Warren Haynes and the Asheville Symphony Orchestra, photo by David Simchock
Throughout his four decades at the forefront of Southern rock, Warren Haynes has inexhaustibly innovated on time-honored musical traditions. In a career full of bold moves, largely harmonizing the gritty traditionalism of blues and roots with the improvisatory fluency of jazz and jam, one of his most striking projects has been an embrace of orchestral performance. The singer, songwriter and guitarist’s rare symphonic shows situate his music in arrangements that work productive tensions to reach new heights of grandeur. Now, he’s set that effect to tape with Dreams & Songs, a new symphonic live album.
Haynes’ forthcoming project captures the hometown kickoff of his Dreams & Songs – A Symphonic Journey 2019 live series. Onstage at Asheville, N.C.’s Thomas Wolfe Auditorium, the rock pioneer debuted an ambitious reimagining of his repertoire alongside the 64-piece Asheville Symphony Orchestra and a stacked band of reliable collaborators, with Oteil Burbridge on bass, John Medeski on keys, Jeff Sipe on drums and Greg Osby on saxophone. To preview the collection, he’s shared an expansive rendition of Gov’t Mule’s two-decade live favorite “Banks of the Deep End,” demonstrating the compelling intersection Haynes’ spontaneity and the orchestra’s stirring persistence…