Ryan Benthall calls his music “jazz adjacent,” reflecting the fact that his compositions, while founded in jazz structures, are informed by a wealth of musical influences, as heard in Octave Records’ latest release, Divine Sky. The album includes nine original compositions that combine Benthall’s distinctive melodies with rich harmonic textures, beautifully orchestrated ensemble passages, and virtuoso musicianship.
Divine Sky features Ryan Benthall on piano and synthesizers, along with Braxton Kahn on drums, Bill McCrossen playing upright bass, Jason Greenlaw on guitar, and the formidable horn section of David Bernot on tenor sax and Sean Applebee playing trumpet. The group displays a variety of instrumental textures, from classic jazz stylings to musical passages that aren’t easily categorized. It’s all conveyed in Octave Records’ extraordinary Pure DSD sound, with a natural tonality, clarity and warmth that perfectly complements the music. The grand piano is recorded with a depth of tone, complexity, and dynamic shading that bring out the beauty of the instrument and is one of the many reasons that Divine Sky is a joy to listen to.
The album was recorded and mixed at Octave Studios by Jay Elliott, mastered by Gus Skinas, and produced by Ryan Benthall. It was recorded using Octave’s Pyramix Pure DSD system, and mixed and mastered using a PS Audio PMG Signature DAC and preamp and flagship Aspen FR30 loudspeakers, a process that ensures that what the musicians played in the studio is faithfully captured and reproduced with extraordinary realism.
Ryan Benthall. Courtesy of the artist.
“Divine Sky,” the title track, begins the album with Benthall playing a pensive piano intro, then joined by the ensemble stating the melody, with shifting chord changes, alternating quiet and energetic passages, and a guitar solo with a sweet, rounded tone. The uptempo “Time Lion” is powered by a bass riff on a tricky time signature and features more of the band’s many improvisational flights, by Benthall on piano, then Bernot and then Benthall again on synthesizer. This is musicianship of the highest caliber.
The melody of “Scribe” was composed in a unique way: Benthall was sitting with his two-year-old daughter and she began drawing lines and shapes on staff paper. He adapted these shapes into music. “Wisdom” is a slower-tempo piece that has the musicians in a reflective mood, while “Orion’s Tale” finds them exploring free-form territory. “Ebb and Flow” is simply sublime. Divine Sky ends with “Zen City,” which has a sparse, open, contemplative feel, the perfect way to end an album that takes the listener through a varied and colorful musical landscape.
Divine Sky features Octave’s premium gold disc formulation, and the disc is playable on any SACD, CD, DVD, or Blu-ray player. It also has a high-resolution DSD layer that is accessible by using any SACD player or a PS Audio SACD transport. In addition, the master DSD and PCM files are available for purchase and download, including DSD 512, DSD 256, DSD 128, DSD 64, and DSDDirect Mastered 352.8 kHz/24-bit, 176.2 kHz/24-bit, 88.2 kHz/24-bit, and 44.1 kHz/24-bit PCM.
I talked with Ryan about the new album, jazz, music, and more.
Frank Doris: Let me start with the obvious: what inspired you to do this album, and how'd you pick the musicians and the songs?
Ryan Benthall: There's a really interesting story behind the album, because it was the last album recorded at the previous Octave Studios. I was so pleased at the sound of our previous album (Sovereign Mind) that we got another date lined up to have this whole other group of songs recorded there. As they were tearing down the studio, we were in the mixing room while they were moving out of the tracking room!
FD: I’m glad it didn’t go into the ozone. The first thing that I got from hearing the album was the energy and the feeling of it. This really just really together-sounding music. Do you think having to get it done under pressure had anything to do with that?
RB: Yeah. We recorded the [core] trio live in about two and a half days. Then the horn players came in and they tracked separately, but you can’t really tell. It sounds like it’s all live. And Jason (Greenlaw) came in and really crushed it. Which is crazy, because we actually did more post-mixing work than on the previous album, [also] because there's more electronics on it. Lots of analog synthesizers. So had sessions where I created sounds on the Moog Subsequent 37 (synthesizer), and then I brought in my old MicroKorg. and made a lot of sounds on that.
On ”Divine Sky,” when it gets to the solo and the ambient synthesizers and everything, we took all of the instruments out except for the drums, and in the post-production mixing I added analog synth bass. We took out the upright bass and replaced [it] with the Moog bass, and Jay made it flawless in his mixing. You can’t even tell.
FD: So, did you leave holes in the arrangements for the instruments to be added later?
RB: Kind of. When we played it live with the trio it just goes to show what a great drummer Braxton Khan is [in leaving space in the arrangements]. There are a lot more drums on this album [than on Sovereign Mind] and more opportunities for him to really show what he can do.
FD: I don't even know if I could call music like this jazz anymore, or maybe this is what the jazz of today has evolved to. It's not people playing out of The Real Book [a songbook that jazz musicians use to guide their way through jazz standards – Ed.]; it sounds like its own thing. I hate to use critic terms like “postmodern.” But would you consider this jazz?
