In the category of enduring musicians, Tom Easley is getting up there. He’s been making a career of it for the last three decades; either teaching at NSCC’s music department, or touring with one of the East Coast’s longest running musical mainstays, Hot Toddy. Despite that longevity, Easley felt he needed to get out and prove something to himself: that he can still do it like it’s the first time, and under his own steam. Joined by Mark Adam on drums and Geordie Haley and Kevin Brunkhorst on guitar, The Easley Quartet takes the eternally modern sounds of 80s jazz and makes them new again with The Starting Point VS The Steep Decline.
“I’m hoping that this recording reflects the experience of my younger self and pulls all of that into my present self who in a lot of ways is much more settled. I feel like this project has sort of brought me to a place where I am in a better place creatively,” explains Easley, the quartet’s composer, frontman, and veteran bass player.
“I have been parts of many great projects and a sideman to a lot of great acts but this is all of my own material and this is the first time that I have been all me.”
Easley says that, regardless of the years, releasing a debut album and one that he has composed himself, thankfully, still brings with it all the same reactions that it did for him twenty years ago.
The way Easley describes it, the Quartet began with a personal desire to hear Geordie Haley and Kevin Brunkhorst duke it out, riffing off each other’s duelling guitars. It’s not quite the dual-guitar harmonies of 80s hair metal, but on the bright side it’s not 80s hair metal.
“I wanted to hear Geordie and Kevin play together and along with some standards I brought in some of my tunes. I really liked the way they approached them so I booked some studio time,” says Easley. “Plus all great rock bands have two guitars.”
Strangely enough, The Easley Quartet found their roots in folk music of all places, choosing to build simple melodies around different keys. Easley pulls inspirations from Nickle Creek/Punch Brother’s butterfly-fingered mandolin player Chris Thile, as well as Marc Johnson’s landmark album Bass Desires. Oakley describes it as “folk in a Pat Metheny kind of way,” referring to the legendary guitarist’s approach to jazz fusion.
The result is a decidedly modern sounding album, despite influences that harken back at least twenty years. It’s not the full on hip shaker of nu-jazz, perhaps, but it does provide us with what feels like a science-fiction version of jazz. This is no longer the music of smoke-filled speakeasys, but something sleek and shiny and futuristic to be explored.
“The title reflects the journey that I think I we all go through in music and probably life. As a professional musician I have been doing this since I was 18, and I’m 48 now. I wanted to reflect that I’m somewhere on this grid between the two ends.”
Tour Dates:
11.23.18 – Saint John,NB @ BMO Studio Theatre
11. 24.18 – St. Andrews NB @ Sunbury Shores
11.24.18 – Fredericton NB @ Wilser’s Room