The legend that is bassist, producer and composer Sam Wilkes, a key player in the Los Angeles’ contemporary jazz scene, released last week his second full-length album, One Theme & Subsequent Improvisation, through Leaving Records. The album sprouted from one improvisational recording session also featuring two drummers, a Maestro Rhythm King drum machine, and two synthesists, who played “one repetitive theme that led to two subsequent movements of improvisation”, as the press release explains. Wilkes then tried “find new music through an immersive process” and “decided to destroy the audio of predetermined sections of the music through tape, sampling, and effects experiments.”
One Theme & Subsequent Improvisation is one of those records that you can’t put away. Get a taste with ‘The Drums’ below.

Photo: Roman Koval

Bassist Sam Wilkes has a new live record on the way, Live On The Green, and he had already teased it with the first single ‘Alma’. Live On The Green features songs and alternate versions from Wilkes, his debut album, as well as other new tracks, including a beautiful cover of Alice Coltrane’s track ‘Sivaya’. Wrap your ears around it.

Live On The Green is out on November 8th through Leaving Records.

Following the release of his debut album, Wilkes, bassist Sam Wilkes is set to release a live record entitled Live On The Green. Due out on November 8th through Leaving Records, it features songs and alternate versions from his debut as well as new tracks, and sees Wilkes joined by Sam Gendel on alto saxophone, Jacob Mann on Roland Juno 106 and Korg Kronos, Christian Euman on drums, and Adam Ratner and Brian Green on electric guitars.

Ahead of its release, Wilkes has shared the first single ‘Alma’. Take a listen now.