Biography
Jeff’s story has been a long, surprising, meandering one, with a second (or third, or fourth) act that once wouldn’t have seemed possible. Nearly 30 years ago, Jeff first decided to play music for a living; 20 years ago, he set aside his musical ambitions and moved on to a more lucrative day job; and about five years ago, he finally found that his day job made it possible for him to revive those initial dreams. Jeff is now releasing his second album, “True,” an artful blend of ambient grooves with his warm, jazz-inflected trumpet and flugelhorn playing. The album is the next step in a unique trip that has turned a one-time limo driver, standup comic, bar-band musician and financial planner into an unexpected force in the world of instrumental music.
Produced by Will Ackerman, the founder of Windham Hill Records, “True” features music composed and performed by Oster, Ackerman, Jan Pulsford, Patrick Gorman and Ugandan vocalist Samite. The album was mixed by Bryan Carrigan (Alanis Morrissette, No Doubt) and the legendary engineer Bruce Swedien, whose other work includes Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”
“There have been a million recordings of horn players, some of them utterly brilliant, but in all these recordings there has never been anyone who incorporates so many influences or blurs genres or traditions as gracefully as Jeff Oster does,” says Ackerman. “The elements are familiar, but the synthesis is unique. This is a milestone recording."
For Jeff, though, the synthesis simply comes naturally. “The second record has more rhythm than the first, but none of it is really planned,” he says. “I just play what moves me, what I love, what sounds good to me. And I start by hunting for sound, more than anything else. I look for what’s out there that I can react to, build the songs from there, and figure, if I love it, maybe somebody else is going to love it.”
Raised in Florida, Jeff began playing music at the age of eight. He moved to Oregon for college, made contacts in the record industry, and came to Los Angeles to visit; a six-hour audition to become Ray Charles’ trumpet player didn’t result in the gig, but it was exciting enough that he moved to L.A. to try to break into the business.
When a record deal didn’t materialize immediately, he worked as a limo driver, often playing his song demos for the captive audience in his car. (One passenger, country singer Mel Tillis, was encouraging enough to help him get into ASCAP.) He wrote songs, played in cover bands in L.A., Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe, worked the wedding circuit, and even tried his hand at standup comedy for a while. In 1987, though, a client convinced him that he’d make a good stockbroker and financial planner; the client was right, and for the last 20 years Jeff has been extremely successful in the financial industry.
Jeff’s musical dreams resurfaced strongly in 2003, when he began using the computer software program Sonic Acid to create music using downloaded drum, bass and synthesizer tracks. Although he’d record his horn parts from across the room using the computer’s tiny built-in voice microphone, the resulting songs sounded good enough to become favorites on the mp3.com service, where he placed four songs on the Top Ten Downloads list. “I’d recorded these songs at three in the morning on a little 38-cent microphone,” he says, “but I was getting 40,000 downloads a month, so I knew I had something going on.”
The songs also attracted Will Ackerman, a musical idol of Jeff’s since the late 1970s. The two men recorded together in late 2003, cutting tracks that became the “At Last” EP and then the full-length album “Released.” The album, which Jeff has described as “Chet Baker meets Dead Can Dance,” won the 2005 Album of the Year and Best Contemporary Instrumental Album awards at the NAR Lifestyle Music Awards, which are voted by broadcasters and handed out by the New Age Reporter, the leading journal to cover New Age, World, Ambient and Electronic music. The Oster/Ackerman composition “At Last” also won the Best New Age Song award at the 2005 Independent Music Awards.
“True” features many of the same contributors as “Released,” with more emphasis on the rhythm tracks and on sounds from around the world, including Tibetan throat chants on “Tibet” and a spoken/sung interlude from Samite on “Serengeti.” Musicians include drummer Keith Carlock, bassists T-Bone Wolk and Michael Manring, cellist Eugene Friesen, keyboardists Philip Aaberg and Jan Pulsford, guitarists Patrick Gorman and Ackerman, percussionist Derrik Jordan, and vocalists Noah Wilding and Melissa R. Kaplan. “It might sound like hyperbole, but we may be witnessing the emergence of the next instrumental superstar,” wrote Bill Binkelman in an advance review in the New Age Reporter.
For Jeff Oster, though, superstardom was never the point. His goal, he came to realize after the years of driving limos and playing in bar bands and working as a financial advisor, is simply to play what he wants, to find music he loves and pass it on to anybody who wants to listen.
“Over the years, I never had any idea of what kind of music I would make on my own,” he says. “At first I was either trying to play other people’s music, or I was trying to write music that other people would record. And I never really thought about what my music would be like. I never said, ‘I’m gonna be an ambient chilled jazz flugelhorn player.’ But because I have enough financial resources now, I’m not trying to sound like whatever’s selling now. I‘m just going for stuff that sounds good and makes me feel good. And that’s an incredibly freeing way to work.”
