Album Review: Tony Glausi – Everything At Once

Raised in Portland, Oregon and currently based in New York City, Tony Glausi is widely known for his accomplishments as a trumpet player. But with his latest album Everything At Once, which is out now via outside in music see’s Glausi shift into roles of bandleader, producer, songwriter, and singer.

“Coming out of high school and studying music in college, I was pretty fixated on jazz trumpet playing, and my earlier releases were heavily oriented around improvisation and swing,” Glausi explains. “But as I continue to write and explore new sounds, I feel like I get closer and closer to my true voice, one record at a time.” Everything At Once is an album of places, faces, and interactions. Quite simply,

“Writing Everything At Once, I felt like the project wasn’t about me. It wasn’t about Tony, the trumpet player. I just wanted to make fucking songs,” Glausi explains. “I sing on three of them, but I just wanted to produce the music and ultimately let my collaborators shine,” he adds.

All in all the album features six artists that Glausi has collaborated with. Starting with ‘I Could Fall in Love’ which benefits from the dreamy delivery of Charlamagne the Goddess who compliments Glausi’s equally smooth vocals. Latin Goddess Nana Mendoza adds a silky, haunting vocal to ‘Celeste Inmensidad’ which already has a moody score. The upbeat ‘Lot of Enough’ with its Jamiroquai groove has Luca Max laying down a couple of verses.

Along with a Jamiroquai vibe Glausi also mixes with some Prince funk with Max Milner on Is Anybody Fkn Listening? The track starts all funk but gets into some moody late night jazz for Milner’s vocals. The Jazz continues with next track ‘The Ominous Blue’. Piano and woodwind Braxton Cook gives a smooth almost whispered delivery. The statement piano is also on the last collaborated track. Brooklyn-based singer Elysse on ‘You’ll Never Know’ is an oasis of calm in the increasingly pyschedelic jazz that wraps and morphs around her vocals.

The mainly instrumental ‘Backseat Bump’ sees Glausi swap vocals for trumpet. Where as ‘Forever Is Now!!’ is a jaunty piano composition where the notes trip and fall over each other and the vocals come in the form of falsetto singing the three word title before a warming trumpet section enters guarnteeing to put a smile on your face.

The ode to ‘Jada Jada’ is an up to date dream of love in the days covid restrictions. The cinematic feel of the track is something the overall album wears with pride. Glausi has created a mixtape to his life, thanks, in part, to his willingness to try anything. “The album is literally a two year snapshot of my life. Each story is like a scene from a film, or I guess 10 different films”.

Ending with the gorgeous track ‘Meant to Be’. The album concludes with a laid back tune with stung out hazy vocals over simple piano and trumpet interludes. As close to pop as the album gets, it shows Glausi spreading his writing wings and incorporating a number of genres. We have a wonderful mash of r’n’b, pop, jazz and funk sounding cinematic and very American, it’s a struggle to pin this album down. With ‘Everything At Once’ Glausi has giving us an album full of charm and unique compositions, sometimes heart braking but mostly up lifting about love and life.

Check out the album closing track, below:

Find out more via Glausi’s Website or Facebook

Purchase the album here