All compositions by Ben Hauptmann Ben Hauptmann guitar/banjo Zoe Hauptmann double bass James Hauptmann drums/perc Evan Mannell drums/perc Aaron Flower guitar (track 7) Arne Hanna guitar (track 4) Chris Hale elec bass Damien Slingsby rhodes Gian Slater vocal Julian Banks tenor sax Dan Junor alto sax (track 4) Lucian McGuiness trombone (track 4) Recorded & Mixed by Richard Belkner @ Free Energy Device Mastered by Oscar Gaona Art work by Rick Gofrey “beautiful music with a surprise around every corner” - Music Council of Australia head, Richard Letts. "This is a very personal and mature voice, revealed both in his playing and his musical vision for his ensemble" - Phil Slater, former Freedman fellow. There's a strong sense of inevitability about this album, as though all of Ben Hauptmann's diverse life-in-music to date has been leading to this point at which his imagination as a composer, his skill as a virtuosic guitarist & his inventiveness as an improviser all happily converge. For the benefit of newcomers to Ben's musical world, he has a list of credits that include well known Australian artists Dale Barlow, James Morrison, Paul Grabowsky, Jackie Orszaczky, The Alcohotlicks, King Curly, The Translators, Steve Hunter's Nine-Lives, Katie Noonan & Lior in addition to most recently international songstresses Ricky Lee Jones, Mavis Staples, & Micheline Van Hautem. A line from an interview with the towering musician & composer Wayne Shorter, that's stayed with me since reading it some 20 years ago, is.... "If all you've got in life is music, then you haven't got music" & it's my perception that at the very heart of Ben's music is Family... of both the blood & spiritual kind. Aside from the inclusion on this recording of both of his siblings, Zoe & James Hauptmann & brother in law Evan Mannell; Damien Slingsby, Jules Banks, Gian Slater, Lucian McGuiness & Danny Junor were all students with Ben in Jazz studies at The Australian National University over a decade ago, in addition to more recent musical family Arne Hanna, Aaron Flower & Chris Hale rounding out the line-up. One gets an even deeper sense of the importance of Family in Ben's music having spent time at the Hauptmann family apple orchard homestead where you might hear his father Mike practicing his trumpet or his octogenarian Grandfather Bert, singing a German lullaby around the dinner table. I first met a 19 year old Ben in 1999 after being invited to perform some music I'd written for a large ensemble with students from the previously mentioned National University. It must've been at the tail end of a time when people still had paper business cards & It struck me that Ben's card said "Ben Hauptmann - String Musician" & not 'Ben Hauptmann - Guitarist ', because although he'd already developed some pretty serious guitar chops (for which he's since been a winner of The Freedman Jazz fellowship & 2nd place winner at the National Jazz Awards) his concept of what it meant to be a musician was already broader than being merely a flash guitarist... not a quality you'd find in many 19 year old guitar players, that's for sure. So in addition to the guitar, it's not at all unusual to see Ben turn up on stage or recordings playing a Mandolin, Banjo, Pipa, Charango or Tiple. I've intentionally avoided talking about, or trying to give blow-by-blow descriptions of the music on this album, preferring to let the music speak for itself. And speak to you it will, in a whole lot of ways. Its quite simply gorgeous music; full of life, ideas, depth, beauty & integrity! Steve Hunter - Composer/Bassist 2011.