BUTCHER BROWN SHARES NEW SINGLE UNBELIEVABLE
WATCH HERE & LISTEN HERE
BUTCHER BROWN PRESENTS TRIPLE TREY FEATURING TENNISHU AND R4ND4ZZO BIGB4ND
DUE SEPTEMBER 16 VIA CONCORD JAZZ
PRE-ORDER/SAVE ALBUM HERE
TORONTO, ON – July 27, 2022 – Richmond-based five-piece collective, Butcher Brown, shares a new song, Unbelievable, from their forthcoming big band album. Butcher Brown Presents Triple Trey featuring Tennishu and R4ND4ZZO BIGB4ND is out September 16 via Concord Jazz.
The new track comprises a dynamic jazz reimagining of the Notorious B.I.G song of the same name and is accompanied by a rousing visual of the band performing the song live. Unbelievable follows the previously released single Liquid Light, which arrived alongside an animated video and standalone track BLACK MAN, featuring fellow Richmond rapper and songwriter, Michael Millions, which XXL included in their Best New Hip Hop Songs of the Week list.
Speaking on the new track, Marcus "Tennishu" Tenney shares: "This is one of my favorites from B.I.G.'s catalog. This record to me is an example of what makes rap music special. This beat by DJ Premier is one of the greatest beats of all time and the way that the lyrics lay inside of the sections of the beat made it lock into a classic as soon as I heard it.”
The new album was originally written and produced by the band's MC and multi- instrumentalist Tennishu as a hip hop album, but has since evolved into Butcher Brown's own eclectic ode to big band jazz, their first foray into this format. Butcher Brown Presents Triple Trey is both trail-blazing in its approach to classic jazz, bringing the band and the R4ND4ZZO BIGB4ND to lay down a collage of jazz suites for a hip-hop album, and simultaneously mashing together elements of the soul, funk, and rock influences that has formed the band's musical identity.
The band are fresh off a collaborative set with Pink Siifu at Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago earlier this month, and will be playing the sold out Blue Note Jazz Festival in Napa Valley this weekend and Afropunk Fest in Brooklyn in September. Vinyl of the new project will be available on November 11th in standard black and “Opaque Blue” as a limited pressing of 2000 for Indie Retail. The 12” Vinyl includes a 7” with two bonus tracks, Guitarmy and Peace. The album's cover art was created by famed designer Lou Beach (designer of Weather Report's 1977 classic, Heavy Weather and Butcher Brown's most recent album #KingButch).
The new project marks Butcher Brown's first body of work since they graced NPR's Tiny Desk (At Home) series with a performance straight from a Richmond rooftop last year, and collaborated with Alex Isley on a cover of Patrice Rushen's Remind Me. Following a tour run supporting Kamasi Washington in 2019, Butcher Brown released their eighth album #KingButch in 2020, which features the stand-out track Tidal Wave, and received praise from the likes of Bandcamp, OkayPlayer and NPR, which described the album as "a great marriage of hip-hop and jazz."
Check out Unbelievable here and pre-save Butcher Brown Presents Triple Trey here. Learn more about Butcher Brown below and stay tuned for more new music coming soon.
Upcoming Live Dates:
7/30 - Napa, CA @ Blue Note Jazz Festival
8/5 - Martinsville, VA @ The Big What at Pop's Farm
8/6 - Fayetteville, GA @ Mad South Jazz Fest at City Center Park
8/27 - Richmond, VA @ Crab Festival at Brown's Island
9/11 - Brooklyn, NY @ Afropunk Fest
9/24 - Monterey, CA @ Monterey Jazz Festival
10/30 - Live Oak, FL @ Suwannee Hulaween
2/3/2023 - Miami, FL @ Jam Cruise 19 at MSC Divina
DOWNLOAD Press Photo | DOWNLOAD Album Art
More about Butcher Brown:
“We get daps from the jazz cats, the rap scene, the indie scene, and everyone else,” says drummer Corey Fonville. Every Butcher Brown album, show, and improvisational leap therein stems from the synergy, vision, and inexhaustible musical curiosity of him and his bandmates: producer/multi-instrumentalist DJ Harrison; bassist/composer Andrew Randazzo; trumpeter/saxophonist/MC Marcus “Tennishu” Tenney; and guitarist Morgan Burrs.
The band’s latest album, Butcher Brown Presents Triple Trey featuring Tennishu and R4ND4ZZO BIGB4ND, deconstructs big band jazz and reshapes it in the band’s eclectic image. With all due respect to Count Basie, the album sounds nothing like your grandparents’ 45s. Randazzo adapted Tennishu’s rap beats for Butcher Brown and 10 other Richmond musicians, turning them into bold and blaring suites for Tennishu to bless with his smooth baritone. Tennishu finds new pockets of rhyme between resonant brass, smacking percussion, warm guitar, funky bass, and more. Amidst party-starting originals, the ensemble delivers a reverent yet inventive Notorious B.I.G. cover that will move crowds in every New York borough. Think of Butcher Brown Presents Triple Trey featuring Tennishu and R4ND4ZZO BIGB4ND as an alternate score to Baz Lurhman’s Great Gatsby adaptation, a brilliant blend of contemporary genre-smashing injected into the past.
The band’s past begins in Richmond, where several members attended VCU’s jazz program, and everyone mixed in the city’s vibrant music scene. Between classes and performances at local clubs, all congregated at Harrison’s home studio: Jellowstone. Jam sessions bled into blunt-passing smoke sessions soundtracked by beat tapes from renowned Richmond producer Ohbliv, D’Angelo’s sensual, funky and forward-thinking neo-soul, and saxophonist Joe Henderson’s, Power to the People. All culminated in Butcher Brown’s 2014 debut, All Purpose Music, a 76-minute jazz-driven odyssey into every genre at the band’s disposal.
That spark fueled a beat tape (Grown Folk, 2015), southern-inflected soul and rock excursions (The Healer, 2015 and Virginia Noir, 2016), a raucous live album (Live at Vagabond, 2017), jazz-funk fusion (Camden Session, 2018), and an Afrobeat tribute (Afrokuti, 2018). After tours with Galactic, Lettuce, and jazz giant Kamasi Washington, Butcher Brown turned a corner with their Concord Jazz debut, 2020’s #KingButch. They recorded at Jellowstone and abandoned worries about creating songs that would be easily replicable live, blurring the lines between soul-jazz and boom-bap, eliminating the divide between P-funk and modern funk, and transforming rap-meets-bossa nova amalgams into kaleidoscopic psychedelia. With Tennishu rapping, the band was in new territory and closer to their roots than ever. Their catalog-spanning NPR Tiny Desk Concert, crowd- packing European tour, and inspired, Alex Isley-assisted cover of Patrice Rushen’s Remind Me in 2021 proved their range remained limitless, unbound by genre and time.
Describing the group's journey for this project, bassist Andrew Randazzo says, “Over the years, everything about this band has become more refined and mature — from the playing and producing to recording — but the soul was there from the beginning... We already had the spark.”
Butcher Brown Presents Triple Trey featuring Tennishu and R4ND4ZZO BIGB4ND continues the band’s backward-gazing leap into the future. Following their appearance at 2022’s Blue Note Jazz Festival in Napa, they have planned collaborations with critically- acclaimed rappers and other artists. For now, look for Butcher Brown to bring the big band, the spirit of Jellowstone, and their latest iteration of solar music to the world.