JEFF OSTER
True
Retso Records (2007)

Trumpet/flugelhorn player Jeff Oster blossoms into a real artistic force in contemporary instrumental music with True. Once again produced by Will Ackerman, Oster has also again surrounded himself with some amazing talent (e.g. T. Bone Wolk and Michael Manring on bass, Philip Aaberg on keyboards, and Eugene Friesen on cello, to name just a few). Oster expands his musical palette even broader this time around, with elements of jazz fusion, world beat, electronica, and new age sprinkled throughout the album. No matter which genre, everything the man touches turns to gold, due in no small part to his composing talent (he wrote or co-wrote every song). It might sound like hyperbole, but we may be witnessing the emergence of the next instrumental superstar.

I don’t have the space to detail all ten tracks and do them justice, yet I’m confounded about which to leave out. “Saturn Calling” features actual radio emissions from the titular planet and starts out appropriately spacy before a thumping bass beat, trap kit drums, and cascading synths, as well as Oster’s own echoed flugelhorn, convey a feeling of cruising the cosmos, switching from billowy floating to dramatic rhythmic passages. “This Place” comes creeping in via Aaberg’s evocative echoed piano as well as shimmering keyboards and shuffling trippy beats from Jan Pulsford (who contributes elsewhere on the CD, too). Oster’s flugelhorn and muted trumpet evokes vast spaciousness yet also a forlorn sense of isolation. It’s one of the best tracks Oster has ever recorded.

Despite its title, “Serengeti,” (owing to the presence of Ugandan vocalist Samite who sings in his native tongue of the importance of this special region), is less “worldly,” and more a bouncy midtempo tune with a funky rhythm and a rolling melody that feels as if one was flying low over the African landscape. During the vocal passage, world beat percussion finally lends some ethnic feel to the piece. “Sounds Like Sunshine” has a big bold sound, cheerful and upbeat, and an infectious midtempo rhythm. “Once in a Blue Moonlight” (another tune co-written by the talented Pulsford) pulses with a sensual rockish/funky beat featuring some snazzy wordless vocals by Melissa Kaplan (her voice reminds me of Harriet Wheeler, vocalist for The Sundays) and she really cuts loose later in the track.

There’s so much more I could write about: the pensive somber ballad, “On One Knee,” co-wrtten by Ackerman, the enchanting mystical world fusion number “From the Dreamtime,” and the tear-the-roof-off rollicking jazz-meets-world beat album closer, “Mumbai.” Jeff Oster (and all the talented artists who contributed to this disc) really raised the bar on this one. Brimming with the sheer love of making music (all types, moods, and tempos) True is a celebration of passion, artistry, soul and engineering/production wizardry. This being only his second full-length release, one is left to ponder the heights Oster (and company) may reach. Highly recommended.

JEFF OSTER
Released
Retso Records (2005)

More than delivering on the promise of his EP, At Last, horn player (trumpet, flugelhorn, and synths) Jeff Oster's first full-length recording, Released, is a flat-out success, blending catchy rhythmic pieces that blur the boundary of adult contemporary, smooth jazz and new age with moody introspective tone poems that wouldn't be out of place on albums from the respected ECM label. Oster gathered a wealth of talent to "sit in" on this release, including such luminaries as Will Ackerman (guitar), Philip Aaberg (piano), Charlie Bisharat (violin), Happy Rhodes (vocals), Jeff Pearce (guitar), plus a few more folks whose contributions are no less valuable but whose profile is less recognizable to readers of this site, I'd wager. Even though this album contains the entire EP, the new material is more than enough to justify adding this one to your collection if you enjoyed At Last, trust me on this.

NOTE: Rather than add any more comments on the previously issued music on this CD, here is a link to my review of the EP (http://www.windandwire.com/april04/at_last.htm); from here on out, my comments will be about the new material.

"Fool's Gold" starts things off in a melancholic and bluesy fashion, featuring Aaberg's expressive restrained piano and some of Oster's most nuanced flugelhorn playing. Ackerman contributes "parlor" guitar and Taylor Barefoot fleshes things out with some background embellishment on electric guitar. Oster also adds some sparse wordless vocals to the piece. As it was on At Last, the production and engineering is faultless. Mixing horns in with other instruments is not always easy, but everyone involved here did a splendid job. The piano is warm and rich in tone and Oster's horns resonate with superb echo and reverb.

