Jesse Chandler profile picture

Jesse Chandler

New Plastic Sounds and Electronic Abstractions

About Me

and here's the obligatory bio: Jesse Chandler was born in Boston November 20, 1978. He grew up in Woodstock, NY and began private studies in clarinet at the age of 7, classical piano at 10, violin at 13, and music composition/theory at 16. He also participated in the New York All-State Orchestra, Symphonic Band and Jazz Band while in highschool, and worked as an organist for a church from age 15 to 18. At 15 years old he started getting interested in jazz, and at 18 moved to New York City, where he attended the New School for Social Research/ Mannes College of Music, and earned a BFA in Jazz Performance for Organ and Piano. He has performed professionally in New York and all over Europe and America and recorded albums with many different musicians and bands, including Norah Jones, Jimmy Cobb, David “Fathead” Newman, and Turkish virtuoso Omer Faruk Tekbilek. On January 1st, 2003 Jesse moved to Lisbon, Portugal and began playing extensively throughout Europe at concert halls, jazz festivals and clubs, as well as TV and radio shows. He returned briefly to New York to record his debut album for Fresh Sound Records’ ( www.freshsoundrecords.com), released in 2004 and entitled “Somewhere:Between.” The album consists wholly of original compositions, and has garnered many excellent reviews, including one in the acclaimed jazz magazine/website All About Jazz (www.allaboutjazz.com), and ended up in critics’ end-of-year top albums lists for several jazz publications such as JazzTimes Magazine. Also in 2004, one of Jesse’s compositions was chosen to be featured on a sampler CD for Fresh Sound Records, the record label which has for the past ten years been crucial in documenting the modern New York jazz scene. In the summer of 2006 he was commissioned to write a suite of music for a dance piece. The piece was performed for children by a member of the prestigious Gulbenkian dance company in Lisbon. He also recorded the piece at his home studio. He has taught several master classes at prestigious universities in Portugal and Spain, and has had private piano students of all ages for many years. On December 31st, 2006 Jesse moved back to Woodstock to start fresh in a new (old) place. He thoroughly enjoys playing, recording, teaching and composing all kinds of music, especially Jazz, Classical, Rock and Brazilian music. He has been touring the u.s. and Europe and recording a lot recently with Robert Gomez, including a recent tour in France playing festivals with Sonic Youth and the Smashing Pumpkins.

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 7/20/2005
Band Website: myspace.com/jessechandler
Band Members: Jesse Chandler (organ, piano, moog, rhodes bass), Kris Bauman (saxomophone, clarinet); Bill Campbell (drums); John Ellis (saxophone); Mike Moreno (guitar); Albert Sanz (rhodes)
Influences: JAMC, MBV, SY, VU, YLT, YMG
Sounds Like: Here are the obligatory record reviews: "With that, I say we all better be checking out Jesse Chandler, because his new record transcends not only every cliche of organ jazz, but more momentously, casts aside many of the cliches of contemporary jazz in the process. A product of New York's New School, Chandler's part of the new school of modernists taking compositional inspiration from rock, film and electronic music. This compositional onus is taken in earnest, not as some spice to add to the conventional concoction to buffet sales. Hooks run deep, consisting of melodic sections having little to do with conventional jazz harmony and vocabulary and more to do with mood and atmosphere." ... "This is the record of the young 2004-so good that I can't see anyone coming along to challenge Jesse Chandler for new artist of the year." - Phil DiPietro, All About Jazz, January 2004 (http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=13020) ------ "Jesse Chandler’s debut disc Somewhere:Between moves with quicksilver grace, pulling together everything from old-school fusion (there’s even a cheeky lift from In a Silent Way) to current mergers between small-group jazz and pop music." ... "An attractive, very playable fusion disc that insinuates rather than hits you over the head – what’s not to like?"- Nate Dorward, Cadence Magazine, Nov. 2004 (http://www.ndorward.com/music/fivecds_nov04.htm)
Record Label: Fresh Sound Records (www.freshsoundrecords.com)
Type of Label: Indie

My Blog

Bat Macumba

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Posted by Jesse Chandler on Mon, 05 May 2008 09:39:00 PST

clarinet; Backstage Studios

Well, tomorrow I will break out my clarinet and play it in public for the first time in 10 years. Before that, I had studied clarinet for 12 years. I'm playing just a couple songs at Muddy Cup in New ...
Posted by Jesse Chandler on Fri, 07 Dec 2007 11:44:00 PST

BRAZILIAN GIG!! Mafalda e Os Androides!!TOMORROW!!

First of all, Mafalda and I are playing a Brazilian gig tomorrow in Kingston, NY at Backstage Studios (323 Wall St.) at 9 pm. You should come. It's only 5 dollars. Martin Keith on Bass, Jack Ryon on f...
Posted by Jesse Chandler on Thu, 08 Nov 2007 09:15:00 PST

turkish

last week i had a crash course in turkish music, as i had about one week to prepare for a gig with virtuoso turkish musician Omer Faruk Tekbilek. It was quite an important gig, as we played at the wal...
Posted by Jesse Chandler on Thu, 04 Oct 2007 06:28:00 PST

Songs...

here are some great psychedelic songs I've been digging very much lately:animal collective - derek [AMAZING!!]pink floyd - see emily playdungen - pandacaribou - melody day soft boys - i wanna destroy ...
Posted by Jesse Chandler on Sat, 15 Sep 2007 08:08:00 PST

Sonic Youth for breakfast/band name

here's some good music:1. Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation reissue, plus Murray STreet (2002), Sonic Nurse (2004), and Rather Ripped (2006)-- we played at the same festival as them in France, and stayed ...
Posted by Jesse Chandler on Fri, 24 Aug 2007 09:41:00 PST

what i've been listening to recently:

I'll add some comments later, but for now:Brian Eno - Here Come the Warm Jets (1974) and Another Green World (1975)Talking Heads - Remain in Light (1980)Charles Mingus - The Black Saint and the Sinner...
Posted by Jesse Chandler on Thu, 19 Jul 2007 07:17:00 PST

Holy Shit!

I just realized I spent my first year in NYC living (in a crappy New School dorm) right next door to where Andy Warhol's Factory was, at 31 Union Square West (the factory was #33, the decker building...
Posted by Jesse Chandler on Tue, 03 Jul 2007 09:23:00 PST

What's on the stereo...

This is just what I've been listening to, lately... usually in the car driving to Phoenicia or NYC with the ipod hooked up to a cassette adapter (or is it adaptor, i never know), playing through 2 sem...
Posted by Jesse Chandler on Thu, 14 Jun 2007 03:14:00 PST

There are two kinds of people:

those who say "there are two kinds of people: etc..." and those who don't. Which one are you? More importantly, do you prefer iced coffee or whiffle ball? or needlework?
Posted by Jesse Chandler on Tue, 12 Jun 2007 06:35:00 PST