Craig Owens and the Bodo Ensemble will release the album “The River” on Friday via Cloud Ear Records.
In addition to being available digitally for purchase, a limited run of copies will be available as well.
The record features Owens on guitar, voice, and percussion, longtime friend and original Bodo member Randy Bowen on drums, along with double bassist Miquel Santana Morales and Ellen Johnson Mosley on flute. David Lord, who produced and recorded the album (and who owns Cloud Ear), performs guitar duties on three tracks.
Owens will perform Saturday at Walker’s Jazz Lounge with the Bodo Jazz Band, an ensemble featuring himself, Bowen, Mosley, bassist Miki Jarvis, Gray Bishop and Ben Jervis on trumpet, reeds from Jason Whitmore, Ryan Anselmi, and Dave Dobbins, Joe Clements (trombone) and Kevin Rutschman (drums). That performance is at 8 p.m.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Tell me about how you assembled the band that we hear on this new album.
Randy Bowen (drums) came to town and Miguel Santana Morales (double bass) played along with us at Walker’s. We loved the sound of that, the way that music felt. It seemed like an opportunity, so mostly we just recorded the tunes that we had played on that gig with Ellen Johnson Mosley on flute. That’s how that came about. Randy and I have known each other since 1970. We go way back.
This represents some older connections and some new ones.
Right. And with Randy and Miguel, they seemed to be able to establish a rapport with almost anybody quite easily, quite quickly.
David Lord plays guitar on three tracks. He’s also the producer, releasing this on his Cloud Ear label. Tell me a little bit about working with David.
It’s been great working with David. One, we’re friends in the first place. Two, he creates a great atmosphere. You’re very comfortable, you’re very relaxed. You can work together. Rather than David dictating and saying, “You need to do this,” it wasn’t like that at all.
I absolutely love that the last thing we hear on this album is laughter. [At the end of “Then and When.”] It just gives it this incredible emotional resonance, this sense of celebration at the end of everything that we’ve heard.
I love it, man. There wasn’t really any type of discussion about whether that should stay. “No, we’re leaving that.” Also, perhaps, it would harken back to these other jazz recordings, not that we’re on the level of any of those people. Miles Davis, an aside that would appear on one of his recordings. “Play it again, Teo,” stuff like that.
It’s great that this record is being released on vinyl. I think that gives it a permanence that digital or CD does not.
I agree. I grew up on vinyl. I’ve still got vinyl from high school and middle school. I’m sort of a vinyl guy in that sense. I think that it enables us to see something like this as a distinct entity, self-contained. The artwork is more pronounced. We’ve had a lot of positive comments on the artwork. Well, that same artwork on a CD? It would not have that same effect at all. Yeah, I like it, man, as an artifact. I have plenty of CDs that we’ve made but there’s something about this, about the vinyl format, I like it. I prefer it.