"Final Approach" is another low-key tune, but with the addition of a pulsing beat underneath the synths and horns plus the wordless vocals of Ms. Rhodes. The snazzy synths are by Gregory Douglass. The mood of the song is more dramatic, even though it's fairly subdued. Rhodes' voice exhibits her characteristic ethereal range and quality. At times, one could even describe this cut as being quasi-ambient, in the same way that one or two tracks which featured flugelhorn on Jon Mark's A Sunday in Autumn could be categorized as such.

"Behind the Veil" brings Rhodes vocals more to the forefront and also incorporates some of the more dynamic/driving rhythms on the album. This is the song which includes Jeff Pearce, but unfortunately, since he is one of seven people on the song, picking him out won't be easy. Suffice to say that his contributions, whatever they may be, help make the song a vibrant exercise in moody horns, passionate percussion and beats, and synths, all of which evoke comparisons to Patrick O'Hearn (circa Trust and Metaphor).

Ackerman shines (and is quite recognizable) on the title track which he also co-wrote with Oster.
Featuring just flugelhorn, acoustic guitar, piano and some sparse electric guitar, this is a gentle reflective number. It displays the broad variety of music on Released, coming as it does after the uptempo "Behind the Veil."

"As I Live And Breathe" crosses over into something akin of ECM jazz meets new age
music, from the era of the late '80s and early '90s when Windham Hill and Narada were at their best. The rhythms are present but subdued, and the tone is a cross between melancholy and inviting.

Released is an excellent recording from every standpoint: artistic, technical, and variety of music offered. The mixture of rhythmic with more drifting pieces is perfectly balanced, yet the music offers a solid thread of continuity via the presence of Jeff Oster's soulful horns which, needless to say, are the highlight of this exceptional recording. I'm glad that Oster followed up his critically acclaimed EP with this full-length recording and I'm even more delighted to highly recommend it with room to spare!

I get a lot of email. One of them came from a guy named Jeff Oster. Initially he was just another person dreaming about making a record, but it didn't take long to figure out that he was both serious about this dream and intelligent enough to pull it off. The CD he sent me of some rough mixes of his work not only impressed me musically, but perhaps even more importantly connected with me emotionally.

When you meet Jeff, you're greeted with a large male presence, lots of white teeth and a very substantial handshake. His years in business make him feel instantly like someone you want to have a beer with and commiserate about failed love and poor timing in the stock market. Sometimes that persona almost dominates the space and you forget from time to time that there is also a lyrical soul in there. Until he plays the horn.

Jeff flew in from California a couple of weeks ago. He came into the house with the white teeth glowing and gave me and Susan a hug. He had a new track he was working on and slipped it into the CD player in the kitchen and sort of disappeared. A typical Oster track started playing; a great rhythm track made up of samples and decorative sounds which create a lush and propelling bed for his horn playing. I stopped everything and found myself lost in this ambience wondering what the horn was going to sound like when the horn appeared in the air... not on the CD but from Jeff playing a room away. The melody came in like a dream, floating above this dynamic bed track almost as if the two musical parts had never met before. But they had met, quite clearly. I think this says a lot about Jeff's music. The bed tracks are conspicuously contemporary in feel and in their construction; the sounds are sampled and assembled the way every young kid today is making music out of the building blocks available on the internet. This isn't how the people I know are working. It's a younger perspective and it sounds that way. His horn playing, though, is rooted in a deep love and respect for jazz. It's straight ahead playing; no gimmicks, no flash. It's about melody and harmony and how that simple expressive instrument can make you feel. Jeff is blending these two worlds with a grace which is lovely to behold.

I get a lot of emails. A lot of them come from people who talk of their dreams, but I know they will never have the guts to actually try to live out those dreams. Jeff is the very rare exception. He could quietly go into that good night of riding lawnmowers and cocktail parties and talk wistfully after the fourth stiff belt about how he could have/should have been a musician.

We're in the kitchen again. Jeff is in the other room playing the horn. I peer around the corner. His body is swaying while he plays. Between pursed lips he smiles. He loves this. He really loves this. That's why he has to live this dream and why he will.

Will Ackerman
Windham County, Vermont

Quantum Worm (feat. Jeff Oster)
Once more I lay here in my bed listening and as the sounds quickly become feelings I feel myself pulled out of my body…..
The sound of the Trumpet draws me Northwards out across the Arctic ocean
Here I meet and watch two Whales as they gently drift alongside each other down the channels and between the ice flows. The two of them nudging each other very gently as if to say ‘Hi there, I’m still by your side’
They seem 100% at ease with each other which is why they probably pair for life…
Their gentle ways with each other seems to fill the ocean with deep somber passion
Everything in unison together as they gently move down the channel and onwards towards the open ocean and life

I absolutely loved the atmosphere created by Jeff, it gave an icy feel to the whole affair that I did truly love.

