Michael Dease Big Band to Release THE SLEEPER: Music of Gregg Hill

The Sleeper, subtitled The Music of Gregg Hill, is the forthcoming album by the Michael Dease Big Band, arriving October 30, 2026 via Cold Plunge Records.

A 2025 Guggenheim Fellow in Music Composition, Michael Dease is a trombonist, baritone saxophonist, composer, bandleader and educator whose large-ensemble career has included the Illinois Jacquet Big Band and groups led by Roy Hargrove, Christian McBride and others. The album extends Dease's ongoing collaboration with Gregg Hill, a prolific Michigan composer, jazz aficionado and philanthropist whose writing has become a recurring part of Dease's recorded work.

Produced by Dease and featuring guest soloists Dr. Eddie Henderson and Virginia MacDonald, The Sleeper gives 10 Hill compositions to 10 different arrangers. It is Dease's first big-band album devoted entirely to Hill's music.

Dease had known Hill in passing through Michigan's jazz community before encountering his writing closely during a Rodney Whitaker recording session. Reading one of Hill's melodies cold in a rubato duet with pianist Xavier Davis, Dease heard something distinctive immediately. 'The melody was so simple and the chords unusual,' he recalls. He came away thinking Hill was a songwriter he needed to pay closer attention to.

Hill had previously handed Dease a book of compositions to explore. Dease later discovered that it was one of four books, each containing roughly 40 or 50 pieces. The Whitaker session sent him back into that material and ultimately led to 2023's The Other Shoe: The Music of Gregg Hill, the first full album Dease devoted to Hill's compositions and one on which he handled all 10 arrangements himself.

On The Other Shoe, Dease found what he called a middle ground between Hill's concept and his own instincts as a bandleader and 'atmosphere creator.' The partnership expanded on 2024's Found in Space: The Music of Gregg Hill, which brought additional arrangers and instrumental colors into the picture. The 2025 double album City Life: Music of Gregg Hill then placed Hill's compositions alongside music by Dease and others in chordless-trio and quintet settings.

'We keep expanding and trying his music out in different formats, which has proven to be really fruitful,' Dease says.

For the larger project that produced The Sleeper, he enlisted 15 close friends and world-class arrangers to tackle Hill's music, generating multiple albums' worth of material. The Sleeper is the first album drawn from that body of work.

The title reaches back to The Other Shoe, where Dease first recorded Hill's 'The Sleeper,' which became one of his favorite compositions. 'He writes these little twisty earworm motifs that dig inside and live inside your consciousness,' Dease says. Hill's musical templates, he adds, leave 'a lot of vision for big band orchestration to illuminate.'

The title also taps into another side of their friendship. Steve Wiest's cover artwork turns The Sleeper into a literal wrestling sleeper hold, reflecting a sense of humor Dease says he and Hill have shared from the beginning. Separately, the two are both drawn to science fiction, UAPs, Area 51, space travel and time continuums.

Across Hill's writing, Dease hears strong rhythmic motifs, bass ostinatos, counterpoint and unusual chord choices. On The Sleeper, Jason Hainsworth, Bill Cunliffe Jr., Altin Sencalar, David Gibson, Matt White, Gina Benalcazar-Lopez, Jordyn Davis, Helen Sung, Ben Markley and Michael Philip Mossman each arrange one composition.

'This is the first time I've dived deep into a composer's repository of material for a large ensemble,' Dease says. 'It's interesting how the characteristics of Gregg's music — thematic rhythmic phrasing, efficient melodic construction — remain prominent despite their different treatments and arrangers.'

The Sleeper follows Dease's 2026 big-band album Return Trajectory, which brought him back in front of his own large ensemble. That group consisted largely of Dease's students alongside several guest artists. For The Sleeper, he assembled a completely different, all-professional band drawn from around the country and across generations for an entire program of Hill's music.

'It's got to be fresh, and it has to tell the story of today,' Dease says of his approach to big band. He personally selected every musician on The Sleeper, describing the ensemble as 'a combination of my closest friends, mentors, former students, and up-and-coming voices that deserve to be heard.' For Dease, honoring the history of the format and allowing it to evolve are inseparable: 'I want to look at the big band format as a canvas and a reflection rather than a historical tome.'

