Watch: Ben LaMar Gay Releases “Aunt Lola and the Quail” from Upcoming Album – Nonesuch Records

Chicago-based composer, singer and improviser Ben LaMar Gay has shared a new single and music video for “Aunt Lola and the Quail,” another song off his upcoming album, Open Arms to Open Us, out November 19 on International Anthem / Nonesuch. You can watch it below. It has also been announced that Gay will give a special album release performance, presented by International Anthem, at Public Records in Brooklyn, on Tuesday, January 18, as part of NYC Winter Jazzfest with an opening set by Jaimie Branch.

“Aunt Lola and the Quail” arrives with a new music video, directed by Chris Strong. Written and composed by Gay, the song retraces his childhood summers spent on his great Aunt Lola’s land in Alabama. Speaking further on his memories, “Aunt Lola and I would stand still and listen together. We would immediately become aware of the winds approaching through the wavering pines, quail sounds and the chatter of distant cousins just up the road.”

Joining previously released tracks off Open Arms to Open Us, “Mestre Candeia’s Denim Hat,” “Sometimes I Forget How Summer Looks On You,” and “Oh Great Be the Lake,” “Aunt Lola and the Quail” is another dynamic preview of the sonic explorations of Gay’s upcoming project, which explores his interests in thermodynamics, rhythm as an inheritance of information, and improvisation as “the one freedom that we all have access to.”