People grow older and leave their dreams behind. It happens all the time. Life becomes more about the day to day, the responsibilities we gladly, even happily, accept.

What struck me about Jeff when we met was his unwillingness to go silently into that good night. Always alive, Jeff became more animated and passionate with every note we recorded.

That he has the talent in his playing was never in question. That he has the capacity to write and arrange utterly contemporary music is perhaps more surprising but also a given with him.

It's the fact that he would not let go of what moves him that is so remarkable. Jeff did not leave his dreams behind and the proof of it is contained in the passion and brilliance of these pieces.

Jeff Oster performs on the trumpet and the flugelhorn. Now we all know what a trumpet is, but what is the instrument with the funny sounding name? It almost sounds like something a clown would use, but it is a more serious and powerful instrument than a common car horn. A flugelhorn is sort of a trumpet, made of brass, about nineteen inches long and it has a wider range than a trumpet. When Oster plays the flugelhorn it becomes a genuinely soft and mellow horn that blends perfectly with guitar, synthesizer, percussion and violin featured on his new EP release At Last.
At Last is produced by Adult Contemporary Music initiator Will Ackerman (he hates it when you call it New Age Music) who also plays parlor and acoustic guitar on one of the cuts. Oster is joined by eclectic chanteuse Happy Rhodes, New Age instrumentalist Philip Aaberg, guitarists T Bone Wolk, Jerry Medecino, and percussionist Bryan Carrigan.These are some heavy hitters for a relative new comer to the world of Ambient / Jazz / Instrumental music.
The album is basically an effort in ambient orchestration that is pulled off marvelously in all the tracks, but especially in the first cut, Matt’s Mood. Happy Rhodes’ transparent vocals and Oster’s muted horns lightly resonate in a cheerful tune that to me signifies a sense of growth, perhaps from little boy to big boy and Hey! Where did the time go?

Big Sur, the celebrated locale of writers such as Henry Miller and Jack Kerouac and one of the most venerated spots on California’s craggy coastline is the subject of track 2. You do not hear too many tracks with layered trumpet samples on it but this tune has it. You take a trip with the artists down Highway 1 and you witness one of America’s most scenic shorelines. The delightful music escorts you down to picturesque Monterey and the sapphire blue Pacific Ocean where your dreams are made, and hopefully, will come true.

On the island of Maui, there is a mountaintop that is the objective of every tourist and photographer who visits the islands. It is Haleakala, the title of track 3. In the Hawaiian language, it translates into The House of the Sun. It was thought to be a center for Hawaiian spirituality and today is one of the most visited spots on Maui. Oster and his cast capture all the breathtaking beauty and spirit of the acclaimed apex in their music. Haleakala is the heart of an extinct volcano, often enshrouded in fog and blessed with the sparkle of Hawaiian sunshine (rain). Evocatively sweet background vocals by Happy Rhodes and the haunting lead of the flugelhorn with an almost subliminal Hawaiian melody caresses you in a sweet musical embrace. You can see the sun rising out of the ocean like the smile of God.

The final cut, At Last, has the magic Ackerman touch and I heard in the first four notes. Blended with Oster’s fine score and T Bone’s bass, the tune is a bittersweet melody that is one of desire, hope, and eventually, fulfillment. Just like life as we know it.

Oster has an incredible talent for writing lush, visual music and he should do more of it. He has promised a full version of his album soon and I will hold him to it.

