The Winston Jazz Routine

Indie / Ambient / Experimental

Nashville, TN

Billboard

The Winston Jazz Routine is not an easy thing to describe or summarize, especially for promotional purposes. A full “biography” would necessarily contain the tale of its diverse array of members and contributors, for its roster includes a collection of musicians, vocalists, producers, writers, and visual artists. There are childhood friends and new acquaintances; family members young and elderly, dead and alive; grandfathers, mothers, and younger brothers; homeless pianists, orchestra conductors, students in high school and college, married church members and librarians. Telling the whole tale would involve weaving together the stories of these dozens of people as they have grown and changed, as their lives have overlapped in basements and attics, kitchens and back porches, diners and coffee shops, recording studios, classrooms, churches, even on the telephone across hundreds of miles.

The Winston Jazz Routine can be described as the life of this community shaped into musical or, more broadly, into artistic expression by chief songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Nathan Phillips. The Winston Jazz Routine is his documentation through sound of the people, places, experiences and art he encounters. His compositions, although lyrically often personal introspection or fictional narrative, articulate the stuff of real life with common relevance. More profoundly, the various forms of band, orchestra and choir, or studio collaboration that he assembles to accompany his lone voice and piano are evidence of as well as a catalyst for genuine community.

All things considered, “The Winston Jazz Routine” is merely the title selected by Nathan and longtime musical companion Derek Barber when they were midway through their years at a small high school in Mansfield, Ohio. It has since taken such forms as a standard rock band playing in bars, theaters, and galleries throughout the Midwest.

The Winston Jazz Routine, in whatever configuration it takes, is rooted in an aesthetic of inclusion and fellowship, of drawing people together into meaningful connection and expression. It represents a hope that the creation of meaningful and beautiful human relationships will result in music of the same qualities. As years pass and Nathan and friends continue to develop as a collective of artists, they hope to cultivate music that, because it bears the fingerprint of its humanity, will have the capacity to leave an imprint on those who experience it.

- Ryan Weberling, friend of Nathan and occasional contributor to The Winston Jazz Routine