ONE
Calligram Records 0005
Release Date: November 3, 2023

One is the debut recording of the trans-continental collective Atlantic Road Trip. Chicago-based trumpeter Chad McCullough first met Slovakian vibraphonist Miro Herak in 2009 at the Banff Center for the Arts, a catalyst for creativity under the direction of trumpeter Dave Douglas. The two became great friends and frequent collaborators, touring throughout Belgium and Holland with numerous projects. Shortly before the pandemic they reached out to Scottish alto saxophonist Paul Towndrow, another longtime associate of Herak’s who is also heard here on traditional whistles and flute. Scottish drummer Alyn Cosker and Irish bassist Conor Murray complete the international ensemble.
“We stayed in close contact throughout the pandemic and even remotely recorded a set for the 2021 Glasgow Jazz Festival,” remembers McCullough. The following year, Atlantic Road Trip toured the UK, Netherlands, and Belgium. Returning to Scotland in 2023, they managed to find the time in their busy touring schedule to record One.

Collaboration is at the heart of One. “Musical projects and endeavours which are truly and successfully collaborative are hard to come by,” muses Towndrow. “You need to be on the same page as your co-conspirators, and if not, acceptance and compromise should feel as natural a part of the creative process as anything else. With Atlantic Road Trip, I feel that we’ve found that balance.” Herak concurs, adding that “I knew Chad and Paul quite well not only musically but also personally… I had no doubt this would be a very inspiring endeavor and that proved true beyond my expectations.”

The music on One is rich and varied, distilling Scottish and Slovakian folks traditions and blending them with a modern jazz aesthetic. “In Scotland there is an evolving musical tradition built not only around its indigenous music, but also around those who seek to collaborate across styles, genres, and continents,” comments Towndrow. His poetic "Pale Ale (Pale Ale/Dr. Jones Never Saw It Coming)” epitomizes this approach, reveling in its Gaelic roots in the opening reel with plaintive whistle and earthy bodhrán before seamlessly shifting into post-Coltrane improvisation. “White Cart Water” uses similar elements to completely different effect, accentuating the translucent beauty of whistle, vibraphone and trumpet over arco bass and delicate cymbal work.

Delving into his Slovakian heritage, Herak offers new interpretations of the traditional folks songs “Hore Haj, Dolu Haj” and “Kopala Studienku, Pozerala do nej.”* The latter is the basis of the Slovak national anthem. Herak’s contemplative introduction recalls the origins of his arrangement, a solo vibraphone performance at Carnegie Hall. “Hore Haj,” says Herak, “is a Slovak traditional song about inequality between the rich upper class and the common man and calls for an action in the fight against it.” The band intertwines Slavic dance rhythms with Scottish flute and contemporary jazz harmony in this upbeat, optimistic anthem for the common man.

With his fiery opener “The Other Fulton Street,” McCullough gives a nod to his adopted Chicago home and the Fulton Street Collective, a frequent outlet for McCullough’s many creative projects. In sharp contrast, his lovely, lyrical ballad “Auburn” draws inspiration from the iconic science fiction writer H. Beam Piper to imagine the end of the world. In Atlantic Road Trip’s hands it ends with neither a bang or a whimper, but rather with quiet dignity and expansive beauty.

Hard on the heels of the release of One, Atlantic Road Trip will launch their first U.S. tour, a three-week long excursion featuring the premier of “Over Mountain, Under Sky,” a newly commissioned work for big band and string orchestra. The musicians look forward to bringing their collaborative efforts to new audiences both in person and through the release of One. “Music comes to life when cultural ideas are shared, explored, and given the opportunity to evolve and find a place in the hearts and minds of the audience as well as the people who create it,” relates Towndrow. “What happens when people are allowed the freedom to move, travel, exchange ideas, adapt and grow? How can we bring our diverse ideas together in a way that cuts to the heart of our shared experience as humans? I hope the music on One will invite the listener to reflect on these questions as we have done in creating it.”

releases November 4, 2023

Watch As The Echo Falls marks a conscious shift in Atlantic Road Trip’s artistic trajectory. Their debut album, ONE, served as their initial statement—a full quintet exploring folk music through their perspective as jazz musicians from around the globe. During the tour that followed, they composed Over Mountain, Under Sky, an ambitious, large-scale work for big band, orchestra, and trio that pushed their sound to its grandest scale.
With this release, they’ve intentionally pared everything back to discover what emerges when three instruments meet at their most essential. It’s an exploration of minimalism and intimacy that honors the folk and jazz foundations at the heart of their musical practice.

