Chris Dingman Journeys Vol.1

With journeys vol. 1, Chris Dingman moves forward into new realms of music. Shimmering and pensive, ethereal and captivating, the album is both a first chapter as well as a snapshot of a continual and ever-elusive process. The airy and spacious “light your way” inspired thoughts of floating and healing, sensations that reemerge in the album’s closing track, “refracted light” – electronically reimagined from a sample of “light your way,” the piece provides a lustrous coda for the album. “hope-rebirth” was recorded prior to the pandemic, and if its titular themes feel even further from reality today than they did when recorded, Dingman still holds it out as an antidote for the travails of daily life. It’s a piece that itself is a journey, constantly moving forward, an approach inspired by advice given by trumpet great Terence Blanchard while Dingman was studying at the Thelonious Monk Institute (now the Herbie Hancock Institute).