Trumpeter Riley Mulherkar and trombonist Andy Clausen have been friends and musical partners for nearly 20 years — since they were both literally kids in Seattle, just starting to hone their chops and form a relationship with the jazz tradition.
I first met them in April of 2010, first in two separate high school band rooms and then together in an artfully scruffy coffee shop. In case you missed it, I tell that story in the post below, which also heralds new music by their band, The Westerlies.
Seeking Paradise with The Westerlies
There are no instruments in Sacred Harp singing. Also known as shape-note music, it’s an American tradition tied up with religious community and rural folkways, originating in colonial New England and extending into Appalachia. The human voice, i.e. “sacred harp,” is all that the music re…
Over the last 15 years, I’ve kept up with the output of these two prepossessing musicians, in and out of their flagship brass quartet. Last year, Clausen released a gorgeous album of solo trombone music, recorded in a converted railroad water silo; Mulherkar put out an album of his own, making his long-awaited solo debut. At this point, they are the only two founding members of The Westerlies to remain with the group, which continues to operate at the convergence of multiple musical ideas.
Toward the end of last year, I reached out with the idea of a conversation, inspired partly by those two solo releases landing within the same year. We connected over Zoom on Dec. 30, 2024 — myself from a home office outside of Philly, and the guys in Clausen’s apartment in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, “also known as Westerlies headquarters, also known as The International House of Long Tones.” It was over the course of the interview that I learned about the forthcoming album by The Westerlies, which bears the title Paradise, and will be released on June. 13.
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