Reno News & Review: Take a hike
By Brad Bynum
“Along the Mountains in the Sky,” the first song on Portalis, the new album by Reno bassist Zack Teran, begins with a moody electronic soundscape, punctuated by understated saxophone and trumpet, like something from a sci-fi noir movie. Then the piece opens up into a couple of big melodic themes before settling into a jazz fusion groove that will appeal to fans of the Chicago post-rock band Tortoise. After a terrific trumpet solo, the sax returns alongside what sounds like a dramatic rock guitar solo but is actually played on bass. The melodic themes return briefly, and then the piece ends with a syncopated, ska-like rhythm that slowly fades out.
The song covers a lot of musical ground. So do the album’s other nine tracks. And covering a lot of ground was an inspiration for the album.
“A lot of the songs were written based on outdoorsy travels that I’ve done—hikes in the mountains,” Teran said during a recent interview.
Sometimes the inspiration would take the form a melody that would occur to him while on the hike, but often the process would just include him sitting with his instrument and writing music while reflecting back on his outdoor adventures.
“I don’t know if meditating is that right word—just thinking about that experience. … The space that that moment puts you in for writing music,” he said.
Teran was born in Mexico, grew up in Reno, and graduated from Reno High School and the jazz program at the University of Nevada, Reno. He’s played in local rock bands, like the Stops and Frendo, and in a wide variety of jazz gigs. He was a touring member of the world music group Sol Jibe, and he’s been a member of the literary indie act the Novelists for a decade. In that band, he learned two things: recording techniques, which helped him engineer Portalis, and improving his singing.
Most of Portalis was recorded in one day with help from Anna Santoro, using equipment borrowed from the Novelists. He wrote most of the music beforehand, but included solo sections for each of the players to improvise.
“I try to leave the music open enough so that the musicians who are playing it can also have some input and some say,” he said.
The players include tenor saxophonist Chris Gillette and trumpeter Brandon Sherman, both of whom Teran met through UNR.
“What’s great about their two styles is—to my ear, they blend really well, but they’re improvisational styles are completely different,” Teran said. “Chris—he can just shred on the saxophone, which is completely awesome. Brandon also can do that, but he’s much more colorful. He can play around with strange notes or colors on the trumpet.”
And the drummer on the session was prolific local player Miguel Jimenez-Cruz.
“He and I play all musics together—blues, jazz, funk,” Teran said. “He just started playing with the Novelists.”
Teran’s goal for the album was to write music with the same clarity of mind that comes after a long hike.
“I equate music to … going hiking and spending time outdoors,” he said. “You get this sense of connection to things that are happening around you that maybe are obscured by modern lifestyle. I wanted the music to also be a portal for listeners to either be introspective, or think about things in a different way, or just focus on music, or be meditative and feel connected to something else that they don’t usually feel connected to. I think music does that for people.”
BASSIST, COMPOSER, PRODUCER ZACK TERAN'S "PORTALIS" CHANNELS IMPRESSIONS OF MOUNTAINS AND HUMAN NATURE THROUGH A MODERN ELECTRONIC JAZZ-ROCK PRISM
Multi-talented bassist, composer and producer Zack Teran assembles a quartet of like-minded colleagues to present a strong original sound on his debut, Portalis. Teran adroitly balances a rhythmic groove informed by modern electronic music with the harmonic contours of modern jazz and timbral spectrum of mid-2000s indie rock, and vividly channels his impressions from time spent in the mountain landscapes of the American West.
Although Portalis is his first album as a leader, Zack Teran is a well-traveled member of the Northern Nevada musical community. Based in Reno, he has worked with an extensive list of figures from the greater jazz community including Peter Epstein, Adam Benjamin (Kneebody) and Art Lande and additionally, co-leads the folk-rock quartet, the Novelists, which has toured nationally to widespread acclaim for nearly 10 years. Teran's unique aptitude for covering multiple roles on the bass is proven by his masterful ability to anchor and lead groups simultaneously. He manages this balance with fluid melodicism, warm tone and precise, yet relaxed feel.
Teran's intention on Portalis is to offer a sense of place removed from the artificial environs of the city. Each of the ten tracks were inspired by remote journeys into the scenic terrain just outside of Reno and Boulder where Teran has made his home over the past decade. Stylistically, tracks such as “The Keyhole” and “Quake Delivery” reflect on a life and fluency operating in any number of popular music disciplines. They display the diversity of Teran’s open and osmosis-like musical consumption, which is evident in how varied influences intersect seamlessly across tracks.
Beyond the presence of nature as the driving force on Portalis, Teran takes occasion to express some sociopolitical commentary on tracks like “Standing Rock,” a hymn-like reflection honoring the mass protests against the installation of the Keystone Pipeline in South Dakota. Teran's intention in this piece is to remind people of both the heightened level of consciousness offered by nature and the threats posed to open spaces by non-sustainable life practices. As the playing between group members here is communal and synergistic, Teran's hope is to inspire people to live along similar lines between themselves and the remote places that inspired this music.
Joining Teran on Portalis are longtime collaborators Chris Gillette on tenor saxophone, Brandon Sherman on trumpet and Miguel Jimenez-Cruz on drums. With this ensemble and set of tunes, Teran offers a sincerely personal statement that invites audiences to engage with music as a sustainable and holistic life practice, creating accessibility to performers and listeners alike.