This page contains a brief overview on the album THE GILLHAM PARK ORCHTET: Songs from the Velvet Anvil. Learn more about the artist and explore the track lists and website. If you find any information that needs to be corrected, please let us know.

 
As featured on NPR's All Things Considered...

Gillham Park Orchtet History

Way back in the 1990's, a very unusual combination of Midtown musicians in Kansas City formed the Gillham Park Orchtet and ever since their debut performance in the basement of a Westport coffeehouse, listeners have had a difficult time describing their sound.
Even in our eclectic age, the diversity of styles cooked together in a G.P.O. concert is truly amazing. In a rave review of the Orchtet's recent CD "Songs from the Velvet Anvil," the Kansas City Star tried to summarize the project as "The score to Three Weddings, a Funeral, a Bar Mitzvah, a Cinquo de Mayo Parade and an Irish Wake." After a recent performance Pitch Weekly reported that "Nocturnal havaneras, gringo tangos, haunted salon music and themes to Fellini movies drenched the evening."
But more impressive is the Orchtet's ability to make such a vivid, cohesive soundscape from these far-flung elements. Pastiche is everywhere these days, but a rich, earnest, haunting music such as theirs is as rare as ever.

-Jason Henry Davenport

Track List:
1. Theme from Amarcord
2. Dos Mundos
3. Pharmacies of Tamaulipas
4. Skymningspolskan
5. Banjski Cocek
6. Twenty Years
7. Alabama Song
8. Siesta in Leipzig
9. Brilliant Corners
10. Epistrophy
11. Tico-Tico no Fuba
12. Lost in the Stars

Suggested CDs:

• Leah Hokanson
• Bill Mckemy

Other Genres:

• EASY LISTENING: Cabaret
• WORLD: World Fusion
• TYPE: INSTRUMENTAL