Outskirts

... an extraordinary session of creative ensemble interplay and free-wheeling improvisations.
John Barron, All About Jazz

For his third OA2 release, New York trumpeter Liam Sillery broadens his recorded musical palette as he explores the "outskirts" of mainstream jazz. While retaining his strong melodic and harmonic sense, Sillery's expanded phrasing and the band's collective improvisations unfold into an organic sea of deeply musical explorations, even deconstructing the title track from Liam's first release Minor Changes (which also featured pianist Jesse Stacken and bassist Thomas Morgan). Alto saxophonist Matt Blostein blends nicely with Sillery on Black Bag, as each horn player challenges the other's creative wit throughout. Most definitely a departure from his previous recordings, "Outskirts" offers a further look into Sillery's artistic prowess and begs the question, "what's next?!"

Production Info:

Produced by Liam Sillery
Recorded June 22, 2007
at Knoop Studios, River Edge, NJ
Recorded and Mixed by Manfred Knoop
Band photo by Jan Marie
Cover design by John Bishop

Reviews of Outskirts

All Music Guide (Adam Greenberg)
On a third release for Origin's more exploratory arm OA2, trumpeter Liam Sillery moves slightly toward the realm of free jazz. The pieces are not entirely improvised, nor are they fully charted. Indeed, the band works in collective improvisation at varying levels throughout the album, exploring new phrasing ideas, exploring some off-kilter motifs a ...

Kultur.com (C. Michael Bailey)
Trumpeter Liam Sillery seeks the aural confines outside of the comfortable ordinary. He extends this journey in the title of his third OA2 release, Outskirts. This disc is about exacting composition within non-standard time signatures, making for craggy, inventive music that satisfies without bewildering. It is an evolution from his previous On ...

All About Jazz (John Barron)
For Outskirts, his third release as a leader, New York-based trumpeter/composer Liam Sillery assembles a progressive-thinking quintet to explore six original compositions. Sharing the frontline with alto saxophonist Matt Blostein, Sillery flirts with a free jazz mentality, mixing pre-conceived ideas with wide-open solo sections. The opening "Pra ...

LA Jazz Scene (Scott Yanow)
Trumpeter Liam Sillery leads a fine quintet (with altoist Matt Blostein, pianist Jese Stacken, bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Vinnie Sperrazza) on Outskirts. A laidback and relaxed trumpeter who blends well with Blostein, Sillery is even more skilled as a composer, having contributed all six selections performed on this set. While ?Blues For Lif ...

Cadence (David Kane)
Liam Sillery may be a U.S. born and bred musician but the music on Outskirts has a very European feel to it. Though at its heart, this CD is in the Modern Mainstream tradition, the rhythmic extrapolations of "Prana" and the Free Jazz of "Black Rag" have more in common with the music coming out of Frankfurt than they do of the Blues-derived Modern ...