Videos

Sunday sessions! This week for Joe Henderson! He's one of the most raw and personal saxophonists of all time and a huge inspiration to me. Here's a super fun duo take of Joe's blues composition, Isotope, from his album, Inner Urge.

This one features the amazing Jonathan Dafgård on guitar. This is actually only the second tune we played together, but the connection was just instant! I'll definitely be posting some other tunes we did that day. Hope you enjoy this session as much as we did, much more coming soon. Help me out with a subscription and a comment down below if you enjoyed it!

SOCIAL LINKS:
Website: https://austinzhangstudio.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/austinzhangstudio/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/austinzhangstudio/
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/austinzhangstudio

The city truly does have a spirit, and this project doesn't even come close to encompassing it. However, if you enjoyed this video please like and subscribe, I post a new music video similar to this one on the first Sunday of the month and other performance recordings on all other Sundays:)

The last 4 months in Amsterdam will always have a special place in my heart! I met the coolest people, reveled in the majestic streets, and left a better person because of it. This composition/film outlines a bit of the personal development I experienced during my time living abroad. All the video was shot December of 2019. Watch in 4K if you dare!

Thank you all so much for the support so far! I've gotten so many encouraging comments both online and in person since starting Austin Zhang Studio last month so I will absolutely be giving these videos and blogs my undivided attention. For more information see my website: www.austinzhangstudio.com

Also, if you're wondering, there are no real instruments in this, and yes, MIDI is totally new ground for me. While I would've loved to have worked with a real orchestra, I wanted the challenge of trying to make electronic instruments sound as good as I could. I'm really starting to see how important of a skill that is for modern musicians.

Spirit of Amsterdam was composed, arranged, synthesized, mixed, filmed, and edited all by me. While I really love the process, as you can imagine, it's extremely time consuming (and doesn't always play to my strengths lol). If you're interested in collaborating on similar projects, I would love to hear from you!

SOCIAL LINKS:
Website: https://austinzhangstudio.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/austinzhangstudio/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/austinzhangstudio/
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/austinzhangstudio/
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/austinzhangstudio/

Here's our humble take on Thelonious Monk's amazing composition, Blue Monk. Nothing groundbreaking here, just using the blues to share a moment with you all!

This session features a very international band, Josef Zeimetz on bass and Chen Har Even on the drums.

If I could only one song form for the rest of my life, it would be the blues without hesitation. Such a healing music. Hope you enjoy this session as much as we did, much more coming soon. Help me out with a subscription and a comment down below if you enjoyed it!

SOCIAL LINKS:
Website: https://austinzhangstudio.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/austinzhangstudio/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/austinzhangstudio/
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/austinzhangstudio/
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/austinzhangstudio/

This is one of my absolute favorite songs to play: Jimmy Van Heusen's Darn That Dream. Been listening to Dexter Gordon play it since I was a kid and have always gravitated to it.

This session features an amazing Brazilian guitarist, Leo Herzog, who's currently studying at Conservatorium van Amsterdam. On bass is my great friend, August Bish. He studies at Ithaca College in New York, crosses between classical and jazz, and really brings a personal approach to both.

Hope you enjoy this more casual apartment session, much more coming soon. Help me out with a subscription and a comment down below if you enjoyed it!

SOCIAL LINKS:
Website: https://austinzhangstudio.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/austinzhangstudio/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/austinzhangstudio/
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/austinzhangstudio/
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/austinzhangstudio/

'Constable' aims to capture Mother Nature's spirit in sound and tap into the same power that John Constable used to impact me. From utter serenity to unthinkable enormity, Mother Nature can bring about inner peace, tragedy, insignificance, understanding, or all of the above. As I biked an 80 kilometer circle from Amsterdam through Zuid Kennermerland National Park and back, I saw the widest fields of green, a sunset to die for, and bone-chilling rainstorms all in a single day. I remember being totally soaked, drained of all my energy, and shivering only to turn a corner and see the most beautiful bird I'd ever seen angelically floating in a stream. That day, exhaustion and loneliness stood right beside complete euphoria, and I hope this project can bring you even half of the restoration and joy it brought me while making it.

