Help Bring The No Kap Kollective's Debut Album to Life!
Donation protected
Welcome to my GoFundMe! My name is Nickolas Kaplan, and I am a trumpeter, composer, arranger, and music educator born and based in Chicago. I am raising funds to complete the debut big band album of my group The No Kap Kollective.
This project is the culmination of years of composing, arranging, and performing in Chicago as well as in Central Illinois, where I graduated in 2024 with my Master's from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and composed and revised many of the works set to debut on this album.
In June 2023, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs (DCASE) awarded this project a grant, the funds of which have been set aside to pay the 20+ musicians involved in the project. On behalf of the Kollective, we now call upon you, our friends, family, and community, to help us bring this project out into the world!
The music you will hear on this album was arranged and composed over the last decade, though much of it over the last two years as a graduate teaching assistant at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where I workshopped, edited, rehearsed and played many of my arrangements with the UIUC Concert Jazz Band and Latin Jazz Ensemble.
The album is comprised of arrangements and reworkings of compositions of mostly contemporary and/or living composers, including Flying Lotus, André 3000, Erykah Badu, Roy Hargrove, Nicholas Payton, Geri Allen, Solange, Willow Smith, and Stevie Wonder. The album will also feature arrangements of my original works that I have played in big band and small group settings.
This project is equally rooted in both parts of my musical identity—writing and playing.
As a largely self-taught arranger who spent much of the early 2010s away from the horn and outside of the “jazz-education industrial complex,” I was drawn to music and discourse that profoundly shaped my tastes and aesthetics. In 2010, a friend showed me a video of “Hoc-N-Pucky” from Miguel Atwood-Ferguson’s Suite for Ma Dukes, which orchestrated the music of J Dilla; this was my gateway to Dilla, other instrumental hip hop, and then hip hop as a whole. In November 2011, Nicholas Payton’s post “On Why Jazz Isn't Cool Anymore” pushed me to make critical connections between the music I loved and the sociohistorical phenomena of American society I was studying as a sociology student.
In February 2012, Robert Glasper released his “Black Radio” album which, in tandem with listening to Payton, Roy Hargrove, Flying Lotus, Dilla, and others, illuminated the sonic meaning of #BAM and opened my ears to sonic palettes and voices I likely would not have been studying in a “jazz” degree. While in law school, YouTube searches led me the videos of Igmar Thomas’ Revive Da Live, now the Revive Big Band.
In 2014, in the midst of my law studies, I wrote a suite-length arrangement of the J Dilla album "Yancey Boys", in partnership with People's Center for Cultural & Contemporary Arts; 8 years later, this same suite was premiered by the first iteration of the No Kap Kollective in February 2022. Later on, in November 2022, the band, then-known as the Chicago BAM Orchestra, performed a tribute to Roy Hargrove and his big band at the world-famous Jazz Showcase featuring Chicago musician Marques Carroll.
The No Kap Kollective began its life in 2022 as a small group that played repertoire from the #BAM canon: works and arrangements by Wayne Shorter, Nicholas Payton, Lakecia Benjamin, Duke Pearson, Dr. Billy Taylor, Alice Coltrane, Geri Allen, Stevie Wonder, Mal Waldron, Booker Little, and many, many more. Performing alongside some of the finest musicians in Chicago at Elastic Arts, the California Clipper, Dorian’s, and beyond pushed me to refine my concept as an improviser and ensemble player and gave me the necessary foundation to pursue my master’s degree and commit myself wholly to this music.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, I became part of a group that would become the Chicago Freedom Ensemble, a social-justice marching band and artists’ collective founded during the protests of summer 2020. The artistic and ideological vision set out by CFE’s director Thaddeus Tukes profoundly inspired me as a writer, performer, and person, and I am grateful that he is joining me here as both ensemble member and executive producer for the album.
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This music celebrates our vibrant Chicago music community. It features all-star band of top-tier musicians--a majority of whom were born and raised in the city, and all of whom have been nurtured by this city’s unique music community. Your contributions to this project will go to the following unmet expenses and costs:
- Studio time, mixing, and mastering: Our album will be recorded at Chicago’s own Soundmine Studios by head engineer Dennis Tousana, an industry veteran with 40+ years of experience recording local artists across a plethora of genres.
- Producing physical media (CDs), including commissioned album artwork and photography: While digital download and streaming will also be available, physical ownership is the most tangible way to support this band’s hard work. Physical media also allows us to highlight (and pay for) the talents of top-tier Chicago visual artists and photographers.
- Obtaining mechanical licenses for other artists’ songs: As an arranger, it is important that the composers of non-original music on this album are not only appreciated, but also duly compensated. At a personal level, this is also my way of saying “thank you” to the way that your music, and the process of arranging it, have saved my life.
- All remaining funds will go to rehearsal costs and additional musician compensation and reimbursement.
Thank you for taking the time to learn about this project, its history, and the ways in which you can support its coming to fruition. Please contribute what you can! To each and every one of you who is able to support this dream in some way, I am grateful beyond measure.
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THE NO KAP KOLLECTIVE
Vocals
Alysha Monique
Chris Robbin'
Woodwinds
Kenthaney Redmond, flute 1
Kevin King II, lead alto/soprano sax/flute 2/misc clarinet
Natalie Lande, alto 2/clarinet 1/misc flute
Reginald Lewis, tenor sax 1
Kenneth Leftridge, Jr., tenor sax 2/clarinet 2
Jacob Slocum, bari sax/bass clarinet
Len'i McKinney, bari sax
Trumpets
John Moore, Jr. & Justin A. Williams, lead
Gabriel Wade, trumpet 2
Ryan Nyther, trumpet 3
Jon McQuade trumpet 4
Trombones
Kirby Fellis, lead
Matt Davis & Emma Blau, trombone 2
Royce Harrington-Turner, trombone 3
Robyn Smith, bass trombone
Rhythm
Thaddeus Tukes, vibraphone
Brandon Harper, piano/electric piano/synth
Runere Brooks, acoustic/electric bass/keybass
Isaiah Spencer, drums
Javier Quintana-Ocasio, congas/castanets/misc percussion
Arrangements & Compositions
Nickolas Kaplan
If you've made it to the end, THANK YOU! That means you get a free preview of one of our album tunes! Here's the band's November 2022 debut performance of an arrangement I wrote on Roy Hargrove and Erykah Badu's joint composition "Poetry" from the RH Factor's 2003 album "Hard Groove," featuring vocals from Chris Robbin' and Alysha Monique! Hope you enjoy.
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Cover photo by Bruce A. Williams @openmindimages
Photos 1 and 3 by Rohan Pluta @rohan2dahiya
Photo 2 by Joy Yang @joyyangmusic
Photos 4 by Kat Chávez @katchavezphoto
Photo 5 by Daveed Holmes @apertrue_photography
Photo 5 by Photo credit unknown
Photo 6 by Efrain Ribeiro @breton9jazz
Photo 7 by Sarah-Ji Rhee @loveandstrugglephotos
Photo 8 by Bruce A. Williams @openmindimages
Organizer
Nickolas Kaplan
Organizer
Chicago, IL