Earnest Woodall

Earnest Woodall

Earnest Woodall (born July, 24 1959) is an American music composer. Born in Bayshore, NY and raised in suburban Long Island, New York, Woodall took up the guitar at age 10, inspired by rock, blues and jazz players. A local teacher Peter Rogine introduced him to the music of Phillip Glass, Steve Reich and John Adams, as well as, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Thelonious Monk and coming of age with the progressive music of Yes, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and Pink Floyd which sparked a lifelong love of both Modern Classical Music, Progressive Rock and Jazz. Earnest Woodall soon attended the Five Towns College of Music and then the Berklee College of Music, later moving into the local music scene of the New York Tri-State area with a wide variety of bandleaders and musicians

Establishing himself as a rare artist that can play more than one style of music with true fluency, virtuosity and sincerity. Earnest Woodall proves it on his 2004 Zephyrwood Music release, "Time To Think". The album finds him confirming his reputation as an original and innovative composer / performer.

As well as recording his own music Earnest Woodall also composed and recorded music for many independent films from 1992 – 2000 and also has received two meet The Composer Grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Composers Program

In the late 1980’s and early 90’s Earnest Woodall found himself in the center of the cassette tape underground culture and was reviewed by the most popular underground music zines of the time such as Option, Fact-Sheet Five, Tape Op, Ear, Wired, The Improviser, New Music Journal, See-Hear, and Creative Alternative.

Reviews

Early Music Reviews

OPTION – "Woodall has taken the potential of electronic orchestration and his own clever guitar styles and combined them into a musical vision akin to the best realms of fantasy writings. Sometimes the music has a grandiose symphonic quality alive with the quality and beauty of Stravinsky."

EAR: Magazine of New Music – "E.Woodall is a remarkable musician and composer based in Huntington, New York whose innovative work straddles the worlds of improvisation and classical structure. Woodall's most recent release, "Alberts Warning" is a collection of pieces scored for a variety of configurations that enhance his virtuoso performance. The compositions are lush, often radiant, soundscapes put together with a fine technical ability and, a visionary sensibility."

Fact-Sheet Five - "Alberts Warning" A set of musical experiments, or "suites". For the most part identified only by such tags as "minimal/twelve- tone" on the program, these are in fact quite engrossing bits of mostly- keyboard playfulness. There's a quite full sound here, and the end results are rather absorbing, from the playful to the utterly serious and constrained. Neither as flashy nor as annoying as most synthesizer albums.

The Improvisor – "A collage of environmental backgrounds and foregrounds, mixing and submerging, with musical vignettes and compositional snippets, of varied orchestrations of synthesizer produced chamber instruments and outdoor sounds. The experience is like a kaleidoscope of musical styles, colors, and statements juxtaposed with the everyday sounds of life, and stream of consciousness. One continuous parade, it has not the hysteria and tenseness of "channel flipping", but an every ongoing wash of changing life forms, all-inclusive. It's what you might experience in a lifetime, but yet coming from a system built around the 12 tone music chromatics and through- composed, as the brain perceives life, leaving the improvisation to the listener's imaginative wanderings..."

The All Music Guide Reviews

Earnest Woodall is one of those rare musicians that can write, perform, record, package, and release their own material without any interference from record companies. Starting in the late eighties, the ambient/jazz composer began putting together bedroom recordings, slowly making the transition to better equipment and sound quality through the years. Releasing an album per year, Woodall's abilities to daringly write in whatever genre he sees fit when the fancy strikes him is not only admirable, but downright impressive considering how little outside support he receives. Using just about anything to inspire his writing, he reached a high point with 2002's Pictures in Mind, an album written after a particularly moving trip to a New York art museum. – The All Music Guide - Bradley Torreano

13 by Earnest Woodall is a true character. He creates outrageous atmospheres from eclectic sound sources. 13 by Ernest Woodall is a collection of 13 compositions, each of which deals with or recognizes a different superstition. The pieces have just enough dissonance and just enough melody for balance. This is modern avant-garde for the new millennium. It will appeal to fans of Terry Riley, Pauline Oliveros, and Dmitri Shostakovich. – All Music Guide - Review by Jim Brenholts

Unusual Characteristics by Earnest Woodall is, well, an unusual CD. Earnest Woodall created this long-form (48 minute) composition from an eclectic array of instruments and devices. The sound design incorporates many different influences. There are elements of jazz, rock & roll, classical, ambient, minimalism, experimental, avant-garde, and dissonance. Woodall builds off-beat atmospheres with harsh textures and hard edges. Deep listeners will hear and feel the angst of hopeless searches. Again, this is an unusual CD, so any comparison is a reach, but it will appeal to fans of John Cage, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and Charles Ives. – All Music Guide - Review by Jim Brenholts

Pictures in Mind by Earnest Woodall is a multifaceted and multi-talented multi-instrumentalist from Northport, NY. He has been recording music for multimedia events and installations for years. He visited art museums in New York City, including the Museum of Modern Art, and the paintings that he "viewed and admired" serve as the inspiration for Pictures in Mind. This is a delightfully quirky set of different atmospheres. It is definitely new age, and Woodall definitely uses electronics. He employs avant-garde structures and ambient/minimalist sensitivities. The compositions are lighthearted, and there is just the slightest hint of mischief. This wonderfully offbeat CD has few legitimate comparisons. The closest would be the efforts of the Beau Hunks and the Caribbean Dream CDs by Brannan Lane. – All Music Guide - Review by Jim Brenholts

