Galaher Assembles All-Star Lineup Featuring
Brian Lynch, Donald Harrison, Craig Handy,
and Pat Bianchi to Support His Latest Album
Recent Coverage In:
As
a follow up to 2009's Courageous Hearts, his ingenious melding of
Afro-Cuban, Brazilian, New Orleans second line and straight ahead swing
rhythms, drummer-composer-bandleader To
Joining Galaher on his third outing as a leader is the impressive frontline of GRAMMY® winning trumpeter Brian Lynch, alto saxophonist Donald Harrison (Lynch's former band mate in both Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and Eddie Palmieri's band) and tenor saxophonist extraordinaire Craig Handy. Handling the organ is Pat Bianchi,
a B-3 burner who has played with such guitar greats as Pat Martino, Ed
Cherry and Corey Christiansen and is a key member of drummer Ralph
Peterson's Unity Project, his Larry Young tribute band.
Galaher
drives them through a varied program that opens with Frank Foster's
swinging waltz-time vehicle "Simone" and closes with the leader's
modernist burner "Say What?," which includes torrid solos by each of the
horn players and has Bianchi pushing the harmonic envelope into Larry
Young territory. Galaher reveals some graceful brushwork and a mean
shuffle groove on Wayne Shorter's "Tell It Like It Is" (from the Jazz
Messengers' 1961 album The Freedom Rider), which has Harrison quoting
from "It Ain't Necessarily So" during his solo, Lynch playing with a
mute on his solo and Handy nearly walking the bar on his robust tenor
solo. They turn in faithful interpretations of Shorter's pensive ballad
"House of Jade" and McCoy Tyner's "Blues on the Corner" (from 1965's The
Real McCoy) on which Galaher cleverly interpolates a segment of the
melodic theme to "Resolution" from John Coltrane's iconic A Love
Supreme.
Galaher and his all-star crew show some old
school swagger on his post-boppish title track and on Mike Clark's
earthy Texas shuffle, "Shuffleocity," which has Bianchi digging deep
into his Jimmy Smith-Jack McDuff bag. The leader also showcases his
compositional chops on his 6/4 Latin-tinged "Café Con Samba," his
urgently swinging "East 104th Street Waltz," the dark groover "Phantom
City" and the extremely syncopated funk of "Jimmy and Johnny," named for
his youthful band mates from Portland, Oregon, the Sanders brothers.
"Jimmy was really an A-1 organist and kind of a local legend," recalls
Galaher. "My first taste of playing with a B-3 was with him."
One listen to Uptown! and
it's easy to see why drum master Lenny White calls Galaher "a triple
threat - great drummer, great composer, great bandleader," or why modern
jazz-funk innovator Mike Clark praises Towner for his "unquenchable
desire to know all there is about music...and to play the kind of jazz
that is informed by the masters of the past while pointing to the
future." Surrounded by such seasoned vets and stellar soloists as Lynch,
Harrison, Handy and Bianchi, Galaher makes his most striking statement
to date on this potent outing.
Born
in Portland, Oregon in 1955, Galaher picked up drums at age nine and
was dedicated at an early age. "I went to an alternative high school so I
got to practice drums like five or six hours a day all through high
school, which was a good thing for me," he recalls. "And I went straight
from high school into the club scene and I continued playing there for
the next 11 years, playing the whole gamut of gigs. I was in a
nine-piece rhythm and blues band with horns that did original music
along with all the old Motown stuff and more modern Earth Wind &
Fire, Tower of Power stuff."
His
Portland drumming mentor was Mel Brown, who played jazz in between
tours with his two main gigs, The Temptations and The Supremes.
Galaher's long career in education began in 1980 at Brown's Drum Shop,
and has since developed into over 30 years of teaching at community
centers, giving private lessons from music stores and his home studio,
and more than 14 years in New York City Public Schools. Now a New York
resident, Galaher has garnered much respect as an educator who is
committed to mentoring and passing the baton to younger generations. It was in a local school that jazz drumming great
Art Blakey helped encourage Galaher to move to New York City. "Art was
at a high school in town giving a concert and lecture. And he was saying
something about, 'You should get all the experience you can and then
come to New York, where all the action is.' And that was kind of an
affirmation of where I was headed anyhow."
Towner
finally made the move to the Big Apple in the Fall of 1986 and signed
up for a 10-week certified program at the Drummer's Collective, where he
met and began studying with Headhunters drummer Mike Clark. "I made a
really great connection with him right off the bat and that really
fortified the trajectory of my musical direction in jazz." He
subsequently studied Afro-Cuban drumming with Frankie Malabe, Brazilian
drumming with Duduka da Foncesa and New Orleans drumming with Ricky
Sebastian. Galaher organically blended all of those diverse rhythmic
elements on his 2007 debut as a leader, Panorama, and followed up with
an equally impressive display on 2009's Courageous Hearts. Now he makes
an incremental leap to a new level with Uptown!.
"Being
a composer is a big part of what I am, although it was very
unintentional," says Galaher. "I worked relentlessly at honing my
drumming skills but I never really made any conscious effort or decision
toward developing into a composer. When I got into Queens College and
started taking arranging and composition courses with Roland Hanna and
Michael Mossman, that's what set everything in motion. It completely
changed my life and opened up another dimension of creativity. I was
writing material and doing all the arrangements myself as well. So I
came up with the songs for the first album, and then I just kept going."
"I
have continued to grow and develop each decade," he continues. "I'm
proud that even within the last 20 years or so I've improved
dramatically over where I was. Now I'm building up a catalog with this
third release and I've already written material for the next one."
Meanwhile, check what Galaher and his kindred crew are putting down on Uptown!
Towner Galaher's Upcoming Performances:
July 14 / Londel's Supper Club / Manhattan, NY
July 15 / Somethin' Jazz Club / New York, NY
August 4 / Harlem's 'L' Lounge / New York, NY
August 13 / SGI-USA Buddhist Culture Center / New York, NY
August 18 / Londel's Supper Club / Manhattan, NY
August 25 / Smalls Jazz Club / Greenwich Village, NY
September 15 / Harlem's 'L' Lounge / New York, NY
September 29 / Londel's Supper Club / Manhattan, NY
For more information on Towner Galaher, visit: townergalahermusic.com
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