ACCLAIMED COMPOSER
WOODY JACKSON’S COWBOY YOGA OUT NOW VIA ELECTRO-VOX RECORDS

WITH BILL FRISELL, JAY BELLEROSE & JENNIFER CONDOS

FEATURING SPECIAL APPEARANCES FROM
MARC RIBOT, GABE NOEL, SEBASTIAN STEINBERG & ZACH JACKSON

THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF A TRILOGY

August 23, 2024—Woody Jackson, the acclaimed composer behind the soundtracks for Rockstar Games titles Grand Theft Auto V, the Red Dead Redemption series and L.A. Noire, today releases his instrumental album Cowboy Yoga via his legendary studio’s label, Electro-Vox Records. The record finds Jackson (guitar, bass VI, vibraphone, guitorgan, cello, degamba, mandocello and buchla) performing in a group alongside legendary artists Bill Frisell (guitar), Jay Bellerose (drums) and Jennifer Condos (bass), with special guest appearances from Marc Ribot (guitar), Gabe Noel (cello), Sebastian Steinberg (bass) and Woody’s son, Zach Jackson (French Horn). Listen to the album HERE and purchase vinyl HERE.

On Woody’s 50th birthday, at the height of pandemic lockdown, his wife gifted him the Excalibur of guitars: a 1953 Telecaster the formerly belonged to legendary musician and composer Bob Bain. Dubbed “The Gunn,” this guitar is heard on more movies and soundtracks from the ’50’s and ’60’s than any other guitar. It’s the guitar featured in the TV themes for “Peter Gunn,” “Batman” and “Bonanza,” as well as in the films The Magnificent Seven, Rio Bravo and The Pink Panther, among many others.

Before arranging the trilogy series, Jackson reached out to Bill Frisell. They are both keepers of the flame, dedicated to preserving the past with a foot in the future. Woody traveled to NYC from Tucson, meeting Bill, Jay and Jen at Sear Sound. Bill curiously asked, “Do you have the guitar?” Woody handed it over, and the Cowboy Yoga music began.

Jackson later arranged and organized the finished pieces into cohesive groups of mood and style to create a trilogy of records, first being the ambient uplifting and hopeful Cowboy Yoga.

“I love to write music that makes musicians play less,” notes Jackson.

Jackson’s extensive work on soundtracks and scores has garnered him an online cult following; his concept of Real Time Human Granular Synthesis (RTHGS)—a sound processing technique that involves micro-sampling minute pieces of audio to synthesize new sounds and patterns—and other new abstract ideas have paved the way for his pioneering Ambient style, which is further explored on Cowboy Yoga. Jackson points to the works of Ennio Morricone (The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, A Fistful of Dollars), Masaru Sato (Throne of Blood, Yojimbo), Angelo Badalamenti (“Twin Peaks”) and Henry Mancini (Pink Panther, Breakfast at Tiffany’s) as inspiration, noting their simple but iconic motifs for film and TV as a through-line.

ABOUT WOODY JACKSON

Born in Oil City, PA and raised in York, PA and Richmond, VA, Jackson was schooled at a holy roller high school, baptized a Mormon and shipped off for an ill-advised one-day stint in the U.S. Navy Military Jazz Band; Woodrow Wilson Jackson III’s musical influences are as diverse as his eclectic upbringing. A composer and session musician, Woody Jackson is a pivotal figure in film and video game scoring. Moving to Los Angeles in 1992, Jackson began his career performing on the scores of The Devil Wears Prada and Fun with Dick and Jane, which led to collaborations with David Holmes on the soundtracks for Ocean’s Twelve and Ocean’s Thirteen. He wrote and played with the band Unloved and worked on the TV series “Killing Eve.” His score for Red Dead Redemption 2 with Daniel Lanois won the 2018 Game Awards’ Best Score/Music Award, and he’s seen awards for Excellence in Musical Score (SXSW 2019), Best Audio (2019 Game Developers Choice Awards) and Best Soundtrack Album (2019 Hollywood Music in Media Awards).

Back in 1994, his group Hotel X released Engendered Species on SST Records. At that time Jackson was also touring with the Useless Playboys. fronted by Mike Gier a.k.a. Puddles the Clown. After moving to Los Angeles, he toured and joined the group the Friends of Dean Martinez, recording the album Retrograde on Sub Pop in 1997. Between playing on movies and live performances on the guitorgan with Money Mark (Beastie Boys), Jackson and Petra Haden released Ten Years, an album titled after the length of time it was in production. July, 2012 saw the release of Dos Manos, an original album produced David Holmes. In 2020 Jackson released his second original solo album, Tres Flores.

Jackson owns and works out of Electro-Vox Studios—formerly in Hollywood, CA—which has recorded Multi-Platinum and Grammy-winning records for artists Adele, Vampire Weekend, Lady Gaga, Arctic Monkeys and Kanye West. As a studio guitarist, he’s shared recording sessions with T-Bone Burnett, The Alchemist, Ry Cooder, Hal Willner and many others.

For more information, please contact Krista Williams, Joe Cohen, Christopher Emond or Carla Sacks at Sacks & Co., 212.741.1000.

TRACK LIST— COWBOY YOGA
1. It Should Have Happened a Long Time Ago
2. The Son
3. Theodora Roosevelt
4. Cowboy Yoga
5.Song for P.D.

www.woodyjackson.com