Greg Cordez

UK based composer and bass player Greg Cordez releases his third album  Magnolia through the Ropeadope label in 2021. The follow-up to the acclaimed  Last Things Last featured as an editor’s choice in Downbeat magazine. Magnolia  reunites Cordez with Steve Cardenas on guitar and includes a stellar cast of  New York City-based musicians – Jon Cowherd on piano/keys, Tony Malaby on  saxophones, Kenny Wollesen on drums. 

Magnolia was an album written in transit and reflects time spent in a gatehouse  of the foot of the Brecon Beacons in Wales, the inspiration and chaos of Bed-Stuy,  Brooklyn, and an extended stay in Reykjavik, Iceland. Each place greatly  influencing the music and narratives contained within. Returning to Bunker  Studios in early February 2020 to work with Aaron Nevize. With guidance from  Chris Lightcap, the album builds on the lessons learnt from Last Things Last and explores the themes of recalibration, grief, and the letting go required to  move into a new phase of life. 

The music remains influenced by Reid Anderson's music, who kindly loaned  Cordez his bass for the recording and in conversations with Chris Lightcap, Todd  Sickafoose, and Alexis Cuadrado. Drawing from the minimalist influences, post rock and Americana found in previous albums, Magnolia also seeks to include  contemporary jazz and collective improvisation, meaning Cordez having to  navigate this initial reticence and vulnerability. 

‘I was interested in opening up more improvisational moments than in the  previous album, but also trying to maintain a compositional through line, in  which the solos were part of a larger narrative contained within the composition.  

It also meant meeting my own fears and doubt as an improvising musician,  which can be heard in both my playing and in the music written. This internal  tension is complemented by the support and deep playing of Steve, Kenny, Jon  and Tony, who 100% understood the music from the first note played.’ 

Magnolia is the final piece of a three-act cycle which is evident by a returning to  themes of the first album Paper Cranes, the resolution of Last Things Last and  the album concludes with the piece All That Is (pt2). With this body of work  completed, work begins on a new cycle.