Caminhos Cruzados - Mike Holober by Braithwaite & Katz

"Caminhos Cruzados" is the last song on acclaimed composer and arranger Mike Holober's double album "Hiding Out” with his all-star Gotham Jazz Orchestra. The album is available August 9, 2019 via ZOHO Music.

After a decade spent hiding in plain sight as an arranger and composer with some of the world’s most renowned large ensembles, Holober returns to the helm of his own stellar big band, the Gotham Jazz Orchestra. On his breathtaking new double album, he unveils two sweeping new suites, inspired by the grand vistas of the natural world but invigorated by the pulse of the urban jungle where the music thrives.

While each of his arrangements bears his unmistakable imprint, Holober’s striking voice comes fully to the fore on the second CD. The album is focused on two suites that vividly depict the grandeur of the American landscape: the title suite, “Hiding Out,” was originally commissioned by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and inspired by the stark beauty of the Ucross Foundation’s ranch in Clearmont, Wyoming,where it was written; while “Flow,” commissioned by the Westchester Jazz Orchestra, traces the course of the Hudson River from its source in the Adirondack Mountains to its terminus in Manhattan. The album is rounded out by two other pieces: “Jumble,” named for a lake in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and written for the U.S. Army Jazz Knights; and a dazzling arrangement of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Caminhos Cruzados.”

“There’s a double meaning to the title Hiding Out,” Holober says. “One is that I’ve been hiding out as a composer, arranger and sideman for other people and as an educator. But it also comes from the places where I wrote or that inspired these pieces – beautiful settings in the mountains and along the banks of beautiful rivers.”

The ensemble that breathes life into these stunning works spans the full history of the Gotham Jazz Orchestra, which made its recorded debut in 2004 with Thought Trains. Several of the instrumentalists on Hiding Out have been with the orchestra since that time, including woodwind players Dave Pietro, Jon Gordon, Charles Pillow and Steve Kenyon; trumpeters Tony Kadleck and Scott Wendholt; and trombonists Pete McGuinness, Bruce Eidem and Nathan Durham; while bassist John Hébert and drummer Mark Ferber are also longtime collaborators. This incarnation also features a number of more recent additions to the fold, among them names like reedists Ben Kono, Jason Rigby, Adam Kolker and Carl Maraghi; trumpeters Liesl Whitaker and James de LaGarza; trombonists Mark Patterson and Alan Ferber; guitarists Steve Cardenas and Jesse Lewis; drummer Jared Schonig; percussionist Rogerio Boccato; and trumpet master Marvin Stamm, the featured soloist on two tracks.