*Notes 15 track CD with companion 40 page photo lyric book Sean Noonan with the Momenta String Quartet on In the Ring Drummer/Composer/Storyteller Enlists the Critically Acclaimed Momenta Quartet to Expand Upon Themes He’s Explored on Past Releases, Including This Year’s Pavees Dance and Bruised by Noon “…it’s safe to say that you’ve never heard music like this before…will have you wondering why Sean Noonan isn't a household name.” – Blogcritics.org Rounding out the trilogy of albums that he has released since the start of 2014, drummer/ composer and storyteller Sean Noonan will release In the Ring on October 6. In the Ring is the second album in Noonan’s A Gambler's Hand chamber music series, in which Noonan writes for and performs with a string quartet, this time the NY-based Momenta Quartet: Emilie-Anne Gendron and Adda Kridler on violins, Stephanie Griffin on viola, and Michael Haas on cello. For the last few years Noonan has been telling stories from the drum kit. His two previous 2014 releases, Pavees Dance: There’s Always the Night (which featured the original Can vocalist Malcolm Mooney) and his solo drum project Bruised by Noon were further steps along that path, although they were each distinctive projects in their own right. Pavees Dance featured six tracks of inspired spoken word performances layered over and entwined amongst intricate instrumentals from a band that also included bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma and guitarist Aram Bajakian. Bruised by Noon concluded the story that Noonan began to tell on his 2012 Songlines release, A Gambler's Hand, in which a man by the name of Finny Finnegan is trapped in a wall. That solo drum project included twelve "bouts" that Finnegan has with the wall (eleven instrumental and one spoken word) and further coalesced the concepts that have driven Noonan's work as he has continued to evolve as a creative artist. On In the Ring, as he did on A Gambler’s Hand, Noonan utilizes the strings as extensions of his own limbs, both conceptually and literally. “I learned a lot from both making and touring with A Gambler’s Hand about how a string quartet strives to be one organism. It’s similar to how I condition myself on the drum kit, as my compositions and performance on the drums were in effect a reflections and extension of one another,” explains the drummer. “Yes, both works belong to the same chamber series but however there is an aesthetic difference between In the Ring and A Gambler’s Hand. The relationship that I’ve established between the strings and me behind the drums remains the central musical core of the two projects.” “What’s most different between In the Ring and A Gambler’s Hand is the narration from the drums, unifying the rhythms from the kit with my voice, and conforming my vocals to the cadence of the drums,” continues Noonan. “This has become a new vehicle through which the listener can experience the subconscious improvisational interactions I have on In the Ring.” On this latest album, the prolific Noonan presents a collection of song cycles that together tell a story about the transformation of a man who get tickled by a sunbeam one morning on a mountain top, and who, as the story progresses, wanders and gets lost in a desert and transforms into a coyote. The coyote hitches a ride from the American folk hero Casey Jones, whose train crashes at the bottom of the sea, where the coyote transforms into the Celtic mythological creature known as a Silkie, and eventually back into his human form. As a result of his adventures, he loses his shadow; he can only reclaim it by challenging his own shadow to a round of shadow boxing In the Ring. “This song cycle is intended to be performed in sequence as a single entity, and is a reflection of the American cultural melting pot experience,” says Noonan. “Often after riding the C Train in Brooklyn and wandering around the planet I found myself collecting stories and finding characters so often that they virtually joined me for dinner.” Noonan incorporates cultural archetypes from a variety of sources, such as Casey Jones, and the Native American trickster/deity, Coyote, into his stories to illustrate some common themes that he’s discovered in his personal explorations. “In the end I noticed a similar pattern that ranged from John Henry to Pecos Bill and even to Rocky Marciano. The story transcends time and place; its themes are derived from sources around America, but it’s also very personal. It was when I went to Mali in 2009 on a grant assignment that I became to realize the importance of my job as an enthnomusicologist. In the Ring is launched by Noonan’s signature storytelling. Rather than playing the role of observant narrator, his poetic approach reflects the innermost thoughts of his protagonist as he experiences his transformation from Man to Coyoteman, to Silkie, and back to man. From track to track, as the story progresses, the Momenta Quartet alternately takes center stage and provides atmospheric support for Noonan’s graceful recitations, weaving and embellishing a musical tapestry that is as integral to the story as are Noonan’s own