Take a listen to Project 206, and you’ll be taken for a ride. Expect the unexpected. This album is chock full of musical arrangements that take the listener from one spectrum to another— all with a superb cohesion that can only be achieved by those who have a deep understanding and appreciation for jazz and electronic music.
Galen Bundy is the mastermind behind Project 206, having done all of the writing and arranging for this album. “I’ve wanted to put together a bigger group for a while— taking in a lot of electronic influences and blending composition for two or more organs,” he says. “So I started writing and piecing it together, over about a year or so.”
The sextet
Aside from Bundy, the group, also called Project 206, is rounded out with Ben Wolkins on trumpet, David Mirarchi on alto and baritone saxophone, Johannes Ronquillo on bass, and Travis Aukerman and Jon Taylor on drums.
They moved pretty quickly once they got in the studio. “We did a lot of rehearsal to get this stuff together,” says Bundy. “Structure-wise, the majority of it was put together before we went into the studio. With almost everything, there was very little overdubbing. I think we did about three takes of each song and did it all in one day.”
Aside from a heavy jazz influence, this album “reaches back to prog and fusion people as well as younger people who are more into electronic music,” Bundy explains.
Making moves
A 2015 graduate of Bowling Green State University, Bundy studied jazz piano and was classically trained under Dr. George Lucktenberg. After graduating, he moved to Ypsilanti to further his craft. “We play a lot in Detroit and Ann Arbor,” he says. “The reception and the scene up here for this kind of music has been very nice.”
Though now a Michigan resident, Bundy stays active in Toledo where he plays keyboards for Hope United Methodist Church and also plays piano for the Art Tatum Jazz Society. At BGSU, he occasionally performs in concert as a guest pianist. But Project 206 is “the project I’ve been wanting to put together for some time,” says Bundy. The name comes from his new Ypsilanti address, which is also the group’s rehearsal space. They performed a release show at the Glass Pavilion in September and their next show will be in February, at the Kerrytown Concert House in Ann Arbor.
For more information, visit galenbundy.com.
