The Sound Vault - Julien Wilson

Julien Wilson		Visit: www.julienwilson.com
TRIO - LIVE Cat# SV0596 Barcode 9324953002838
Track Listing 1. Clube da esquina #2 2. Song for Jay 3. Rebellious bird 4. Blessed 5. Grace	Julien Wilson - Tenor Saxophone Stephen Magnusson - Nylon String Guitar Stephen Grant - Piano Accordian Formed in 2004, the Julien Wilson trio received glowing reviews in both the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age for their first two concerts at the Jazz:Now Festival in the Sydney Opera House and the Half Bent Winter Jazz Festival in Melbourne. They have since performed around Australia and internationally including appearances at the Berlin Jazz Festival, Melbourne International Arts Festival, Wangaratta Jazz Festival, Eltham Jazz Festival, Queenscliff and Queensland Music Festivals, Christchurch International Jazz Festival, and in Switzerland, Ireland, Germany, Denmark and Austria. The trio was featured on three tracks of Julien's debut album, while you were sleeping. Reviewers paid special attention to the trio and the CD was a finalist for the 2006 Best Contemporary Jazz Album Award and an ARIA. Julien's composition, Rebellious Bird, which is featured on the new album, was a finalist for the 2006 Best Australian Jazz Composition Award. Trio - Live is the result of being invited by ABC Classic FM to perform at Bennetts Lane as part of the 'Jazztrack' live-to-air 30th Anniversary Concert. These three musicians have a special chemistry and have played together in other groups for many years before forming the trio. They have worked together and individually with the cream of Australia's music scene and with many overseas artists including Archie Roach, Paul Kelly, Vince Jones, Daddy Cool, James Morrison, Shane Howard, Jim Black, Mark Helias, Thirsty Merc, Mike Nock, Paul Grabowsky, Judy Carmichael, Steve Lacy, Arthur Blythe, Augie March, Alan Browne, Hugh Masekala, Barney McAll, Josh Roseman, Kate Ceberano, Bob Moses, The Artie Shaw Orchestra, The Australian Art Orchestra and The Black Arm Band.	"Unforced poetry" John Shand, Sydney Morning Herald "Ravishingly beautiful music...enchanting lyricism…the epitome of understatement." Jessica Nicholas, The Age "In fact, it was Wilson who provided what may have been the highlight of the Festival when he performed with his Trio in the Holy Trinity Cathedral. The sheer majestic quality of this band's music is astounding, and, in the vast surroundings of the Cathedral, Wilson's soaring tenor took on a spiritual quality, reaching all the way back to Coltrane. With an unlikely instrumentation of guitar, accordion and saxophone, the Trio gently added subtle textures to the mix, creating a music that seemed to be full of air and light. Stephen Grant's accordion floated dreamlike through the space, while Stephen Magnusson's guitar pierced the veil, intelligent and thoughtful. Solos were few and far between, but when Wilson did set off, his tenor soared to the upper reaches of the Cathedral, filling the church to overflowing. It was a remarkable performance, full of such intimacy and telepathic communion" Des Cowley - Review of Wangaratta Jazz Festival - RHYTHMS DEC2007.

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING Cat# SV0519 Barcode
Track Listing 1. Beautiful accident 2. Fortuity speaks 3. Rustic 4. The tasteless adventures of Shabby McBrown 5. Desencontro certo 6. Absurd encounters 7. Right way down 8. Used to be 9. Clube de esquina #2	WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING Cat# SV0519 The long awaited debut album by one of Australia's leading saxophonists featuring a selection of the countries finest jazz musicians. Includes BONUS DVD of live performance by WILSON, GRANT, MAGNUSSON and a trance video featuring music by SNAG. Featuring: Julien Wilson - tenor saxophone Stephen Magnusson - guitars Steve Grant - piano accordion Philip Rex - double bass Simon Barker - drums Jordan Murray - trombone Melbourne saxophonist, Julien Wilson, has performed at many of Australia's major music festivals, as well as touring in Europe, China, Mexico, New Zealand and the USA. He studied at the Victorian College of the Arts and won the National Jazz Award in 1994. In 1999 he received a scholarship from the prestigious New England Conservatory in Boston and assistance from the Australia Council and the Ian Potter Foundation to pursue graduate studies with Paul Bley, George Russell, Jerry Bergonzi, George Garzone and Bob Moses.	Julien formed the feisty, popular, jazz-rock band Festa, who released two critically acclaimed albums in the late 90's. He also co-leads the Assumptions Trio and the Swiss based band, Snag. Both these bands released two albums and toured extensively in Australia, with Snag performing regularly in Switzerland between 1997 and 2001. He is a permanent member of the Australian Art Orchestra, Murphy's Law, Los Cabrones, Rumberos, 12 Tone Diamonds, Paul Grabowsky's Australian Quintet, The Aaron Choulai Quintet and The Bennetts Lane Big Band, and is also a founding member of the band Ishish, who toured Europe in 2001, performing at Pori and Umbria Jazz Festivals. Julien's prodigious technique, strong tone, and wide emotional, sonic and stylistic range have led him to be featured on recordings by artists as diverse as Mike Nock, Chris Tanners Virus, Augie March and Nichaud Fitzgibbon. He has performed with popular groups and artists such as Thirsty Merc, The Cat Empire, Daddy Cool, Archie Roach & Ruby Hunter, as well as with international musicians including Jim Black, Andy Milne, Josh Roseman, Barney McAll and Hugh Masekala. He currently teaches saxophone and improvisation at Monash University and the Victorian College of the Arts.

