Amanda Gardier to Release 'Auteur: Music Inspired By The Films Of Wes Anderson' Album

Following up her 2018 debut Empathy [“lustrous tones and elegant structures” – Suzanne Lorge] and her 2020 sequel Flyover Country [“complex harmonies, tantalizing melodies and smooth ballads” – DownBeat], alto saxophonist and composer Amanda Gardier proudly presents her third album as a leader, Auteur: Music Inspired by the Films of Wes Anderson.

The Baltimore–based Gardier approached the project from a place of deep love and respect: “Wes Anderson has a distinctive, immediately recognizable style. I love the whimsy, dry sense of humor, unique characters, beautiful color palettes and attention to detail in his films. I also really enjoy his light and humorous approach to occasionally dark subject matter. Most simply, I also just like the way his movies make me feel.”

Finding musical inspiration in movies and TV is not unprecedented for Gardier: the tunes from Flyover Country were in fact loosely based on characters from Ozark. On Auteur, she made the programmatic choice to focus on a single director, one of the most beloved of the last 30 years, zeroing in on characters, visual tableaux and emotional states that struck her in such Anderson films as Moonrise Kingdom, The French Dispatch, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and The Darjeeling Limited.

Rather than piano as the chordal instrument, as on Flyover Country, Gardier chose guitar for Auteur, prominently featuring a mainstay of her work to date, her husband Charlie Ballantine—a unique and eclectic stylist who has featured Gardier on four of his own albums as well. On bass is the agile and alert Jesse Wittman, a close old friend who was present and accounted for on Empathy, Gardier's debut. And on drums is a very special guest: Dave King of The Bad Plus, Julian Lage Trio, Craig Taborn's Junk Magic, Dave King Trucking Company and more, a major figure in jazz and creative music of the young 21stcentury.

“I wanted to change things up on this record,” Gardier comments. “I've been a big fan of Dave's for a long time, and The Bad Plus has been a major influence on my own writing. Dave brings so much energy, and he does such a great job of straddling the line between jazz, punk and pop. I was confident he would understand my musical perspective, and I knew he'd bring a lot of passion and care to the project.”

It is King we hear from first on “Coping with the Very Troubled Child,” in an authoritative drum solo before the band kicks off a lurching, uptempo swing feel with fuzzed-out guitar. This is the improvisatory freedom and rock energy the quartet marshals from the gate, with Gardier leading the way, seizing momentum in a fiery alto-drum duet with King just past halfway through. The tune evokes Suzy Bishop, the “very troubled child” in question, the female lead character from Anderson's 2012 film Moonrise Kingdom.

First single “The Blue of Winter” (releasing Nov. 17), is “inspired by the deep blue hues of the winter landscapes in Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel,” writes Gardier in her notes, with a “weeping saxophone melody that glides over the gentle yet persistent textures of the rhythm section.”

“The Incarcerated Artist and His Muse” (releasing Dec. 15) is a lyrical waltz, with gorgeously articulated brushwork by King and a tremolo-tweaked Ballantine supplying chordal warmth under Gardier's eloquent, perhaps Desmond-esque turn (and Wittman's poised, substantial bass solo as well). This piece sprung from a vignette in Anderson's multilayered 2021 film The French Dispatch called “The Concrete Masterpiece,” featuring Benicio del Toro, Lea Seydoux and Adrien Brody.

“Let's Hope It's Got a Happy Ending” (releasing Jan. 12, 2024), inspired by Anderson's 1998 oldie-but-goodie Rushmore, is tension-filled, dissonant though lyrical, grooving in a brisk 6/8, with a beautiful clean-tone Ballantine solo and stellar, energized improvising from Gardier. “The disjointed and somewhat melancholic opening figures played by the saxophone, guitar and bass represent the seemingly disparate lives of the three main characters at the start of the film,” Gardier remarks.

Other treasures include the rhythmic angularity of “Order for Yourself” (inspired by a scene between three estranged brothers in The Darjeeling Limited, 2007); the syncopated bounce and mysterious cadences of “Electroshock Therapy” (another piece sparked by Moonrise Kingdom and its precocious male lead on the lam); and “I Wonder if It Remembers Me,” titled after a line from The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), with absolutely explosive Dave King drumming and atmospheric post-production effects that help build to a climax and a hypnotic wind-down.

Auteur is a vital cross-disciplinary work from Amanda Gardier, lifting up one of the real cultural treasures of our time as she finds new and exciting connections between artistic mediums.

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