New Reviews

Reviewed by Wednesday Elektra's Space Junkies Magazine - Wow, there are a ton of tracks on this album! Twenty in all - a great composition of all his previously released materials (from an assortment of albums) and perhaps even some new tracks. For those that enjoy classical music and music with a lot of movement you should pick this album up, for it has a lot of powerful compositions within it. The first track slightly reminds me of the "Sugar Plum Fairies" (I have no idea who originally composed/wrote that song). Then from there you're greeted with sounds of Celtic influences, Classical influences, Traditional influences, marching influences, Tribal influences and perhaps even a bit of Folk and Ambient influences. There's a wide diversity here, all very enjoyable and well composed. Its an attractive album for someone who enjoys dynamics and power! Rating: 8.9/10

Review by Dmitry M. Epstein DME / Let It Rock ****3/4 - It's teasing to guess which route Earnest Woodall's music will take now, when all his records make a wonderful shadows-and-light cycle so whole this compilation has a life of its own. Life is a key word here, as mostly there are synthesizers but perfectly operated to take a listener on a moody journey. It's spectral both ways, colorful and ghostly, "Peculiar Attributes" from "Unusual Characteristics" building from diffuse spattering to the solemn organ cloth and sharing its court dance shape with "128 Details From A Picture" off "Pictures In Mind". That's about as jolly as it gets, and sometimes a certain nervousness comes through, as in "Crossed Fingers" (that's an album called "13"), yet with all the pieces' chamber beauty and light sophistication you can hardly find a better soundtrack when set to pondering and wondering.

Reviewed by: Stephanie Sollow, progressiveworld.net - Time To Think is the latest release from Earnest Woodall, a New York based composer with 13 albums under his belt plus soundtrack work for a number of independent films. From his bio: Woodall took up the guitar at age 10, inspired by rock, blues and jazz players. A local teacher Peter Rogine introduced him to Phillip Glass, Steve Riech and John Adams, which sparked a lifelong love of both Modern Classical Music and Jazz.This is evident in the music he has created (though I'll admit I've only a passing familiarity with Glass and Riech, and none with Adams). Time To Think is a compilation comprised of material from some of his more recent releases, the earliest being Strike, Light, Puff from 1998. The selections include also material from Pictures In Mind. The selections from each of Woodall's albums reveal what might be the overall character to each release. All the pieces have in common an emphasis on percussion, whether it is the xylophone, as can be found in many tracks from Unusual Characteristics (1999) , or a more natural, earthy sound as can be found on 13 (2000) (where bad luck is the underlying theme, as the song titles will reveal). In between is Strike, Light, Puff where many tracks have some frenetic element to them.

The tinkly, wind-chime sound of a xylophone is played against a backdrop of a violin or, in the case of the first track "Peculiar Attributes" (Unusual Characteristics) an orchestra full strings. Their rich tone is at odds, but in a good way, with the higher tones of the xylophone. The pieces from this album have "oddness" about them, a left of center quirk something that might appeal to RIO fans, though in "Bizarre Temper" it's played in softer tones trilling flute rather than brassy trumpet, here playing against xylophone and piano. "Odd Personality" begins with the sound of choppers flying overhead and birds chirping before clapping percussion takes center stage. I imagine the sound as two plastic blocks being banged together. Underneath this one can hear a drunken organ and chatterbox violin converse. Something, for a moment, quiets the other two as the violin begins to sing, but the blocks yield attention only briefly before the two compete the violin gets melodramatic for a moment but then, forgetting, begins to chatter again. "Unusual Qualifications" seems to be a variation on "Odd Personality" though the piano seems more sober, though xylophone trills happily along side equally upbeat flute like tones. "Curious Temperment" begins with a train rumbling by and tooting his horn, though stylistically it is a mix of the material found later on 13 -- natural percussion and the irregularly metered arrangements of Unusual Characteristics).

In "Open Umbrella" (13) where rhythmic percussion is what might be called in shorthand "Third World." By that I mean the sound of perhaps woodblocks or steel drums or even found sounds. A languid, peaceful muted flute-like atmosphere provides the backdrop. Here I thought of Steve Roach, especially his work with Jorge Reyes and Suso Saiz as Suspended Memories. This naturalistic approach can also be found in dark, cautious "13 Black Cats," and the dark, subtly threatening "13 Broken Mirror." An exception to this is the quirky "Crossed Fingers," where piano takes the lead most often.

The pieces taken from Strike, Light, Puff have some frenetic element about them. "Uncovered Wanderings" (Strike, Light, Puff) is a sometimes twangy, frenetic piece sometimes reminding me of Copeland's "Hoedown" but on speed. The frantic feel comes from both the xylophone and violins. "Discover Darkness" from the same album could easily have been used as background music to an X-Files episode (and I heard of hints of, I think, Mozart in there, too). It is violin that gives "Delirious Pant" its sense of breathlessness. You might think that a piece titled "Wisp" would be atmospheric, but here instead it is a conversation between two folks (piano, horn) that don't finish one sentence before going on to the next.

Time To Think is a wonderful collection of music. Because of the disparate elements, this compilation stands on its own as a richly textured and varied release all impeccably played. Rating: 5/5

Discography

Composition Work

Album	Year
Albert's Warning	1988
House of Stairs	1988
Dirty Water	1990
Mad Man of 1st Avenue	1991
Three Worlds	1992
Abstract Paragraph	1995
Legerdemain	1996
Ergot Brew	1997
Strike, Light, Puff	1998
13	2000
Pictures in Mind	2002
Time to Think	2004

Guitar Work

Album	Year
Guitar Works	1994
Live @ Benson Hall Cafe	2006