Article Contributed by Gratefulweb
Published on 2026-10-11
Photo: Courtesy of @Livia Blanc
Acclaimed Brooklyn-based guitarist and composer Max Light celebrates his bold, complex and moving new album Unlearning with a run of album preview concerts beginning October 15 in Los Angeles and continuing through Seattle, Portland, New York City and Brooklyn.
Out November 13 on Chill Tone Records, Unlearning was born out of the process of watching Light’s father’s memories fade and playing for him in a Washington, D.C. memory care facility. Through that heartbreaking journey, Light discovered that even life’s darkest experiences and most formidable challenges can result in moments of enlightenment and transformation.
On his bold, complex and bracingly moving new album, Light explores that idea from a striking variety of perspectives, at once profoundly personal and conceptually rigorous.
For his most deeply felt and musically challenging project to date, Light is joined by a stellar band of close friends and longtime collaborators: pianist Julian Shore, bassist Walter Stinson and drummer Steven Crammer, joined on four pieces by soprano saxophonist and stritch player Caleb Wheeler Curtis.
Unlearning, due November 13, 2026 on Chill Tone Records, was born out of the process of watching a loved one’s memories fade, but through that heartbreaking journey Light discovered that even life’s darkest experiences and most formidable challenges can result in moments of enlightenment and transformation.
The guitarist began devising the musical themes that run through the album while playing for his father in the Washington, D.C. memory care facility where the elder Light is living during the latter stages of his ongoing struggle with Alzheimer’s disease.
“On one level the idea of Unlearning is a different way to look at the process of losing one’s memory and sense of self,” Light explains. “At the same time my dad was also a very complicated man and not always the most present father. But as I got older he turned his behavior around and became a major force of support and positivity in my life. So Unlearning also took on aspects of forgetting a shared past in view of a brighter future.”
Long a creator of fiercely inventive and intricate music for music’s sake, Light knew that this repertoire required musicians who could not only navigate the considerable demands presented by his compositions, but were also intimately linked to the personal emotions at the music’s heart.
“This is a band made up not only of my favorite musicians, but my closest friends,” Light says of the band, which first convened in the studio for his 2024 album Chaotic Neutral and is a fixture on the stage at Brooklyn’s Bar Bayeux.
“We all play tons of gigs together in Brooklyn and on the road, so we’ve been able to play this music a lot and develop a band concept. They also all knew my dad because he was a regular at our gigs. They all remember the last conversations they had with him, which made this really special.”
The album opens with “Paul,” named after Light’s father, a political scientist, NYU professor, author and fellow at the Brookings Institution often called upon to provide expert analysis on cable news networks.
His intellectual genius commingled with the facets of their complicated relationship in Light’s mind as he observed the deterioration of his father’s memories and capacities.
The melodic material of this piece then recurs throughout much of the rest of the album, forming a suite in which the themes of “Paul” are “extrapolated, disassociated and placed in different contexts, creating a feeling of nostalgia throughout the record,” in the words of the composer.
The suite continues through Light’s solo piece “Recollection I,” the title track, “Gracebound in Parody” and the final piece “Caregiving,” which serves, in closing, as the suite’s overture.
The suite is interspersed with solo spotlights for Stinson (“Recollection II”) and Shore (“Recollection III”), which introduce the pieces that follow them and are, in a sense, remembrances by the musicians of the music to come — time and memory flowing in unusual directions throughout the album.
The album is rounded out by three further Light compositions.
The darting, elusive and gleefully exasperating “Authentication Two-Step” recalls the frustrating experience of trying to gain access to Paul Light’s accounts and devices when all passwords and means of verification had disappeared behind the fog of memory.
“Talking To You” is a deconstructed contrafact on Victor Lewis’ “Hey, It’s Me You’re Talking To,” a labyrinthine evocation of conversations with a patient in the advanced stages of the condition.
The floating, ethereal “Pumpkin Pie” is reprised from Light’s 2020 debut, Herplusme, a favorite of his father’s that here serves as both tribute and snapshot.
The album’s packaging also enfolds prismatic views of Paul Light and his condition’s impact on those closest to him. On the cover is a portrait photograph, taken by Max, distorted through layers of glass by designer Livia Blanc. Inside can be found a brief verse by Max’s brother Wheeler Light, reflective of his experience.
“Composing this music as a tool of processing the emotions and the conceptual nature of my father’s illness has been a fascinating and harrowing experience,” Light says. “I allowed myself to embrace the narrative in a way that I never have before, but it flowed so naturally as I was going through the experience. I never really questioned it, and I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to record something like this in the moment. It's been challenging but therapeutic, embracing all the challenges of the last three years and the life before it as well.”
Max Light – Unlearning Album Preview Tour
October 15 – Sam First – Los Angeles, CA
Part of Third Thursdays presented with KCRW. Featuring Julian Shore, Walter Stinson and Steven Crammer. 7:30 p.m. Tickets $33.60–$39.20; streaming tickets $16.80.
samfirstbar.com
October 16 – Thud – Seattle, WA
Presented by Goodbye Look. 7 and 9 p.m.
goodbyelook.com
October 17 – House of Doolescu – Portland, OR
7 p.m. Tickets $20–$35.
houseofdoolescu.com
October 20 – Zinc Bar – New York, NY
82 W. 3rd St. In cooperation with Arthouse 18. 7 and 8:30 p.m. Tickets $35.
zincbar.com
October 21 – Close Up – New York, NY
154 Orchard St. 7:30 and 9 p.m. Tickets $27.08.
closeupnyc.com
October 30 – Bar Bayeux – Brooklyn, NY
1066 Nostrand Avenue. No cover. 8 and 9:30 p.m.
barbayeux.com
About Max Light
Max Light is a guitarist based in Brooklyn, New York. His 2024 release Chaotic Neutral was called “complex, shrouded in mystery and endlessly intriguing,” and “essentially a master class in cutting paths through tricky meters” by DownBeat Magazine in a four-star Editor’s Pick review.
Light won second place in the 2019 Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz International Guitar Competition, judged by Pat Metheny, John Scofield and Lionel Loueke, among others.
He has performed and recorded with Noah Preminger, Christian Sands, Donny McCaslin, Jeremy Dutton, Kaisa Mäensivu, Jason Palmer, Jon Gordon, John Ellis, Dan Weiss, Colin Stranahan, Kevin Sun and others.
His debut trio recording, Herplusme, featured Simon Willson and Matt Honor; his 2023 follow-up, Henceforth, teamed him with saxophonist Noah Preminger, drummer Dan Weiss and bassist Kim Cass. Light has also released duo outings with Preminger, Songs We Love (2022) and Stitching Life (2026), and pianist Julian Shore on Duo (2023).
About Chill Tone Records
Founded in 2019, Chill Tone Records has established itself as one of the most dynamic labels in jazz today, with an international roster reaching from New York across Europe and South America. The label releases music by Julian Shore, Noah Preminger, Caleb Wheeler Curtis, Marcio Philomena and Randy Ingram, among others.
maxlightguitar.com
chilltone.com
maxlight.bandcamp.com
chilltonerecords.bandcamp.com
