Josh Thurston-Milgrom

Josh Thurston-Milgrom
Thirsty Pilgrim Songs

Release date: 7/10/2020

Slow & Steady Records announces the release of Bay Area bassist and composer Josh Thurston-Milgrom’s debut, Thirsty Pilgrim Songs. True to its title, the recording compiles compositions from the bassist’s 15-year nomadic musical journey – from his native Bay Area, to cutting his teeth with Chicago’s “old guard” (Von Freeman, Fred Anderson, Bobby Broom, and Jeff Parker) to a creative blossoming in Berlin (where he tagged along with Kurt Rosenwinkel and many others), back home to Oakland, CA where he’s become a stalwart in the Bay Area music scene and a community pillar at the Stanford Jazz Workshop. “These songs are inspired by, and dedicated to, the musicians I’ve played with, and the people I’ve loved,” notes Thurston-Milgrom.

The lineup on Thirsty Pilgrim Songs reflects Thurston-Milgrom’s homecoming. “This band has roots in my teenage years (and up to the present) at the Stanford Jazz Workshop,” he notes. Thurston-Milgrom met Dayna Stephens as a teenager at the Workshop, and soon after connected with trumpeter Mike Olmos – an ambassador of the Bay Area jazz scene, and leader of the Monday Night Jam session at Club Deluxe in San Francisco, with Thurston-Milgrom in the house band. Drummer Allison Miller is another Stanford Jazz connection – she’s been on faculty since 2015. Rounding out the Quintet is pianist Malcolm Campbell. “He’s played practically every gig with me where I’ve presented my own music, and his impending departure from Stanford University to pursue his academic career on the East Coast is what galvanized me to get off my ass and actually make this record.”

Thurston-Milgrom categorizes his approach to composition – “I have two main approaches,” he notes. “The ‘pop song’ and the ‘bass song.’” For “pop songs,” a catchy melody and groove is immediately supplemented with “reharmonizations, odd time signatures, angular chromaticism – whatever I can think of.” “Bass songs” come naturally from Thurston-Milgrom’s instrument, many of which he originally wrote for piano-less trios, and expanded for his debut. “This recording is what I’ve seen, what I’ve experienced, whom I’ve known, and whom I’ve been,” writes Thurston-Milgrom. “This is what I do, and what I’ve done so far. This is Thirsty Pilgrim Songs.”

Josh Thurston-Milgrom: bass

Allison Miller: drums and percussion

Dayna Stephens: tenor and soprano saxophone and EWI

Mike Olmos: trumpet and flugelhorn

Malcolm Campbell: piano and Rhodes

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Adam Shulman: organ and Rhodes on 1, 3, 8 and 9

Steven Lugerner: bass clarinet on 3 and 5

Josh Jones: percussion on 2 and 6

Robert Kirby: guitar on 9

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Recorded by Robert Kirby at 25th Street Studio, Oakland, CA on August 20th and 21st, 2019

Mixed by Robert Kirby at the Noise Shop

Mastered by Bernie Grundman at Bernie Grundman Mastering, Los Angeles, CA