RB: [The songs] really all started as piano compositions. And I'm very influenced by classical music and late Romantic and impressionistic music, which leads to jazz. I'm very influenced by jazz at the same time. So, it's like it’s in the jazz format in terms of instrumentation, but it's also influenced by the post-Romantic, early modern, impressionistic [style] like Ravel or Fauré or Debussy in terms of chord movements or form, and the style of harmony…I mean, I don't compare myself to the greats of all time, but that's what influences me. Sometimes I call [my music] “jazz adjacent.”
FD: Well, we're all influenced by the greats. A week doesn't go by when I hear an artist from 50 years ago or whenever, and you hear where it all comes from. John Lee Hooker’s “Boogie Chillen” came up the other day and I’m like, oh yeah, that’s where where ZZ Top got 75 percent of their thing from.
RB: Right. It leads on into the next generation for sure.
My music does follow the jazz format of instrumentation, and people improvise, and we do solos. But then I'm also influenced a lot by synthesizer music and chaotic music as well. And ambient music. Everything from Brian Eno to The Mars Volta, I think, comes out in a lot of this stuff.
FD: In today's world, you can be a hybrid of anything.
RB: I think that music also really touches the soul through resonance and actual physics of vibration, which is very real. And in the age of computer music, what we can do at Octave and what we're kind of pushing there is the actual serious quality of the recording process and recording acoustic instruments. There's no click track in this music. I think that's what sets it apart – the fact there's so much music out there that's very automated. It's obsessed with perfection, and now we're reaching the age of AI music. And so I can make something that is very clearly not AI and also very clearly not exactly a formula. And then there’s the way that we record it, just the pure quality of it. What Octave is doing. I really dig that.
Paul [McGowan] is on the executive producer side of actually making this thing happen, getting it into the world, getting it into the hands of people that are really going to care about it. But in terms of the producing and mixing and tracking, this was me and Jay Elliott, and I have to give Jay a ton of credit here. We're like, "We only have this much time.” We had to get all the tracking done, and literally a week later, all the equipment in there is gone.
We were literally finishing this record as they were tearing down the studio. I was almost teasing the idea of making a music video where I'm playing the piano, and it's the climax in the song, and then a wrecking ball wrecked through the back of me or something. It felt like that! We did so many mixing sessions. It took longer than the tracking. We marathoned it, and we spent sometimes six- to eight-hour days mixing this.
FD: You could massage it forever, but you get to a point where it's just, this is it, especially when you have that time pressure.
RB: Well, we had no choice. Which actually brought out a really cool quality in all of this. We still got everything to where it wasn't rushed. [But] I remember on the last day, Jay was like, “My brain is fried, man.” A big shout out to Jay because he knew how to get it done.
FD: I have to give you guys a lot of credit, because the album has that improvisational jazz combo kind of feel, but also you have that extra element with all the synths and sounds and…this album just has an indefinable...I can't even describe it right now. It just gave me the feeling of, wow, I really like this.
RB: That means a lot.
FD: How'd you come up with the album title, Divine Sky?
RB: It came from a piece that I wrote when I was living in the Leather Trades Artist Lofts in downtown St. Louis. We had these giant windows and they overlook downtown. And there are these old churches that are right outside with these big steeples, and some pretty breathtaking sunsets. I was writing “Divine Sky” during a particular evening when just the sun was hitting the clouds and the horizon just right, and it was over the church.
So, “divine” [was] being over the steeple, and I had such a view of the sky. Just kind of in the moment, how I was feeling. I imagined you're flying through the atmosphere as a bird or something, flying through all of these colors, and lapis, lavender, orange, peach. And so that's where all the synths and all layers and colors come in with the instrumentation. During the solo section we tried to get the feeling where you're just flying through a plane of atmosphere.
The only song that was written in Colorado [and not St. Louis] was the last track, “Zen City.”
FD: It sounds like Colorado.
RB: Right...You can hear it.
And then “Scribe” was written with my daughter when she was sitting on my lap and she was just tracing lines and shapes on the staff paper. And I drew the dots onto the shape that she was drawing. See, she's like my little scribe.
FD: Steve Allen used to do stuff like that. He would have a schtick on The Steve Allen Show where he said he could make a composition on the spot from anything. He would take a photo of a city skyline and overlay a music staff and put notes where the tops of the buildings were. Then he would sit at the piano and play this melody and fill in the chords.
RB: It's really just the shape, and it could inspire the idea profoundly. Really, that's all it is. You're just moving up and down or you're staying in one spot.
I wrote “Bow Tie” specifically for a venue called The Dark Room, which is kind of a St. Louis staple spot where they do jazz jams and where a lot of the best players play. A friend of mine, Keith Bowman, is a great jazz drummer. And so I wrote that to him.
I've got a catalog that's built up over time where I’m like, “Wait, these are great songs. You can't just let them fade. Make an album.” And I just put it all together.
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