About
I'm releasing two new albums 'Onward' and 'Tokyo Blues'!
At the beginning of 2019, I released my debut contemporary jazz album 'Nomad' - helped along by a very successful Kickstarter crowd funding campaign. However, 'Nomad' took me three years to compose, record and produce while on tour full-time and when I moved back to Australia in June this year, I made a solid commitment to myself to compose, record and produce a new album while I was located in one place for more than a few months and had the opportunity!
So I started composing material for a new jazz album in earnest and if you've been following me on social media you have no doubt seen several videos of the recording process. The original plan was just to release one album; however, eventually it became clear to me that I actually had written two different albums that deserved separate distinct releases.
The first of these two albums is 'Onward', a classic piano jazz trio featuring myself on piano, Matias Menarguez (Argentina) on drums and Oli Hayhurst (UK) on bass. The album consists of six tracks; four originals and two covers, including 'His Eye Is On The Sparrow' sung by special featured guest Alessandra Gonzalez.
The second album is 'Tokyo Blues', which is a jazz/funk/fusion album inspired by my recent trips to Japan and Japanese jazz music/bands that I love such as T-Square/Four of a Kind/The Seatbelts. On this album I am playing saxophone (soprano/alto/tenor/baritone), keyboards, guitar and bass and featuring several incredible drummers from around the world such as Senri Kawaguchi (Japan), Jordan Perlson (USA), Dre Energy (USA) + special guests! Cover art by IP Lobato.
I have put a lot of love, time, energy (and money!) into producing these albums and I'm really proud of what I've been able to achieve in the last several months.
However, producing albums with top-notch artists and engineers from all around the world isn't cheap and if this crowd funding campaign is able to reach it's goal, it would help me cover about 50% of the total cost of producing these two albums which is around AUD$10,000 so far (including artists fees, studio hire, mixing engineer/mastering engineer fees and production costs). I will be covering the remaining amount myself as I am committed to producing and releasing these recordings at a very high standard!
Importantly though - Kickstarter is an ALL OR NOTHING platform, so if the campaign goal of AUD$5,500 is not reached by the deadline, then I will not receive any of the money and backers will all be refunded their contributions! If you're unfamiliar with Kickstarter and/or crowd funding in general, please click here for more information.
So through this crowd funding campaign, you can pre-order the albums, support my music and also get some EXCLUSIVE incentives that will ONLY be available as part of this project.
Get this awesome exclusive 'Tokyo Blues' t-shirt!
One of the reward perks you can get is this exclusive t-shirt with incredible artwork (of the 'Tokyo Blues' album cover) by Spanish manga-inspired illustrator/artist IP Lobato (@iplobato). Available in Men's and Women's styles and printed on quality t-shirts (AS Colour Staple Tee sizes S-3XL available and AS Colour Women’s Drop Tee sizes XS-XL available).
And please check out the full list of available rewards along the right hand side of this project!
Thank you for your support!
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About Me
Benjamin Harrison is a multi-instrumental musician, composer and producer from Australia. He has performed and toured across five continents - most recently with Cirque du Soleil's touring productions of Quidam, KOOZA, VOLTA and Alegria.
Benjamin graduated from the Elder Conservatorium of Music with a Bachelor of Music Performance, specializing in Jazz Saxophone, after being fast-tracked through the course. During his studies Benjamin held the 1st tenor saxophone chair in the Downbeat magazine award-winning Big Band One, and in 2008, received an award from dB Magazine for Top Undergraduate Saxophone.
From 2010-2012, Benjamin toured North America with Cirque du Soleil's arena show 'Quidam' playing saxophone and keyboards, and as acting bandleader. In 2014, Benjamin joined Cirque du Soleil’s big top tour of ‘KOOZA’ and toured Europe, North America, South America and Australia until late 2016 playing saxophone, keyboard, electric guitar, tin whistles, duduk and clarinet. After this, from 2016 until late 2018, Benjamin toured North America as bandleader on Cirque du Soleil's big top production of ‘VOLTA’ (with music by Anthony Gonzalez of M83) playing keyboard, synth, bass guitar and saxophone and subsequently worked on Cirque du Soleil's latest production 'Alegria' in Montreal until April 2019 as bandleader/keyboards/programmer.
In 2019, Benjamin released his debut contemporary jazz fusion album Nomad.
Benjamin is a P. Mauriat saxophones and Légère signature reeds endorsed artist.
Please visit http://benharrison.com.au for more information and follow me on social media at http://facebook.com/benjaminharrisonmusic and http://instagram.com/benjaminharrisonmusic
Risks and challenges
The fundraising goal for the album is an "all-or-nothing" venture through Kickstarter and making these albums takes a lot of time and resources so any help in supporting this release will be greatly appreciated! - Thanks, Ben.
Learn about accountability on Kickstarter