BT ALC Big Band Preps Guest-Filled Album ‘Hearing The Truth’

BT ALC Big Band recruited an all-star cast of guest players for their new album, Hearing The Truth, which will be released this Friday, April 14 on the Vintage League Music label. The Boston-based soul-jazz outfit will celebrate the album’s release with a performance at Soundcheck Studios in Pembroke, Massachusetts.

Tickets to the BT ALC Big Band Hearing The Truth record release show at Soundcheck Studios this Friday, April 14 are on sale now.

Band leaders Brian Thomas (trombone) and Alex Lee-Clark (trumpet) produced and arranged the nine original songs making up the group’s fifth album. Appearing across the album are such illustrious guests as G. Love, John Medeski, Karl Denson, Eric Krasno, Soulive’s Alan Evans and Lettuce members Nigel Hall, Adam Deitch and Eric “Benny” Bloom. Parts of the album were recorded remotely due to the pandemic, while others were later worked out during in-person sessions.

Written by Thomas at the onset of the pandemic, “Bring Forth Change” features Evans and was released as a single.

“This was the first tune we remotely recorded after the pandemic hit, and it really set the tone for what this album became,” Lee-Clark said. “Brian (Thomas) is one of the most positive forces I’ve ever come across, and the way he willed this whole thing into existence was amazing, and definitely gave all of us musicians a spirit boost as the reality of the pandemic set in.”

The track “What Will You Do” spotlights Medeski on keyboards and “The Iguana” showcases Krasno’s guitar and Denson’s saxophone. Elsewhere, Deitch’s “Egyptian Secrets” gets a big band makeover and G. Love flows and rhymes on the Wu-Tang Clan-inspired “That Sound.”

Lee-Clark shared a statement regarding the making of the album, explaining:

“This whole record was really written in the teeth of COVID, the 2020 presidential election, and the dizzying experience all of us Americans are feeling as we reckon with our past and decide as a country what we want to be in the future. Through all those growing pains, there is a lot of noise. Everywhere you turn, you’re being inundated with new information, and it only seems to be getting faster. The music on this album is all about slowing down just enough to hear the truth in the noise. Plus, more plainly, Hearing The Truth was written about Fox News, and all the charlatans on that network telling us not to believe the thing we’re seeing with our own eyes.”

Stream “Bring Forth Change” featuring Lettuce’s Nigel Hall and Eric “Benny” Bloom below:

Hearing The Truth Tracklist

1. Dimples
2. Hearing The Truth
3. Here In This Cave
4. What Will You Do?
5. Egyptian Secrets
6. The Iguana
7. That Sound
8. Pound for Pound
9. Bring Forth Change