Unstuck In Time: The Kurt Vonnegut Suite

SSC1672 2022-11-11

Track List

Now It’s The Women’s Turn - 7:23
Bokonon - 6:59
Ballad for Old Salo - 8:24
Kilgore’s Creed - 5:56
Unk’s Fate - 7:42
So It Goes - 1:32
Blues for Billy Pilgrim - 7:24
Nancy’s Revenge - 5:25
Rudy’s Waltz - 4:39
Blue Fairy Godmother - 5:12
Tralfamadorian Rhapsody - 4:23

Musicians

Jason Yeager - piano, synthesizer
Miguel Zenon - alto saxophone
Lucas Pino - clarinet and bass clarinet
Patrick Laslie - tenor saxophone, flute
Alphonso Horne - trumpet - fluegelhorn
Riley Mulherkar - trumpet - fluegelhorn
Mike Fahie - trombone
Yuhan Su - vibraphone
Danny Weller - upright and electric bass
Jay Sawyer - drums

While Kurt Vonnegut undoubtedly found his true calling as an author, writing such classics as Slaughterhouse-Five, Mother Night, Cat’s Cradle, and the short story collection Welcome to the Monkey House, he once speculated about another potential career. “What I would really like to have been, given a perfect world, is a jazz pianist,” Vonnegut said. “I mean jazz. I don't mean rock and roll. I mean the never-the-same-twice music the American black people gave the world.”

The literary world can be thankful that Vonnegut stuck with the typewriter rather than the piano, but on the occasion of the great satirist’s 100th birthday, the pianist and composer Jason Yeager will gift him the next best thing: a new suite of music inspired by Vonnegut’s writings. On Unstuck in Time: The Kurt Vonnegut Suite, Yeager presents eleven new compositions vibrantly capturing the incisive wit and skewed vision of one of the 20th century’s most inventive and celebrated novelists. The album will be released by Sunnyside on November 11, 2022 to coincide with Vonnegut’s centennial, with a special release event on that date at the Vonnegut Library and Museum in Indianapolis, Indiana. It marks Yeager’s seventh recording as a leader, following his recent collaborative release Hand in Hand (Club44 Records) with spouse Julie Benko, who is currently starring as Fanny Brice in the Broadway revival of Funny Girl for the month of August.

Ever since he began pulling the author’s books off of his father’s shelves, Yeager has found vivid parallels between Vonnegut and some of his favorite musicians. “I consider Vonnegut to be a virtuoso writer, but one who also writes page turners,” the pianist explains. “He doesn't complicate his language unnecessarily; it's very pleasurable and easy to read his works. I see him as something of a Thelonious Monk figure in the world of fiction, because he seems to break a lot of the rules that I remember being taught in English class. It also took a long time for both of them to find wider acceptance and appeal. Monk is one of my musical touchstones, and Vonnegut has a similarly unique voice and is unapologetically himself.”

In writing the pieces for Unstuck in Time, Yeager crafted music that suggested that eccentricity and uniqueness. He assembled a stellar band able to bring his singular palette to life: multi-reedists Lucas Pino and Patrick Laslie, trumpeters Alphonso Horne and Riley Mulherkar, trombonist Mike Fahie, vibraphonist Yuhan Su, bassist Danny Weller, and drummer Jay Sawyer. In addition, the ensemble is joined on two tracks by alto saxophonist Miguel Zenón. “I can't express what an incredible job these musicians did in pulling together really difficult music,” Yeager says. “At the same time they were all able to bring their own unique personalities as players to the project.”