Chicago-based composer, singer, and improviser Ben LaMar Gay shares a new video for “Mestre Candeia’s Denim Hat,” another song off his upcoming album Open Arms to Open Us, out November 19 on International Anthem / Nonesuch. An homage to improvisatory and rhythmic elements of the Brazilian “Partido Alto” tradition, “Mestre Candeia’s Denim Hat” sees Gay lay a Chicago-style free-jazz synth raga over a swinging, fractured march. The title is a nod to the insight and style of master sambista and partideiro Antônio Candeia Filho. You can watch the new music video, directed by Andrea Rodea and Erik Mares of the Mexico City based Rhizomes Films, here:

In 2019, Gay released Confetti in the Sky Like Fireworks, an original soundtrack for the Beija Films documentary This Is Bate Bola, which captured the vibrant carnival traditions of a community north of Rio de Janeiro. Speaking to Afropunk about the project, Gay explained, “My relationship with Brazil started on the Southside of Chicago, like everything else real to me. The natural synthesis that occurred in my household between my father’s foreign vinyl sounds, mother’s Mahalia-esque improvised melodies ... Brazil became my first portal to the world outside of one perspective.”

“Mestre Candeia’s Denim Hat” is the third offering from Open Arms to Open Us, joining previously released singles “Sometimes I Forget How Summer Looks on You” and “Oh Great Be the Lake”; together they present a dynamic preview of the music on Gay’s upcoming album, which explores his interests in thermodynamics, rhythm as an inheritance of information, and improvisation as “the one freedom that we all have access to.”