On 23rd February 2004 Ultra Records will release, Nublu Sessions, an album of original material from NYC-based band, . The album contains original tracks that feature such artists as multi-platinum artist Norah Jones, N'Dea Davenport, poet/musician Saul Williams and legendary Jamaican dancehall artist U-Roy.
Doubters bid your doubt goodbye; this is not some hastily arranged compilation album. is a living, breathing band based in New York City and led by Ilhan Ersahin—whose downtown NYC club Nublu has become the epicenter of a flourishing musician and DJ community. Norah Jones became involved in 1997, not long after landing in New York from Texas. When heard her, they knew they'd found the voice they wanted. Jones performed with them for over a year before leaving to embark her now highly lauded solo career. However, even with her new found success and popularly she was more than happy to come back and record her two signature songs "Tell Me" and "Angels", both tracks are songs she sang with the band regularly in the early years.
For the uninitiated, 's driving force, Ilhan Ersahin, was raised by a Swedish mother and Turkish father and moved to New York from Sweden in 1990 to pursue an education and music. An accomplished jazz session player and studio auteur, Ilhan started in 1997. While is now a full-fledged band - drummer Jochen Rueckert, guitarist Thor Madsen, bassist Jesse Murphy and singer Marla Turner—Ilhan says it was initially more of a project. "We were all sidemen, playing together when we had time," he recalls. "People would drop in. People would drop out. It was whoever was around.
Behind the unmarked door on Manhattan's Lower East Side is Ilhan's club Nublu. Inside Brazilian parties and jamming freestyle jazz players meet sharply dressed bohemians and hipsters, and the clinking cocktail glasses are the color of candlelit gemstone. There's a bar and then, behind that, a small enclave of green. It's a garden, a soft, secret garden amidst the unforgiving concrete jungle. In addition, you wouldn't have an inkling from the street that any of this was going on behind this plain white door. This club, this happening, this space doesn't coerce you inside, but waits, languidly, for you to find it.
Nublu Sessions sounds so unforced, so comfortable. Ilhan's band--similarly influenced musicians and kindred sprits--has been together for a couple of years now. "The music has really come into focus for the band," says Murphy, the bass player. "We can stick to the arrangements or we can go off and embellish themes. We have that trust with each other now." Call them the house band for Ilhan's life.
And that's another reason for the comfort: Ilhan takes what life offers and weaves it into music. He visits Brazil, his girlfriend's homeland, and comes back with vibrant rhythms. He goes to Turkey, where his father was born, and finds not only Arabic influences, but also a host of like-minded musicians to play with; the Turkish singer Nil Karaibrahimgil appears on two songs. N'Dea Davenport drops by Nublu and likes what she sees, what she feels? Sure, she'll do a track. Ilhan meets spoken word artist Saul Williams one night, and Williams spends hours rhyming on the spot in Ilhan's living room. U-Roy, the legendary Jamaican dancehall emcee, was a childhood hero of Ilhan's; today, if you go to Ilhan's home, you'll find sleeve after sleeve of cherished vinyl U-Roy records. The illuminating presence of U-Roy and Williams on the album makes sense because of their presence in Ilhan's life.
The album may boast superstar contributors, but Ilhan didn't seek anyone because of their star power. All of them, one way or another, found their way to this unmarked white door.
