Luke Carlos O'Reilly - Leave the Gate Open (2024) [Hi-Res]

“I’ve been lucky enough to work with a lot of great, musicians,” O’Reilly says. He cites departed figures like trombonist Curtis Fuller, flutist Dave Valentin, saxophonist Red Halloway, violinist John Blake, Jr and impresario Meghan Stabile: “All these songs are dedications to people who have been really influential in my musical journey.”

Prior to Leave the Gate Open, WRTI hailed O’Reilly’s last album, 2021’s I Too Sing America: A Black Man’s Diary, as “a triumph of activism and music.” WXPN took note of O’Reilly’s “exceptional piano skills… with a sound stemming from traditional jazz sounds along with hints of funk, R&B, and hip-hop elements.”

Leave the Gate Open kicks off with “Soul Dancing,” a bluesy, radiant tune by the gamechanging B-3 organist, saxophonist, and trumpeter Joey DeFrancesco, who unexpectedly left us in 2022. “He’s a big influence; he was the living GOAT,” O’Reilly reflects.

Drummer and fellow Philadelphian Anwar Marshall laid “Soul Dancing” on O’Reilly and he was hooked. “As soon as Joey passed, I started playing that song,” O’Reilly explains. “I had to include that on the album, especially because of his recent passing.”

“Keep On Keeping On” is a Dave Valentin tune. Even though O’Reilly has enjoyed an association with him, he didn’t previously know the song. Part of the reason it stuck out: “Dave didn’t have a whole lot of original compositions that he recorded,” O’Reilly says.

So, O’Reilly decided to try it with the band and to add some Wulitzer spice on top :“That’s a song that had to be worked on a little bit. A super-fun song to play.”

“Only Option” is an O’Reilly original; he dedicated it to his father, an appreciator of the bottomless musical tradition of the Big Easy.

“It has a little bit of a New Orleans street beat,” O’Reilly says, noting that although he composed it while his father was still alive, he sadly never got to hear it. “That’s why I dedicated it to him,” O’Reilly says of “Only Option.” “And thankfully, the guys were willing to play that song.”

The stark, ruminative “When Darkness Takes Our Light” is dedicated to the life and legacy of the very missed Meghan Stabile, an indispensable promoter, producer and organizer, who tragically left us in 2022.

“She had a love and passion for the music that really came across when you talked to her,” O’Reilly says ruefully. “But she had sadness about her. But even as sad as she was at times, she still was this huge beacon of light, especially for the New York jazz scene.”

“Little Man” was written by the jazz bassist Charles Fambrough, best known for his stint with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. Although Fambrough was near the end of his life when O’Reilly met him, he was highly generous with his stable of knowledge.

“Whenever I have a show in Philly, I love to do a song or two in remembrance of somebody who’s affected me,” O’Reilly goes on to say. “So, Little Man is a song I’ve been playing for years, and I thought it’d be a perfect song for the record.”

Enter Orrin Evans, who runs Imani Records, and wears a multitude of other hats. He brought “Deshazor,” by the great and undersung pianist Bill Hollis, to O’Reilly. “We were talking about the concept of leaving the gate open — making room for those who come after you, and those who have left room for you,” O’Reilly elaborates.

As Ellsworth Gooding, who played tenor on the original record, was Evans’ uncle, “Deshazor” felt like particularly ripe fruit for Leave the Gate Open — to tip a hat to the elders who came before, but also to keep the music in the Imani family.

Leave the Gate Open begins to wind down with its penultimate track, “Mini Mama” — composed by Fuller, one of the greatest trombonists of all time.“It’s classic Blue Note vibes from Curtis Fuller,” O’Reilly says of the original, which was first released by the Cannonball Adderley Quintet, for the 1967 album Why Am I Treated So Bad!. With those raw materials, O’Reilly and company teased out a “Ramsey Lewis kind of vibe… a live setting, like it’s a house party.” Leave the Gate Open concludes with the resplendent “A City Called Heaven.” A Black spiritual famously channeled by the awe-inspiring contralto Marian Anderson, the tune made its way to O’Reilly via violinist John Blake, Jr.

“Although it is not a song he wrote, he had a gorgeous, gorgeous version of it,” O’Reilly says of the album’s closer. And when it comes to Leave the Gate Open, this stray expression applies across the board. O’Reilly utterly makes these tunes his own, whether he penned them or not. More than that: they would make said elders beyond proud. And with help from his most treasured friends and associates — both dead and living — O’Reilly swings open the gate for all of us.

Luke Carlos O'Reilly – piano, organ
Vicente Archer – bass
Matt Parrish – bass
Jerome Jennings – drums
Lil John Roberts – drums