Henderson and MacDonald give that multigenerational idea a particularly clear human dimension. Henderson's career includes his early-1970s work with Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi band, while MacDonald, several generations younger, first caught Dease's attention through an online video of her playing Charlie Parker's 'Embraceable You.' Dease brought her onto The Other Shoe: The Music of Gregg Hill, beginning an ongoing collaboration.

One theme of The Sleeper, Dease says, is the gap in age and experience between musicians — and the way dedication to the music can bridge it. 'They became fast friends right away,' he says of Henderson and MacDonald. 'Eddie heard Virginia play and was like, 'I can't believe someone's playing the clarinet like that,' and she was obviously very hip to his playing. They really take the themes and the blowing on this record and run with it.'

Their shared features include Davis' 'Common Ground,' where the two solo over vibraphone shadings from Jalen Baker, and Cunliffe's 'Aftershock,' alongside Whitaker. Dease singles out 'Aftershock' as one of his favorite 'trips' on the album, with Cunliffe finding what he describes as 'nooks and crannies' of Ellington- and Mingus-inspired material, along with a hint of Thad Jones.

Hainsworth's arrangement of 'The Sleeper' opens the record with guitarist Randy Napoleon and trumpeter David Sneider as featured soloists. White's 11:44 'Mr. Pea is Welcomed to the Pod,' meanwhile, is what Dease calls the album's 'tour de force' — a 'buckle up, buckle in, and see you at the end' performance.

Hill treats Mr. Pea as a musical character, passing a small leitmotif around the orchestra before Dease and alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, close collaborators with very different musical personalities, take their own improvisational approaches to it. The extended piece gives Hill's compact thematic writing some of its broadest orchestral treatment on the album.

Elsewhere, Sencalar's 'La Canción' features Sharel Cassity on soprano saxophone and Kirk MacDonald on tenor, while Benalcazar-Lopez gives 'Go Figure!' a Latin setting. On Markley's 'Sloe Gin Fizz,' Dease switches to baritone saxophone alongside Wycliffe Gordon on trombone and Hainsworth on tenor. Mossman's 'Jack the Shaker' closes with Dease, Napoleon, Henderson and MacDonald before Hill's grandson, Jack Covert, enters on shaker.

'That's what we're doing with Gregg Hill's music,' Dease says: 'looking at today through a venerated composer in his 80s, bringing together a world-class mix of artists from different styles and genres within jazz, and making something fresh that couldn't be made otherwise.'

Personnel

Michael Dease — trombone, baritone saxophone

Dr. Eddie Henderson — trumpet

Virginia MacDonald — clarinet

Saxophones: Sharel Cassity — alto and soprano saxophones, flute

Rudresh Mahanthappa — alto saxophone

Jason Hainsworth — tenor saxophone, clarinet

Kirk MacDonald — tenor saxophone, clarinet

Clark Gibson — baritone saxophone, flute

Trombones: Aidan Clark, Nanami Haruta, Ken Thompkins, Pablo Muller Santiago (bass trombone)

Trumpets: Nathaniel Williford, Renée McGee, Matt White, David Sneider

Rhythm Section and Guests: Miki Hayama — piano; Langston Kitchen — bass; Dr. Colleen Clark — drums; Randy Napoleon — guitar; Gwen Dease and Kevin Jones — percussion; Jalen Baker — vibraphone; Tommy Noble — additional flute/clarinet

Additional Musicians: Zach Sommerfeld — guitar on 'Betty's Tune'; Rodney Whitaker — bass on 'Aftershock'; Altin Sencalar — trombone on 'La Canción'; Wycliffe Gordon — trombone on 'Sloe Gin Fizz'; Jack Covert — shaker on 'Jack the Shaker'

Production Credits

Produced by Michael Dease

Recorded May 18–19, 2025 at Troubadour Recording Studio, Lansing, Michigan

Engineered by Corey DeRuscia

Mixed by Matt White

Mastered by John McClaggan at Parachute Mastering

Cover artwork by Steve Wiest

Photography and graphic design by Lynne Brown

Liner notes by Willard Jenkins

Michael Dease · The Sleeper · Cold Plunge Records · Release Date: October 30, 2026

For more information on Michael Dease, visit www.michaeldease.com.

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