Announcing IARC0024: Resavoir - Escalator

Released January 8, 2019
Available on 7" Phonograph Flexi Disc/Digital via our Bandcamp page

Resavoir is a diverse collective of Chicago artists & improvisers who perform songs written & directed by trumpeter Will Miller. Best-known for his work with the indie band Whitney – and for his brass cameos on tracks by Chance the Rapper, Lil Wayne, Mac Miller, Saba, Eryn Allen Kane, and more – Miller is, at his core, a jazz cat who trained at the Oberlin Conservatory, where his first composition assignment under Wendell Logan was to “go to the reservoir and write a song.” Though his schedule for the last few years has been dominated by studio gigs, arrangement work, and extensive touring with Whitney (on the success of their 2016 Secretly Canadian release Light Upon The Lake), all the while the Chicago native has been slowly and privately developing the music he jokingly refers to as his “bedroom jazz” sound. Resavoir as a body of work is the manifestation of this development. Resavoir as a band is led by Miller (often harmonizing his trumpet through a MIDI keyboard, giving his leads an expansive, orchestral sound which can recall Soulquarian Roy Hargrove or Jon Hassell), Akenya Seymour (former musical director for Noname) on keyboards & vocals, Irvin Pierce (of Makaya McCraven's touring ensemble) on tenor sax, Lane Beckstrom (of The Juju Exchange) on bass, Peter Manheim (of Cecil) on drums & percussion, and Jeremy Cunningham (of Nick Mazzarella's Meridian Trio) on drums. "Escalator," their first release for International Anthem, is a digital double single which presents Miller's compositional work in two contexts: first, a "demo version" recorded & produced by Miller at home; and second, an uncut live debut recorded at Resavoir's first performance, in June of 2018 at International Anthem's Chicago HQ, Co-Prosperity Sphere.