Jesse Wittman

Auteur: Music Inspired by the Films of Wes Anderson

By Amanda Gardier

Label: Self Produced
Released: 2024
Track listing: Coping with the Very Troubled Child; Let's Hope It's Got a Happy Ending; I Wonder if It Remembers Me; The Blue of Winter; The Incarcerated Artist and His Muse; Electroshock Therapy; The Cycling Reporter; Order for Yourself; Green Line.

Amanda Gardier: Auteur: Music Inspired by the Films of Wes Anderson

by Robert Middleton
October 27, 2024

Amanda Gardier's Auteur is not just an album--it is a cinematic experience captured in sound, an exploration of one of America's most singular film directors, Wes Anderson, through the language of modern jazz. The album showcases Gardier's ability to translate visual storytelling into a sonic narrative that is vibrant, eclectic and highly expressive. With ...

Charlie Ballantine: Jazz Guitar Without Borders

by Mark Sullivan
April 6, 2023

Indianapolis-born jazz guitarist/composer Charlie Ballantine has a special relationship with American music of all kinds: jazz, folk, the blues (his father was a blues guitarist, providing some of Ballantine's earliest musical memories) and contemporary rock. He is acclaimed as one of the finest and most versatile young guitarists on the scene today. Yours truly described his ...

Reflections/Introspection: The Music Of Thelonious Monk

By Charlie Ballantine

Label: Green Mind Records
Released: 2021
Track listing: Reflections; Bemsha Swing; Off Minor; Ugly Beauty; Raise Four; Bemsha Swing (Alternate Take); Pannonica (Solo); Brilliant Corners; Green Chimneys; Introspection; Evidence; Ask Me Now; Monk's Dream; Brilliant Corners (Alternate Take); Let's Cool One.

Charlie Ballantine: Reflections/Introspection: The Music Of Thelonious Monk

by Mark Sullivan
November 15, 2021

Indianapolis-based guitarist and composer Charlie Ballantine has made thematically organized albums before. Life is Brief: The Music of Bob Dylan (Green Mind Records, 2018) featured creative versions of songs by the iconic songwriter, and Vonnegut (Green Mind Records, 2020), was made up of original Ballantine compositions inspired by the work of novelist Kurt Vonnegut. Here the ...

Charlie Ballantine: Vonnegut

by Mark Sullivan
January 4, 2021

Indianapolis-based guitarist/composer Charlie Ballantine took his inspiration from iconic American novelist Kurt Vonnegut for this project, the most complex set of music in his already lengthy and varied recording career. He was joined by fellow Indianapolis musicians: saxophonist Rob Dixon, saxophonist/clarinetist Amanda Gardier, pianist Mina Keohane, bassist Jesse Wittman and drummer Cassius Goens. Dixon, Gardier and ...

Vonnegut

By Charlie Ballantine

Label: Green Mind Records
Released: 2020
Track listing: Sympathy for Malachi Constant; The Mind of Dwayne Hoover; Eloise Metzger; Unk; Kilgore in Timequake; No Damn Cat, No Damn Cradle; Space Wanderer; Kilgore in Breakfast of Champions; So It Goes.

Charlie Ballantine: Cold Coffee

by Mark Sullivan
August 11, 2019

Indianapolis-born jazz guitarist/composer Charlie Ballantine has a special relationship with American music of all kinds: jazz, folk, the blues (his father was a blues guitarist, providing some of Ballantine's earliest musical memories) and contemporary rock. His previous album Life Is Brief: The Music Of Bob Dylan (Green Mind Records, 2018) made the inspiration outside of jazz ...