Initial Here

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“Her music leans forward at you. She has a percussive touch, graceful and sometimes aggressive, and she likes playing fast, walking or soloing or delivering a jagged ostinato. She’s justifying the role of bassist as bandleader, starting the tunes, pushing the band, delivering clean, strong rhythm and melody.”

With her debut CD, Entry, bassist/composer Linda Oh asserted herself as a unique new voice on the modern jazz scene. On her follow-up, Initial Here, Oh draws deeply upon her rich cultural heritage and broad range of inspirations to further define her musical autobiography.

“This album tells a story about identity. Cultural identity and musical identity. I wanted to go in a few different directions to explore some more extreme emotions.” —Linda Oh

Born in Malaysia to Chinese parents and raised in Western Australia, Oh arrived in New York five years ago with a love of jazz, early training in classical bassoon, and an adolescence spent playing electric bass in Aussie rock bands. All of that experience surfaces on Initial Here, from the in-the-tradition ballad playing on “Mr. M” to her buoyant electric basslines on “Deeper Than Happy” and the mournful bassoon woven throughout “Thicker Than Water.”

The quartet that Oh assembled to realize this eclectic blend of material are all equally adept at integrating diverse influences. Dayna Stephens is a graduate of both Berklee College of Music and the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz and is also a skilled bassist in his own right. Cuban-born pianist Fabian Almazan was a classmate of Oh’s at the Manhattan School of Music, where the two quickly formed a musical bond; Oh continues to perform in Almazan’s thrilling trio. And Rudy Royston has become the drummer of choice for artists as diverse as powerhouse saxophonist JD Allen, groundbreaking guitarist Bill Frisell, and forward-thinking bassist Ben Allison.

Personnel: Linda Oh, acoustic/electric bass; Dayna Stephens, tenor saxophone; Fabian Almazan, piano/rhodes/melodica; Rudy Royston, drums; Jen Shyu, voice

Recorded by Michael Brorby at Acoustic Recording except track 6 by Tyler McDiarmid at North 6 Media Labs.

Mixed by Tyler McDiarmid; Mastered by Gene Paul at G&J Audio