Reviews
	The Australian 04/11/06 while you were sleeping Julien Wilson SoundVault ****1/2 Review by John McBeath MELBOURNE saxophonist Julien Wilson added to his well-stocked CV by winning the 2006 Freedman Jazz Fellowship, with judges commenting that Wilson's musicality transcends the instrument. It does, and he has a rare ability to score unusual tonal qualities from his arrangements and combinations. Three of nine tracks feature his unlikely trio of tenor sax, guitar (Stephen Magnusson) and piano accordion (Steve Grant), and all but two latin numbers are Wilson originals. The trio's blended tonality, particularly on the slow-tempo Beautiful Accident, is due to Magnusson's softer-sounding nylon-strung guitar and Wilson's mellow intonations integrating with the sympathetic accordion. Other tracks have more conventional groupings: The Tasteless Adventures of Shabby McBrown uses fun trombone and tenor sax in front of bass, drums and guitar drunkenly dragging the beat. Wilson's titles, like his playing, are clever, thoughtful and evocative. Absurd Encounters adds bass and drums to the trio's out-of-tempo journey, showcasing Wilson's tonal excellence, control and limitless flow of exploratory ideas.	While You Were Sleeping John Shand, reviewer Sydney Morning Herald August 28, 2006 Saxophonist Julien Wilson arrived on a shock wave in the early '90s and has been vital to Australian music since. The title is perfect because this music unfolds like a dream: floating, despite being laden with unlikely juxtapositions, the edges of which are blurred, like the roles of the instruments. It's certainly not a title you could apply to Julien Wilson's career because the Melbourne saxophonist arrived on a shock wave in the early '90s and has been vital to Australian creative music since. Just as there are some bass-playing musicians who are not really bassists in their thinking, there are some tenor-playing saxophonists who aren't really tenor saxophonists. Wilson was always the real thing, exploiting the instrument's warmth and sonic breadth to make gripping statements. Several line-ups join him on this, his finest album, including the magical trio with guitarist Stephen Magnusson and accordionist Stephen Grant (which also features on an accompanying live DVD), plus the ever-startling rhythm section of Philip Rex and Simon Barker.
	2006 Freedman Jazz Fellowship awarded to Julien Wilson Julien Wilson has been selected as the Music Council of Australia/Freedman Jazz Fellow for 2006. The judges, Judy Bailey, Carl Dewhurst, and Steve Hunter awarded the Fellowship following his performance at Freedman Jazz in the Studio of the Sydney Opera House with his band, the Julien Wilson Trio. Julien Wilson (34) is an in-demand saxophonist and composer who spent much of the late 90s living and working in Europe with the Swiss based multinational band SNAG. He also studied on scholarships in the USA with Paul Bley and George Russell and performed with the Bob Moses Quartet. He is a permanent member of Ishish, The Australian Art Orchestra, assumptions, Murphy’s Law, Rumberos and Los Cabrones and has worked in small groups with Mike Nock, Barney McAll, Paul Grabowsky and Jim Black. He holds music degrees from Melbourne University and New England Conservatory in Boston and currently teaches improvisation and saxophone at the Victorian College of the Arts and Monash University. Julien is currently Musical Director of a project involving Indigenous musicians from Arnhem Land and members of the AAO, and has recently released his debut CD after many years co-leading and recording with Festa, assumptions and SNAG. From The Music Australia Council website, click here to read more information on the Freedman Fellowship.	Fresh wind blows for dynamic trio John Shand June 21, 2006 Freedman Jazz, The Studio, Sydney Opera House June 19 If at first you don't succeed … Having lost out to the pianist Matt McMahon at last year's Freedman Jazz - an annual competition funded by the Freedman Foundation and supervised by the Music Council of Australia - the Melbourne saxophonist Julien Wilson returned this year and took the spoils: $15,000 cash and a $5000 promotional package. Wilson has been a force in Australian jazz for a dozen years with his dark tenor saxophone sound and imaginative compositions for highly interactive bands, often with unconventional instrumentation. For a trio with piano accordion (Stephen Grant) and electric nylon-string guitar (Stephen Magnusson), Argentinian music is obviously a reference point. More important are the band's inner dynamics: the subtleties and internal rhymes of Grant and his close-weaved interaction with the mobile, flexible Magnusson, who thinks musical thoughts no one has thought before and realises them with exquisite touch and tone. As much as anything harmonic, they create a foundation of melodic contour for Wilson's saxophone to unfurl across with an unforced poetry. The decision of the judges, Judy Bailey, Steve Hunter and Carl Dewhurst, was also based on the finalists' proposals on how they would use the money to advance their careers. Wilson plans to tour Scandinavia with his trio and record an album in New York with the American drummer Jim Black. From an article on the Sydney Morning Herald website, click here to read more of this article.