Ben Monder - Dreamsville by Sunnyside Records

From Ben Monder's "Day After Day" (4/12/19) on Sunnyside Records.

Creating a distinctive voice and approach on a musical instrument is as difficult as it is rare. Guitarist Ben Monder has long been admired for his personal sound, remarkable command of the guitar, and stylistic versatility. His new recording, Day After Day (a two disc set), provides a look at two distinct sides of his artistic nature, the highly analytical, structural side and the more freely improvisational side, through a series of interpretations of cover material.

The idea of presenting a collection of arrangements of other composers’ works had long been a goal for Monder, but one that until now had not been realized. In 2014, he was awarded a grant from The Shifting Foundation, and saw this as an opportunity to finally pursue this vision. For a few months he sequestered himself in an apartment in Saugerties, New York, and began the process of writing the arrangements that would ultimately find their way onto this release. Most of the selections are tunes dear to his heart, many taken from records he listened to in childhood.

Monder eventually enlisted longtime friend and collaborator Patrick Zimmerli to act as a sounding board and performance coach for the development of the solo material, and his help turned out to be invaluable, as was his accepting a producer’s role in the recording studio later on. These pieces, beautifully recorded by Joseph Branciforte in April of 2018, would become the first disc of Day After Day.

To round out and balance the project, Monder convened his favorite trio, including bassist Matt Brewer and drummer Ted Poor, at a session at Brooklyn Recording where they spent two days in October 2017 recording a variety of old pop tunes with the aid of master engineer James Farber. Monder would subsequently pare these down to eight pieces, which are presented on the second disc.