In the small hours of the morning, on a headlong
collision into history, ambition, and magic, a trumpeter wails in the
apocalypse.
"You are making it
happen. All the deaths. All the
destruction."
Tom is a solid, but not great,
musician. While his bandmates are happy to play gigs for themselves at their own
clubs, drinking free beer and shooting the breeze, Tom aches for the next level,
whatever that is. And as musicians are wont to do in magical fables, he meets a
mysterious stranger with a seemingly simple offer: take a battered old trumpet
for free, and just enjoy it, no exchanges and no strings. Whenever Tom plays it,
the extraordinary music blows away his growing throngs of fans, and deadly
mishaps start to follow. Tom may not have sold his soul for the music of the
heavens, but he seems to have bargained away something much more serious.
From the critically acclaimed jazz musician
Dave Chisholm, Instrumental is a high-spirited, suspenseful, formally
inventive, visually musical graphic novel, an epic yet intimate riff on our
longing search for what's next.
Dave
Chisholm is a trumpet player, songwriter, composer, bandleader, educator,
and visual artist currently residing in Rochester, NY. The breadth of Chisholm's
artistic output is exemplified in a long string of widely varied projects
including the big-band jazz of his debut album Radioactive (2010), the
post-rock-meets-jazz-improvisation soundscapes on Calligraphy (2011), his
soulful indie-rock singer-songwriter project Talking Under Water, the
blistering straight-ahead jazz performed by Utah group John Henry, and the
upstart jazz big bands Salt Lake Alternative Jazz Orchestra and Colossus. As a
trumpet player, Dave has garnered international acclaim. In 2012, he performed
six nights at the Umbria Jazz Festival as part of Ryan Truesdell's "Gil Evans:
Centennial" project. In 2009, he was one of two recipients of the Downbeat
Student Music Award for outstanding collegiate soloist. He has also received
numerous accolades and awards at both the Reno Jazz Festival and the University
of Northern Colorado Jazz Festival. Dave wrote and illustrated his first graphic
novel, LET'S GO TO UTAH!, in 2009, followed by short comics in MYSPACE DARK
HORSE PRESENTS, and Locust Moon's Eisner Award-winning anthology, DREAM ANOTHER
DREAM. He currently teaches at State University of New York at Brockport and at
the Hochstein School of Music and Dance.