drumming and lyrical presentation. This is neither background music nor soundtrack, but an ethereal and innovative contribution to Noonan’s spoken word performance. While there are certainly a great many drummers who compose as band leaders aka - John Hollenbeck, Joey Baron and Paul Motian, to name just a few – Noonan’s exposure to and immersion into classical music makes him rather unique among them. While he’s earned considerable praise in the jazz world for his earlier releases, Noonan acknowledges that he has come to think of himself as a distinct hybrid: a jazz drummer and a classical composer. “To be able to create through compositional music you really have to dedicate yourself exclusively in understanding Western classical music tradition,” says Noonan. “In 2009, I took a two year sabbatical to study classical composition at the Aaron Copland School of Music. During this period I completely ignored my jazz roots, and put aside the influences of drummers like Jack DeJohnette, Tony Williams, and Ed Thigpen in order to learn from Western tonal innovators such as Stradella, Haydn, Beethoven, and post tonal innovators Stravinsky, Bartok, Nancarrow and Ives. I wanted to learn what really made them tick, and what they went through as they composed. I imagined myself conversing with them to get answers to my questions, along with spending innumerable amounts of time studying scores and listening, listening, and studying scores.” Noonan composed the pieces on In the Ring with an ear to transforming various story elements into aural pictures. That is immediately apparent from the first track, “Prelude to the Ring,” which captures the vast openness of a desert with separation and space provided by the ever ascending and descending harmonics of the quartet. On “Story of Jones,” the music speeds up and reaches a crescendo to simulate the crash of the train as it plunges to the bottom of the sea. “Reincarnation of Several Hammers” utilizes different motifs to portray the variety of those several hammers as they crash down. “The Final Conflict” is structured to resemble the back and forth of the dual commentators watching the shadow boxing match; the different right and left channels mimics their commentary. “This album is multi-dimensional,” states Noonan. “In addition to the story, there is still another whole world to experience on In the Ring, if one wishes to explore the compositional development process, or harmonic, textural and melodic expansion of the numerous leitmotifs. I usually emphasize this with all kinds of percussion instruments, so often the drum kit is treated like a jazz instrument, often assuming the role as a soloist, improvising another layer of counterpoint over the rich textures played by the strings. I approached In the Ring similarly to how Gene Krupa approached his role as the lead solo instrument in his orchestra.” Noonan’s dual passions – his “wandering” folk music theory and the utilization of strings as an extension of the drum kit – have come together on In the Ring in 15 tracks that consist of never before heard songs as well as a reworking of several works from previous projects. Noonan explains: “I really wanted to re-structure and further develop the musical ideas from older pieces like ‘Morpheus,’ ‘Dr. Sleepytime,’ and ‘Story of Jones, originally featured on the albums Stories to Tell and Boxing Dreams, performed by jazz and world musicians way back then before I knew how to truly compose. But I could even hear how I wanted to structure those compositions and as a result they appear as such on In the Ring,” he discloses. In the Ring is packaged in a 40 page book of photographic portraits which animate all of Noonan's poems. Both Pavees Dance and Bruised by Noon also included a striking visual companion booklet, the former featuring drawings and painting by Malcolm Mooney, who has developed a career as a visual artist over the past several decades, and the latter featuring abstract images in subtle shades of gray with a hazy vellum overlay, which are, in fact, x-rays of Noonan's shattered limbs after a nearly fatal car accident while on tour in Italy in 2003. Both of those books also feature lyrics and poetry, as does the one that accompanies In the Ring, which includes photos by Dirk Eusterbrock, whose work has been featured in such outlets as Playboy, Muzikexpress, and Alternative Press, with special effects created by makeup artist April Townes. “Lyrics and poetry are abstract. They don’t show the audience what I am seeing when I write them, or when I compose the music,” explains Noonan. “I’ve begun to include books as visual representations of the stories conveyed on these projects, so that anyone can experience the vision that inspired me.” “Now that I’ve done these two albums, I feel like I want to continue to compose for the string quartet for the rest of my life, since it offers such infinite possibilities,” Noonan concludes. “Currently I am sketching the ‘Skarbnik Suites,’ which will be recorded in London at the end of my UK tour this November, and I’m already working on a series of works for my I.Q. Quartet, that is pure improv concepts.”