Al Rose

December 1999 saw the arrival of Al Rose’s third album, Pigeon's Throat, which came after the widely praised Naked in a Trailer and the initial Information Overload. Those recordings drew on the Transcendos along with additional players that included violinist Steve Gibons, mandolinist Stuart Rosenberg, cellist Diana Parmeter, and occasional Transcendos organist Carter Luke. Reviewers and audiences alike have long struggled to pin down Al Rose’s sound, which stretches from the evocative label “soulful-country-dada-gospel” to the more bluntly accurate tag “caffeinated madness.”

Like its predecessors, Pigeon's Throat conveys the fluid interplay and hypnotic energy that define Al Rose’s concerts, where he has appeared alone on acoustic guitar, accompanied only by a bassist, as a trio, as a driving quartet, or with the full ensemble he calls the Transcendos. His father had worked as a bassist and violinist around Chicago in the 1940s, yet his parents first placed a flute in Al Rose’s hands; although he learned notation through school groups, enthusiasm faded by high school until a rainy afternoon led him to an old three-string Sears Silvertone. That instrument sparked an obsession with singing rather than guitar playing, and he began composing immediately. Early efforts, shaped by basic cowboy chords, the early Bob Dylan catalog, and the Washburn he still uses, aimed at weighty social commentary, yet he soon abandoned that repertoire.

While performing in coffeehouses during high school, Al Rose formed lasting musical ties after enrolling at college in Champaign, Illinois, where he started the group Three Story Brownstone with Dave Kay and Maury Smith. Personnel shifts and a move to Chicago prompted a new name, Buffalo Trout; by then he had switched to a Fender Strat and added alto saxophone. A decade and several bands later, Dave Kaye and Al Rose parted on good terms.

Al Rose next sought players capable of expanding beyond the written charts, envisioning the Transcendos as a sizable, flexible unit whose early configurations featured pedal steel and keyboardists. In 2000 the members remained busy across Chicago’s music scene, anchored by a steady core of drummer Heath Chappell, bassist Steve Hashimoto, guitarist Victor Sanders, and vocalist Laura Blye, while former Three Story Brownstone guitarist Maury Smith is regarded as a permanent Transcendo. Initially Al Rose appeared only with the complete lineup, but a desire to examine the acoustic side of his writing aligned with the resurgence of coffeehouses as venues for adventurous music. One result is the track “Cuptigo” on the Uncommon Ground Coffeehouse Sampler, which also contains a spoken-word piece. These intimate shows remain an organic affair in which the same songs yield different textures according to who joins him on any given night, yet the material is invariably Al Rose’s own.

Every member of the Transcendos appears across the three albums. Promotion for Information Overload carried Al Rose beyond the Midwest to New York, Nashville, Atlanta, and Boulder, while Naked in a Trailer earned invitations to industry showcases in Boston, New Orleans, Cleveland, St. Louis, and repeat visits to New York and other cities. He has also performed in Bali and Paris, often traveling with brushes and watercolors as readily as a guitar. His paintings have appeared in galleries, including solo exhibitions, though this visual work remains secondary to music; a detail from one of his travel canvases adorns the cover of Naked in a Trailer. While Al Rose’s style continues to resist easy classification, listeners can now turn to three accomplished albums for both reference and pleasure. ~ Larry Belanger