“I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery — air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, 'This is what it is to be happy.'” ― Sylvia Plath

FOR FULL RELEASE NOTES: https://austinzhangstudio.com/2019/12/01/constable-release-notes/
(Less than 5 minute read)

PERSONNEL:
Robinson de Montmollin - Piano
Niklas Lukassen - Bass - https://www.niklaslukassen.com/
Josh Roberts - Drums - https://www.joshuarobertsmusic.com/
Austin Zhang - Alto Saxophone, Composition, Audio/Visual - https://austinzhangstudio.com/

SOCIAL LINKS:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/austinzhangstudio/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/austinzhangstudio/
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/austinzhangstudio/
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/austinzhangstudio/

Not the main purpose of this video, but I have to mention that everything you see in this video will likely be underwater due to rising sea levels within the next 100-200 years. Read more about the dire situation the Netherlands is soon to face here: https://www.vn.nl/rising-sea-levels-netherlands/

This video is my first attempt at using visuals to bring out a message in the music (sort-of a reverse film score). Between planning, composing, rehearsing, recording, mixing, filming, and editing literally hundreds of hours (granted, it was my first try) are in this 9 minute video. The exciting part though, is that this is just the beginning! Since taking some time away to clear my mind, streamline my process, and clarify my artistic vision, I now have so many more stories to tell and tons of music to share. Expect a project similar to this one once a month! I will also be sharing 2 live performance recordings monthly and writing blogs on my website. Please subscribe for more:)

This composition, Invisible Cities, was named by my friend, Dylan Reis (an amazing bassist in NYC/Philly), after the famous novel by Italo Calvino. You'll have to ask him to know exactly what he meant by that, but I loved the name and kept it.

The Honesty Band is a project I started in New York with the goal of overlooking sensationalism and clickbait culture. The musicians involved on this project, are some of the most authentic and true-to-themselves young artists I know. However, I want to iterate that Honesty Band is an approach and a mindset even more so than it is a specific group of people. The musicians in this video are my "Amsterdam" incarnation of Honesty Band and are all studying at Conservatorium van Amsterdam here in the Netherlands.

Roenik Roa - Guitar
Julian Wittich - Bass
Chen Har Even - Drums
Austin Zhang - Saxophone, Composition

For more information on Honesty Band: https://austinzhangstudio.com/home/honesty-band/

One of the best nights of my whole life was seeing Harold Mabern and George Coleman play together at the Jazz Standard earlier this year with Yotam Silberstein, Gerald Cannon, and George Coleman Jr. All my friends will tell you I wouldn't stop talking about that concert for a whole week and haven't stopped thinking about it since. My favorite part was when they played the melodies of several ballads one after another, no solos, just the most beautiful interpretations of melodies I'd ever heard. With everyone talking about the craziest solos or what substitutions to put where, it was so refreshing to hear so much music being made from the song itself. One of those melodies was Hoagy Carmichael's The Nearness of You, so I wanted to play this melody for Harold. No, this is not anything profound or flashy but it's what I felt like playing today after hearing the news.

I've had the pleasure of seeing Harold play live on many occasions and have never met a man as full of joy, charm, and goodness as him. Looking back, I can't believe I saw him playing at Fat Cat at 2AM to a bunch of drunk New Yorkers playing pool (at 83 years old), he should've been treated like the national treasure he was and is. Rest in Peace Harold Mabern!

Recorded by Anthony Najera at the Kitchen Cafe Dallas, on June 23rd, 2019

Ethan Ditthardt - Guitar
Dave Meder - Piano
Young Heo - Bass
Quinton Cain - Drums

austinzhangstudio.com

Recorded by Anthony Najera at the Kitchen Cafe Dallas, on June 23rd, 2019

Ethan Ditthardt - Guitar
Dave Meder - Piano
Young Heo - Bass
Quinton Cain - Drums

austinzhangstudio.com

Here is a beautiful tradition song from the country of Latvia I arranged for my final project for Jim McNeely's Studio Orchestra class. Hope you enjoy this!

Arta Jēkabsone - Vocal Solo
Ben Feldman - Video
Stefan Haerle - Mixing

austinzhangstudio.com

I didn't realize at the time of writing, but some of the melodies in here are actually from Imants Ramins famous arrangement of this song. Being an outsider to this tradition, I wasn't able to decipher what was the traditional song and what was added later by others. Hopefully, as I'm not profiting off this in any way and wrote it for a school project, there won't be any issues with this.