Michael Formanek Releases First Album in 12 Years
Twelve years after his last album, jazz bassist Michael Formanek has released his fifth CD as a leader, entitled The Rub and the Spare Change. The project started Formanek recruited a few musicians just to play with, and ended up being a recording of his quartet featuring saxophonist Tim Berne, pianist Craig Taborn and drummer Gerald Cleaver.
“Beforehand, I just wasn’t necessarily thinking about recording,” Formanek said in an interview with Spinner. “My whole thought process about music at the time was putting these projects together and doing them and then letting them evaporate. Then doing the next one. I was just thinking it was a great band that I wanted to play with. But the second we started playing, it was so obvious that [recording] was what we needed to do.”
As for the huge break from recording, Formanek explains that he wanted to focus on his teaching gig at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, Maryland.
“It’s a long time,” he says, “but because I don’t come from this world, academia, I really felt that I needed to do what I’ve done with everything else I’ve ever been serious about, and that I immerse myself in it for a period of time. I tune a lot of other stuff out as I try to get myself rooted. There was a lot of stuff that I wanted to do that would establish myself in teaching and in the community.”
The Rub and the Spare Change Track List:
- Twenty Three Neo
- The Rub And Spare Change
- Inside The Box
- Jack’s Last Call
- Tonal Suite
- Too Big To Fail
Preview and download The Rub and the Spare Change:
