Nov 17 2021

SPECTRUM: a ground-breaking and eclectic new project from trumpeter Aaron Janik

By David Presley

SPECTRUM is a groundbreaking new project from LA-based trumpeter Aaron Janik. Aaron is a fluid musician in all genres of music, regularly performing Jazz, R&B, Hip Hop, Gospel, Pop, Latin, Funk, and more around the world with the best musicians each genre has to offer. Across Janik’s personal SPECTRUM appear seventeen eclectic compositions which affirm that the trumpet, often perceived as a genre-specific instrument, can and will contribute positively to any genre of music. This one hour, fourteen minute sonic boom will take you on a journey from metal to 8-bit, from neo-soul to latin, from hip hop to Herb Alpert, from classic music to rap. Before first listen, know one thing: that it is impossible to predict what might come next in this spectral universe.

Especially over more complex changes, young Aaron improvises with an old master’s trademark touch. Aaron excites the ear yet makes the art of excitement sound easy. And that’s why you want to absorb each chord change across Janik’s Spectrum, whose ellipse encompasses both Kepler’s Constant and Rubik’s Cube: a cosmographic scientist at play. The primary sound of this record, sensibilities of modern jazz fusion infused into metal, rock, trap, and R&B, come alive in the tracks Spectrum, Sedate, Reason(able), and Skyscraper. From the meditative to the metal, this man’s horn invents new ways of belonging to tradition.

From Metal to 8-Bit: Click on the music videos above from two of the singles from SPECTRUM

In the desert year of the pandemic, Aaron Janik’s trumpeting roused musicians to rise tall in their lonesome tents and blow until the constricting walls of forced refuge crumbled. A simple cure for isolation just might be collaboration. Join together to liberate each other. So Aaron prescribed.

On first listen, let the HornFX flood over you. Turn off the lights, or tilt your shades back up your nose, and imagine a script for this cinematography. These sounds set scenes. Next time round, parse the sound. Yes, when Aaron’s horn is up front, you might be amazed by his inventive precision. But sometimes that dexterity is mixed deep, his trumpet only meant to be felt.

And remember: At their core, these are real instruments, played with fingers and breath. And soul. An astounding forty seven musicians contributed their gifts to SPECTRUM. Aaron’s musicianship has been inspired and refined, directly, through each of these relationships and seasons of shared experience. Within these deep musical friendships echo the secrets of SPECTRUM’s architecture.