We at The Monarch love this concept: bringing a group of Seattle musicians together to celebrate jazz, music, and the Seattle scene. Jason Parker is one of the best at this – he is a galvanizer of talent, which is one of the best artistic qualities someone can have, in my humble opinion. Jason writes, “The Seattle jazz scene is bursting with talent and is a true hidden gem of the jazz world. Seattlites know how special it is, but word is only now starting to get out to the rest of the world. I decided to shine a spotlight on some of the marvelous composers we have here in The Town with Homegrown.”

The record features tracks by Josh Rawlings, Thomas Marriott, Cynthia Mullis, Jeremy Jones, Hadley Caliman, Marc Seales, Troy Kendrick and Jason Parker. But what about the city, itself, inspires, exactly?

“The people inspire me,” said Jason. “All the people who make up the wonderful communtiy of music here in Seattle, whether it’s my regular band mates (Josh Rawlings, Evan Flory-Barnes, D’Vonne Lewis and Cynthia Mullis), or the other musicians and artists in the Town doing amazing collaborative work, or the people who come out to the shows and share the love of music and community with us. It may sound highfalutin, but my goal is to be a community builder, it just so happens that the path I’ve chosen to do that is playing music. But the ultimate goal is to build community and make connections with other humans. And I’ve never found a place more suitable to that than Seattle.”

You can check out the whole album here. Or sample it here: