So who is Nate Wooley? The question is still worth posing especially beyond his native America even if the trumpeter is not exactly a newcomer and has built up a good deal of respect and presence in his well established career to date.
You might just care to let the trumpeter’s latest music, above, do the talking (he also has another epic album dubbed ‘non religious communal music’ called Seven Storey Mountain V recently released as well to explore).
According to his official biography Wooley was born in 1974 in the small timber industry town of Clatskanie in Oregon. He moved east to New York 15 years ago, his prodigious performing credits including appearances with John Zorn, Anthony Braxton, Eliane Radigue, Ken Vandermark, Fred Frith and Evan Parker among others with many records already to his name.
His style is firmly avant garde with broad appeal to improv and free jazz followers, his approach drawing on vocalisation, noise amplification and feedback-utilising techniques. He has been artist in residence at Issue Project Room in New York and at Cafe Oto in London.
If you’re into Ralph Alessi (as approximate signposting) then dip in to Wooley’s latest work right away, the two trumpeters sharing some things in common in terms of the taut highly serious atmospheres they both conjure, differing however in both timbre and their sometimes diverging notions of the use of silence and ensemble interplay. Joining Wooley on Argonautica (released by the Firehouse 12 label) are the collective personnel of Ron Miles, cornet; Cory Smythe, piano; Jozef Dumoulin, Fender Rhodes and Electronics; Devin Gray, drums; and Rudy Royston, drums.