Anytime you have Will Ackerman (founder of Windham Hill Records) vouching for you, music reviewers will pay attention. I was into just the first minute of trumpet player Jeff Oster’s new EP, At Last, and I didn’t need Mr. Ackerman’s endorsement to reinforce that here was a very talented guy. Oster, who also plays flugelhorn, a little synth and percussion, in addition to trumpet, is accompanied on the EP by some major talent, including Philip Aaberg (synthesizer), Happy Rhodes (vocals), Charlie Bisharat (violin), T-Bone Wolk (guitars and bass) and the estimable Mr. Ackerman himself (guitar, natch’). There are few others in the mix, too. With that crew, dear reader, you should be clued in that this is not your garden variety EP.
Okay, so you know I love the music, but what does it sound like? Well, there are four tracks on the EP (about twenty minutes total). “Matt’s Mood” starts things off with a mellow rhythmic blend of mild electronica (courtesy of tasty synthesizer textures and superb drum programming) and jazzy horn work by Oster (after the bridge, Jeremy Mendocino contributes some nice guitar work, too). The trumpet is nicely echoed as it floats over the beats and the synths. Happy Rhodes’ vocals are of the wordless type, although Ms. Rhodes (whom it was wonderful to hear from again) is no mere “filler” vocalist, in case you’re aren’t familiar with her amazing voice.
Next up is “Big Sur,” ushered in by neo-classical violin from Bisharat; but Wolk’s laid-back guitar soon melds into muted slow tempo ambient beats and liquid synths, eventually joined by Oster’s soulful trumpet, painting a serene yet jazzy soundscape. The music is evocative of a drive through the beautiful area along the Pacific coast of the song’s title. While I enjoy every track on At Last, this is probably my favorite; it has such a great sense of gentle movement to it, via the combination of unforced rhythms and Oster’s multi-tracked horn work.
“Haleakala” is closest to an ambient sensibility of the EP’s four songs, although Rhodes’ soulful vocalizings and Oster’s trumpet elevate the moody musical stylings of Aaberg’s synths and the chugging beats of Bryan Carrigan’s drum programming beyond mere Eno-esque territory. Rhodes takes her voice into ethereal wordless soundscape territory in the bridge and darker tinted synths emerge from there to color the track in shades of violet and gray. Nice!
Rounding out the CD is the short title song. Ackerman makes his guest appearance on this piece - a sparse, minimal tone poem featuring plaintive acoustic guitar, trumpet, vocals, and bass. Reminiscent of earlier recordings from Ackerman’s original label (Windham Hill), this is the gentlest and “prettiest” song here, graced by Oster’s use of trumpet muting (only for part of the song, though). It’s an interesting juxtaposition to marry the muted trumpet with the acoustic guitar, so that the usual jazz characteristic of the trumpet’s sound is deflected into something more reflective and even pastoral.
I’ve written it time and time again about good EPs - when an EP leaves you wanting more, it’s a solid indication just how good it is. In the case of At Last, I was sad to hear it end so soon (of course, I just hit “play” again and started over). While the music on the CD is hard to pigeonhole into a single genre, it’s remarkably easy for me to highly recommend it.

   

Although produced by Will Ackerman and features backup work by some notable New Age musicians (Philip Aaberg, for example), At Last disappointingly contains only four songs and runs a total time of just under twenty minutes.

Nevertheless, the music is quite beautiful and, along with synthesizers, guitars and drums, the sounds of the flugelhorn and trumpet have been blended into some nice mixes. Jeff is a talented composer and arranger.

Since I’m originally from England, “Matt’s Mood” envisioned in my mind a walk along the beach in Liverpool, listening to the seaside bands who play for the gathering crowds. Rather a nostalgic tune for me.

Then it’s across the world to California’s “Big Sur” with soft, flowing strains of repetitive trumpet and horns riffs, the whole rhythm and feel reminiscent of the swelling and surging of the ocean waves.

“Haleakala” brings an indigenous drum rhythm and a backing female voice to create a tropical mood, enhanced by Jeff’s subdued flugelhorn. Very pretty and hypnotic.

Quiet and reflective, the title tune “At Last” brings to a close this all-too-brief taste of some of the nicest horn and trumpet music I’ve heard in a long time.

“This music has been inside and a part of me ever since I started playing the trumpet at the age of eight….These songs are a beginning. After four decades of horn playing, it’s about time. I love what we’ve created here. As you listen, imagine what’s possible if you ask for what you want.

Jeff asked. The world responded.

Web Page: http://www.jeffoster.com
My Favourite: “Big Sur”
CD Length: 19:57 minutes

matt´s mood

first i thought this is so not my thing, but i decided to try and see past that. this is sort of new age music. airy and dreamy landscapes of sweeping keyboards and gentle trumpet blowing.

i picture white sheets swaying in the wind on a warm summer day. i´m a bit allergic to that...don´t know why, i guess it has something to do with enya and enigma. but on the other hand, tangerine dream are well represented in my collection of records...so i guess it´s time for me to throw my preconceptions out the window and follow your instructions at your homepage.

so i close my eyes and dream away...and it works!

this tune is very well composed. the smooth shifts in the music pass by without one really taking notice, but small footprints are left in clouds here, slowly they self-repair and all traces are filled up. but somewhere beyond consciousness notes have been taken..and whenever the time is right these notes will come flying at me telling me to immerse myself in some more ambient music.

thank you!

odbjorn

http://www.soundclick.com/oddbjorn