Robert Everest

The Robert Everest Expedition transverses folk traditions and rhythms from Latin America to the Mediterraean, with a dose or two of great American jazz standards, a logical melding of the musical forces that are the soul of Robert Everest. Starting out on piano at age 5, native Minnesotan Robert received his first guitar at 12. While the guitar is his primary instrument, he will still compose for and perform on piano, along with a worldwide arsenal of strings--mandolin, Cuban tres, Andean charango and Brazilian cavaquinho. In the late 90s, Robert also played bass guitar and percussion in the world music group, Kangaroo.

Robert is largely a self-taught musician, but has studied jazz guitar in Minneapolis, classical guitar in Portugal, flamenco in Spain, Tango in Argentina, and other styles during his journeys to Central and South America and the Caribbean; as a singer, he spent four years with the University of Minnesota Jazz Singers. In addition to feeding his global appetite for music, Robert has spent the past 20 years studying languages, earning a degree in linguistics from the University of Minnesota and becoming fluent in several Romance languages through his travels. His facility adds another dimension to his music, as he is a multi-lingual performer. His repertoire includes two solo CDs of Latino music and a recording with his Brazilian quintet, Beira Mar Brasil, which performs regularly in the Twin Cities.

In 2001, Robert Everest first met Marco Sambrotta, a native of Rome who started out studying guitar and then moved on to the piano as a young child. After studying music at the Vatican Conservatory in Rome, he moved to the United States and studied music composition at Whitworth College in Spokane Washington. He returned to Rome for five years, finally settling permanently in Minneapolis in 1995. The collaboration of Everest and Sambrotta became the framework for the Robert Everest Expedition.

While performing in the Latin Renaissance concert at Minnesota Orchestra Hall in 2002, Robert met percussionist Michael Bissonnette. A Massachusetts native with 30 years of drumset and percussion experience, Bissonnette studied ancient Mexican percussion with Xavier Quijas Yxayotl. This lead to Michael’s passion for making and collecting a wide variety of percussion instruments from all over the world: berimbau, cuica and pandeiro from Brazil; the doumbec from the Middle East; the djembe, log drums and caxixi from Africa; the Irish bodhran; the Aztec Death Whistle; the American drum set; and spoons. After living many years in California, he relocated to Minneapolis in 1999, where he has performed with Katie McMahon (the original voice of Riverdance), Laura Mackenzie, Heart of the City, Glen Helgeson, and Robert Everest.

Robert first met and performed with Tony Axtel at the Artists Quarter in 2003. The multi-talented Twin Cities native is widely respected as a bassist, keyboardist, drummer, guitarist, vocalist, and prolific composer, arranger and producer. He’s toured nationally and internationally, and has recorded and/or performed with such artists as David Sanborn (also serving as musical director), Ricky Peterson, Mark Murphy, and with an all-star big band for First Lady Hilary Clinton at the State Theatre. Recently, Tony produced a CD for internationally known Japanese pianist, Yukiko Isomura.

The Robert Everest Expedition includes 12 tracks of 11 original compositions (the last track reprises the first). Everest and Sambrotta appear on all (and co-wrote “Pensando en ti”) and provide vocals on most tracks, with the rest of the rhythm section including a combination of Axtell or McNelly on bass, Bissonnette or Artz on drums. Bisonnette and Chavez share additional percussion duties, and Schulte appears on three tracks. With talents extending beyond music and linguistics, Everest’s artwork and photography also enhance the CD booklet.

Although the music is infused with whiffs of global aromas, as a whole it took me back to the late 60s and 70s when folk rock was at its peak, when Simon & Garfunkel, James Taylor, Sergio Mendez and even Lennon & McCartney demonstrated that great singer/songwriters could reach the top of the Billboard charts. But add to the timeless beauty of the vocals instrumentation that echoes the rural charm of Mark O’Connor’s Appalachian Trio as much as the samba-tude of Jobim. Everest has compiled the diversity of American culture as surely as he has integrated the traditions of Latin America and southern Europe. Starting and ending the set with “Into You,” Everest sets the tone for the recording—an American folk vibe, English lyrics and clave beat, a Latin-tinged 70s folk rock band. “Morning Glory” has more than a passing resemblance to a James Taylor or Simon & Garfunkel moment, while the greater ensemble goes far south in rhythm if not also in harmony and lyric. Similar threads are woven through “Eyes of a Thousand Dreams” and “Window on Your Wall,” the latter augmented by a funky layer supplied by Gary Schulte’s wailing violin, while his work on the all-instrumental track, “Sand,” more substantially recalls Mark O’Connor with an ever-present Latin tinge pushing through the neoclassical string harmonies; “Gifts” seems more purely rooted in American folk tradition.

The southern hemisphere is most dramatically evoked on the danceable Everest/Sambrotta collaboration, “Pensando en ti,” with its Spanish lyrics, percussion from Bissonnette and Chavez, and the blend of piano, guitars and buttery voice; “Woodlands” too settles in south of the border. The English lyrics of “Change of Soul” seem to defy its samba-infected rhythm, the sound suggesting a nylon-string acoustic guitar and mood suggesting a glass of fine port. “The Whales” finds Sambrotta testing out the Fender Rhodes in tandem with Axtell’s electric bass, adding more funk to the mix, while the popular use of recorded voices gives “Five Days in Zurich” a more contemporary zing before the violin and piano passages reconvene a conference on instrumental lyricism; the human voices (Everest and Sambrotta) blend over the bass and piano lines to become a choir, soon joined by the violin’s song.

Robert Everest may have been engaged in global expeditions over the past two decades, but his latest recording indicates he has found his way back home, albeit with some interesting souviners from regions with equally complex folk traditions. And that is what makes the Robert Everest Expedition such a genuine American music.

More on Robert Everest and CD ordering information are available at www.roberteverest.com

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