“This album navigates two fundamental questions,” says Chad McCullough. “The first is: how little can we use to say something meaningful? The second, paradoxically, asks how much color and texture we can incorporate while remaining true to our artistic core.”

The album weaves brief cinematic soundscapes between minimalist compositions that serve as frameworks for improvisation. Propelled by the trio’s diverse instrumental palette—particularly Paul Towndrow’s array of whistles, flute, and alto saxophone—the music reveals itself as protean and unpredictable. This is three musicians working at the height of their powers, resisting easy categorization at every turn.

At the trio’s foundation, vibraphonist Miro Herak provides the architectural framework upon which much of the music is built, offering both harmonic grounding and structural clarity for the horn players. Recorded in Herak’s hometown of The Hague, his thematic composition “Past Memories” and the album’s bookending “Prologue” and “Epilogue” create a subtle narrative thread throughout the recording. “When I composed ‘Past Memories,’” Herak explains, “I aimed to evoke a sense of nostalgia and reflection, allowing listeners to journey through their own memories while experiencing the music. I hope to create a space where audiences can connect with their own stories, evoking a sense of peace and introspection.”

Multi-instrumentalist Paul Towndrow, one of Scotland’s most versatile and inventive voices, contributed two contrasting pieces. “Parting of the Adriatic” is a serpentine, near-jig with pronounced Balkan inflections—playful and rhythmically intricate. “It explores the natural friction between Balkan time signatures and the Celtic and jazz traditions we grew up with,” says Towndrow. “It’s more than just a rhythmic experiment; it’s an attempt to find the exact intersection where our individual histories meet.” His second offering, “Cadmus,” strikes a more contemplative tone. “I wrote it as a reflection on memory and the stories that anchor our history,” Towndrow explains. “It’s named after a WWII minesweeper that sailed with my grandfather’s ship, the HMS Sheffield. This song is about keeping those fleeting moments from being lost to time.”

McCullough composed the album’s remaining pieces, most written in the week leading up to the session. “I was convinced nothing would work,” he recalls. “I kept writing, hoping something would land, but felt like I was missing the mark entirely. I even called one of my sketches #72 because it felt like I’d written that many bad things. I arrived fairly anxious, but the moment we began rehearsing, those fears evaporated.” Some tracks lean into maximal texture—”Spell Breaking,” with its five vibraphone layers, multiple whistle parts, and doubled trumpet lines, began, as McCullough describes it, “as a longer-form composition drawing equally from Tears for Fears and the Irish-Anglo traditional band Flook. With no guitars to be found, we leaned into creative studio production to realize the textures I was hearing.” With others, so much color and depth emerged by leaving significant interpretive space for the musicians to inhabit. “Silere” evolved from an abandoned motet into what McCullough considers “one of the more beautiful pieces on the album.” “Fading Photograph” finds him “drawn to the challenge of playing trumpet beneath the flute—from our first session together, I’ve felt an intuitive connection with Paul’s phrasing; sometimes it’s scary enough that we both laugh.” “And Again” layers shifting melodies that modulate and change meter contrapuntally over one another. “Echo Falls” presents a straightforward folk melody in 5/4 that, while growing in complexity, is always anchored by Herak’s recurring ostinato. And “Singularity,” inspired by the West African balafon, takes its name from the trio’s unified sense of purpose and focus.

The album unfolds with intentional contrast—synthesizer interludes and electronically processed passages set against spare, acoustic trio pieces. Through it all runs a unifying principle: these musicians refuse to settle into comfortable folk-jazz conventions. As McCullough puts it, “This album is like jumping into the ocean. You never quite know what’s coming, but you’re guaranteed to get fully submerged.”