToNow comes from something that my daughter said to me one day, “No dada not today tonow”  and I thought that was brilliant. It applies to my thoughts on the events at Standing Rock and a lot of other current issues. We can’t wait until tomorrow or even today, things need to happen ToNow.

On the Recording:
I would send some pictures or links to stories to try to have the musicians coming from a similar place emotionally when we would go to play it on a particular take. That’s the most important thing–trying to capture what the piece is and the emotion of what you’re playing.

On the Cover:
The cover is one of my paintings that happened to be finished on Columbus Day. I like the idea of the colors falling down and there being no stars. It means many different things to many different people.

Personnel:
Cameron Ralston, bass
Jason Scott, saxophone
Bob Miller, trumpet
Scott Clark, drums & compositions
Alan Parker, guitar
Tobin Summerfield, guitar

Thank you all for your support and I look forward to sharing more with you soon….