Instrumentation
Jeff Oster - Trumpet/Flugelhorn
Will Ackerman - Acoustic Guitar
Michael Manring - Bass
Kelly Park - Piano/Vibes/Percussion
Lars Hidde - Synth/Remix
Joe Venegoni - Percussion
Carl Weingarten - Electric Guitar
RELEASED and TRUE, from trumpet-flugelhorn artist Jeff Oster, produced by Grammy Award winner Will Ackerman,
has won the 2005 and 2007 NAR Lifestyle Music Awards for:
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********* Album of the Year *************
*************** and *******************
* Best Contemporary Instrumental Album *
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2008 INDEPENDENT MUSIC AWARDS WINNER:
Best New Age Song - "Saturn Calling" (http://www.musiciansatlas.com/pages/jukebox2008.asp)
In addition, New Age Reporter.com (NAR), a site dedicated to the New Age Music Industry, named “True” #1 on the NAR Top 100 chart for September and October, 2007 ranked by broadcasters worldwide. They gave “True” the highest score ever on the NAR charts.
(http://www.newagereporter.com/charts/top100.asp)
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"The creation and playing of music should be a wonderous expression of the truth, a shining glimpse of the human heart in joy or pain.
There is an innocence to this; at least there should be. Jeff Oster writes and plays music like a child feels sunlight. There's no ego, no artifice; just the truth.
There have been a million recordings of horn players, some of them utterly brilliant, but in all these recordings there has never been anyone who
incorporates so many influences or blurs genres or traditions as gracefully as Jeff Oster does. The elements are familiar, but the synthesis is unique.
This is a milestone recording."
Will Ackerman
Windham County, VT
June 2007
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"I have recorded many of the world's greatest trumpet and flugelhorn
players. In fact, some of the most important that music has to offer.
So of course I thought that I had heard all that the flugelhorn and trumpet had to say musically.
That was before I had heard and mixed Jeff Oster's wonderful music.
Talk about tone, intonation, phrasing and all things wonderful about the instrument, Jeff has it all...
Listen to this fabulous music with open ears and open hearts, please..."
Bruce Swedien
Ocala, Florida
April, 2007
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"TRUE" - the stunning new release from award-winning chilled jazz trumpet/flugelhorn artist Jeff Oster.
Think Miles Davis meets Enya...
"TRUE" was recorded in Vermont at Imaginary Road Studios, with Grammy Award winners Will Ackerman producing, and Corin Nelsen at the board.
Mixed by Bryan Carrigan (Alanis, No Doubt) and
Bruce Swedien (Michael Jackson, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Quincy Jones)
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Jeff's new CD features world class performances from:
Keith Carlock (Steely Dan, Sting) - drums
T. Bone Wolk (Hall and Oates, Carly Simon)- bass and guitar
Michael Manring - fretless bass
Eugene Friesen (Paul Winter Consort) - cello
Philip Aaberg (Peter Gabriel, Elvin Bishop) - piano,synthesizer
Jan Pulsford (Cyndie Lauper,Chico Freeman) - synthesizer, drum programming
Samite - vocals and mbira
Melissa R. Kaplan (Splashdown, Universal Hall Pass) -vocals
Patrick Gorman - guitar
Noah Wilding - vocals
Derrik Jordan - percussion
Will Ackerman - guitar
TRUE features music composed and arranged by Jeff Oster, working with co-writers Jan Pulsford (she's composed and performed with Cyndie Lauper,
the Thompson Twins and Chico Freeman), Will Ackerman (Grammy Award winning guitarist/producer and founder of Windham Hill Records), Patrick Gorman and Uganda's Samite.
Look for "TRUE" on August 28th, 2007
As you listen, imagine...
http://retsorecords.com/guestbook.html
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RELEASED (2005)
Jeff Oster - Trumpet/Flugelhorn/Synthesizer/Loop Programming/Percussion/Vocals
Will Ackerman - Guitar/Producer
Happy Rhodes - Vocals
Philip Aaberg - Piano/Synthesizer
T. Bone Wolk - Bass/Acoustic Guitar
Gregory Douglass - Synthesizer
Charlie Bisharat - Violin
Jeremy Mendicino - Electric Guitar
Taylor Barefoot - Electric Guitar/Engineer
Bryan Carrigan - Sound Design/Drum Programming/Engineer
Produced by Will Ackerman
Discography
TRUE (2007)
RELEASED (2005)
AT LAST - EP (2004)
Airplay -
Music Choice, Sirius, XM, Echoes (NPR), radio throughout the world
RELEASED: Echoes' CD of the Month - September 2005
TRUE: Echoes CD of the Month - September 2007
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Awards:
RELEASED -
Album of the Year (New Age Reporter.com)
Best Contemporary Instrumental Album (New Age Reporter.com)
Best New Age Song (AT LAST - Jeff Oster/Will Ackerman/) - Independent Music Awards (2006)
TRUE: Best New Age Album Finalist - 2008 Independent Music Awards
and
Best New Age Song Finalist (SATURN CALLING)
Links
| http://www.jeffoster.com |
| Jeff Oster Official Site |
| Jeff on MySpace |
| Saturn Calling - featured on JPL/NASA's website |
| Jeff Oster feature on NASA/JPL |
| Jeff on ReverbNation |