Musicians Keller Paulson, Parker Brown, and Erik Olson spend a lot of time together. They’ve played music together in a variety of bands throughout the years they have lived in Billings, and they are all adjunct faculty members at Sheridan College. The three musicians carpool weekly from Billings to Sheridan, Wyoming to teach in the music department.
On those drives, and in after-hours jams, they began a songwriting collaboration that became Big Sky Trio. They are about to release their first jazz album, “Short Stories,” which was successfully crowd-funded by nearly 60 backers who pledged more than $4,000 to help bring this project to life.
The album’s sound is a merging of influences and talents, a sort of playful yet elegant composition of Sunday morning tracks with a Friday night vibe falling between straight-ahead bop and rock-and-roll.
This progressive, soulful album contains original music, as well as two jazz standards the group arranged in a unique manner. They worked with familiar forms—classic jazz influences like Miles Davis and Bill Evans, and also played with some new fusions, inspired by the m ore modern stylings of musicians such as Robert Glasper, merging their influences to create this record.
The album was recorded with talented engineer, Monte Nickles, and the help of Rob Rumbolz, at Northwest College Studios in Powell. The trio plans to release the album April 6.