Charlie kohlhase's
explorers club

Charlie Kohlhase, guiding light of creative music in New England, reconvenes his Explorers Club for the spectacular “A Second Life.” The multireedist and composer, with five horns, guitar, bass and drums, dedicates a wide-ranging set to victims of the AIDS epidemic, and reflects on his own journey living with HIV.

“As a mainstay in Boston’s jazz scene, saxophonist Charlie Kohlhase has helped cultivate the city as one of America’s most fertile hotbeds for creative music.” (John Murph, Jazz Times Magazine)

Charlie Kohlhase, alto, tenor & baritone saxophones
Seth Meicht, tenor saxophone
Dan Rosenthal, trumpet & flugelhorn
Bill Lowe, bass trombone
Josiah Reibstein, tuba
Eric Hofbauer, guitar
Tony Leva, bass
Curt Newton, drums

At the ready on alto, tenor and baritone saxophones, the venerated Boston-based improviser and composer Charlie Kohlhase ascends the proverbial podium to lead his Explorers Club on the new Mandorla Music release A Second Life. Behind the title is a tale of survival, as Kohlhase reveals that he became infected with HIV in 2015. “I feel like I am living a ‘second life’ now,” he writes in his liner notes, “and am grateful for the excellent medical treatment that I’ve received here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. This album is dedicated to the 40 million people who have died of AIDS without the benefit of modern treatment, which in some parts of the world continues today, and particularly to those closest to me: Brian Combs, Lionel Cuffie, Barry Savage and Calvan Vail.”

Kohlhase’s Explorers Club has appeared in a number of configurations over the years, on releases for Creative Nation (Impermanence) and Boxholder (Adventures), as well as a bimonthly live series at the Lilypad in Cambridge. On A Second Life the lineup expands to an octet, with an arresting instrumentation of reeds (Kohlhase, tenorist Seth Meicht), brass (trombonist Jeb Bishop, trumpeter Dan Rosenthal, tubist Josiah Reibstein), guitar (Eric Hofbauer), bass (Tony Leva) and drums (Curt Newton). In light of Bishop’s decision to return to Chicago after years spent on the East Coast, Kohlhase knew it was time to document what became a cherished edition of the group.

RUN TIME: 2hrs