Nate Mercereau, Carlos Niño & Friends at the Audubon Center (Photo by Sam Lee)
This week offers our spirits three moments of sonic discovery with Openness Trio.
On Thursday we gather in the courtyard of the Audubon Center for an evening of improvisation and co-composition with guitarist Nate Mercereau, saxophonist Josh Johnson, and percussionist Carlos Niño. Pull up to watch the hawks fly overhead, share a sunset, sit in the shade of a great Western Sycamore, and celebrate this wide-open collaborative album out now on the legendary Blue Note Records. Each of these musicians have contributed enormously to our arts communities, to this living history of contemporary music, and we’re enormously grateful for the gift of sharing these moments together.
To plant the seed: consider coming to Ojai with us on Saturday for a performance in the outdoor oak cathedral where a portion of the album was recorded, or, we’ll be ending the weekend run with a performance at Record Surplus, one of LA’s largest and longest running record shops on the Westside.
Take a deep breath, call out of work, pack a blanket, do what you need to do, and we’ll see you here.
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A gentle reminder to please leave your adorable pups at home this afternoon as to not disrupt the Audubon Center’s ongoing habitat restoration efforts.
Openness Trio is the debut album by a unique collective comprised of guitarist and producer Nate Mercereau, saxophonist Josh Johnson, and percussionist Carlos Niño.
Free-thinking creators who bring a depth of experience from wide-ranging collaborations with the likes of André 3000, Meshell Ndegeocello, Kamasi Washington, Shabaka, Jeff Parker, SML, Makaya McCraven, and many more, the trio presents a profound musical offering born of deep communication, immersive emoting, exploration, discovery, and trust.
The album is five recordings from five different sessions all around Los Angeles and Ventura county – outdoors in the hills of Ojai with a view of the Topatopa Mountains, an intimate living room setting in Elysian Park, in an Oak Tree Cathedral at the Churchill Orchard in Ojai, a Garden of Electronics in the courtyard of an Echo Park home, and a recording session under a pepper tree at Elsewhere in Topanga Canyon.
For 20+ years the Audubon Center at Debs Park has been a beacon for how conservation organizations can work within our cities to cultivate a deeper relationship between people and place.
Through monthly hikes, restoration days, bird walks, field trips, movie nights, community festivals, and hosting gatherings like ours each and every month, our local Audubon Center has played an essential role in building a diverse and inclusive conservation movement here in Los Angeles. We’re so grateful for the humans of the Center, the advocacy that they champion, and it’s an honor to work in conversation.