DETAILS
TRACKS
Side A
- Sloan
- Semicircle
- Forward
- Gaviota
Side B
- Rhododendron
- Sandbox
- A Night In Montavilla
- Lonely Coyote
RELEASE DATE
8/11/2023
• FIRST PRESSING ON "DEEP PURPLE" VINYL, LIMITED TO 500 COPIES
• CO-RELEASE WITH BEACON SOUND
Keeping a band together, particularly among the mercurial community of jazz musicians, is no small feat. Other gigs beckon. Life outside of making art takes precedence. It’s a reality that makes the continued existence and progression of Portland quintet Blue Cranes feel so momentous. The ensemble — saxophonists Reed Wallsmith and Joe Cunningham, drummer Ji Tanzer, keyboardist Rebecca Sanborn, and bassist Jon Shaw — has been working together in a variety of formats since 2004, creating a solid body of work that has connected them to both the traditional sounds and the future-minded artists of their chosen genre.
What has kept them together is strong personal and creative bonds. As a collective, their remit has always been to continually push their art further and further outside their comfort zones and to the edges of their abilities. It’s what fueled the group’s last album, 2021’s Voices, which found Blue Cranes recording for the first time with an assortment of vocalists (Laura Gibson, Edna Vazquez, Holland Andrews, Peter Broderick, Laura Veirs). And that desire to stretch even further beyond their previous work is at the heart of their new album My Only Secret. “I felt like I was getting in a rut, harmonically,” Wallsmith says. “I was trying to get out of that. To bring in more complexity and not do the same thing again.”
To that end, Wallsmith brought elements of twelve-tone and through-composition into his writing. “Semicircle” has an ever changing tonal center, while “Forward” keeps shifting and evolving in the manner of cloud formations being pushed along the sky. Cunningham, meanwhile, took on a nonlinear form of songwriting. “Gaviota” evokes the minimalist work of John Adams with its intertwining melodies and an extended coda that brings in some rattling percussion, the flute playing of John C. Savage, and the trombone of James Powers.
Another major shift for the band was to change the way they recorded My Only Secret. Created during the height of the quarantine, Blue Cranes altered their usual way of recording out of necessity, tracking each part separately and in duets across the studio window in Wallsmith’s basement. . With some help from longtime cohorts Jason Powers and Todd Sickafoose, Wallsmith built the songs up using the individual components, usually adding Tanzer last in the process, because, he notes, “Ji is such an expressive player and is so in the moment, reacting to what’s happening. I felt like we’d lose all that otherwise.” Even with this temporal separation, says Cunningham, “it was like we were responding to each other. There was communication happening in the same space but at different times. And somehow it sounds like we’re playing live in the same room.”
What will always stay the same with Blue Cranes no matter how much they change as people, as players and as composers is the vibrant emotional core within the music they create. Each song on My Only Secret has a core memory attached to it, whether it is the birth of a child (“Sloan”), a parent’s comfort after the death of a beloved pet (“Rhododendron”), or the agony of the 2016 election results (“Forward”). They feel every moment of every song deeply, something which colors every note they play. “We’re a good emotional band,” says Cunningham. “We can go to that place.” The beauty of My Only Secret, like all of the work Blue Cranes has produced to date, is that they want anyone and everyone to join them.
EXPLORE

Federale
Reverb & Seduction

The Third Sex
The Third Sex - Back To Go

Califone
The Villagers Companion

The Delines
Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom

Martha Scanlan & Jon Neufeld
Save It For Later

The Hoom
On Gabadon

Boxhead Ensemble
Ancient Music

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Johanna Samuels
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villagers

Jenny Conlee
Tides: Pieces For Accordion And Piano

The Hackles
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Song For The Fool

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Last Stars First Light

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Motrik
MØØN: The Cosmic Electrics of MØTRIK

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Artificial Head

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Echo Mine

The Hackles
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Choices, Chances, Changes: Singles & Comptracks 1994-2000

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Captain My Captain

Team Dresch
Personal Best

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The West Was Burning

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Tongue River Stories: Autumn

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The Twilight's Calling It Quits

1939 Ensemble
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Corrina Repp
How A Fantasy Will Kill Us All

Tim Rutili & Craig Ross
10 Seconds To Collapse

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Safety Copy

Eyelids
or

Sin Ropas
Mirror Bride

Annalisa Tornfelt
Search Zero

Luke Ydstie
Collected Essential Works

Jenny Conlee with Steve Drizos
French Kayaking Music

Kind of Like Spitting
You Secretly Want Me Dead

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Swallow The Sea: The Songs of The Crabs

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Hook & Anchor

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854

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Motrik
