In 2024, Charlie Ballantine made the move from his hometown Indianapolis, Indiana to Baltimore after his wife, saxophonist Amanda Gardier accepted a spot in the Commodores Navy Band and with a young daughter in tow, uprooted and quickly adapted to an entirely new jazz scene. Together, the two previously worked on Ballantine’s 2018 release Life is Brief, a collection of Bob Dylan covers, his 2020 tribute to Kurt Vonnegut, Vonnegut, and Reflections/Introspection, an homage to Thelonious Monk in 2021, along with Gardier’s Empathy (2018), follow-up Flyover Country (2020) nad her 2024 released Auteur: Music Inspired by the Films of Wes Anderson.
After relocating, Ballantine continued working on songs reflecting his new life and the creative sparks firing him up on the East Coast that led him to Love Letters & Graffiti.
Backed by pianist Jon Cowherd, bassist Tony Scherr, and drummer Rudy Royston and recorded in Brooklyn, New York, Love Letters & Graffiti is a “photo album” of Ballantine’s new life and immersion into the other side of jazz from opening “Blues for Baltimorrow” and “Love Letter,” and penultimate “Graffiti,” and more contemplations of living in a new place on the driftier “Strange Idea” and “When the Hero Comes Back,” which Ballantine reprises by the end.
“‘Love Letters…’ represents a love letter to the Midwest, where I came from, and ‘Graffiti’ was making my stamp in a new area,” Ballantine tells American Songwriter. “So it was split between the two places that I called home.”
Ballantine recently spoke to American Songwriter about immersing himself in East Coast jazz, why he considers himself “more as a songwriter than a guitar player,” and writing more love letters with music.
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AS: With songs like “Blues for Baltimorrow,” “Love Letter,” and “Graffiti,” how did Love Letters & Graffiti end up documenting your move from Indianapolis?
Charlie Ballantine: About a year and a half to two years ago, I moved from the Midwest to the East Coast, and I wrote the whole thing in a couple of months during that transition. Love Letters… represents a love letter to the Midwest, where I came from, and Graffiti was making my stamp in a new area. So it was split between the two places that I called home. And “Blues for Baltimorrow,” that’s what my 4-year-old, who was 3 at the time, called Baltimore. That’s what she still calls Baltimore.
I never know what it sounds like to people listening, but they’re [songs are] always linked to a time in my life, like my version of a photo album. I’ve released a lot of records, and it documents those times in my life.
AS: Songs have a way of documenting life at a particular time.
CB: It can take five years for me to go back and listen to a record, and I’ve recently listened to Where I My Mind? (2017) for the first time since 2017. You get to the point where you can idealize things. I’m very nitpicky and think “I should have done this,” but once you separate yourself five, six, seven years, you can go back and say “Oh, that was a great moment. That was a nice time. This is a fun record.”
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AS: Even though it was only seven years ago, that album (Where Is My Mind?)was a different period in your life. Which songs still hold a place in your set from those earlier albums?
CB: With each album, if there are eight to 10 songs, maybe two or three really survive, as part of my longer story—the bigger picture. So they’re maybe one or two songs off of Where Is My Mind? that’s an oldie at this point for me, and I still play. On Cold Coffee (2019), there’s maybe two or three off for that record, so it’s fun to see what makes it and what you remember and what you’re still working on 10 years later.
It’s also the stuff that I felt comfortable doing. Some of the more country or folk-sounding things off of Where Is My Mind? I don’t play as much because I wanted to grow out of that and move into more of a jazz sound or something more complex. The stuff that felt easy and thoughtless at the time, I don’t keep working on. I like to work on the songs that I’m struggling with. The songs that were more difficult on Where Is My Mind? I stayed with those and tried to make something of them. Comfortability can get boring after a minute.
AS: Describe the dynamic and pulling together the songs on Love Letters & Graffiti with this new batch of musicians.
CB: Because of the players on this album being as incredible as they were, a handful of songs were done in one or two takes. “Blue for Baltimorrow” was recorded as the first take of the first song we did in the studio, so that set the tone. When you play with world-class improvisers and jazz musicians, you feed off of their creativity and react, to each take, to the musicians around you.
AS: How has the East Coast jazz scene informed your new music, performance?
CB: It’s different. It’s the East Coast, so for jazz, for instrumental music, it’s very high caliber. There are a lot of great players and it’s inspiring. The Midwest, in a way, has no identity, which is conducive to creativity and individualism and forming your voice. The East Coast is a little different. It does have an identity, especially within jazz. People swing hard out here and everyone plays with very high energy, so it’s been fun to be inspired by those things and maintain the voice I felt was shaped in the Midwest.
I didn’t realize when moving out here that geography had such a huge affect on how you feel how you sound and what you end up doing artistically.
AS: Do songs tend to come together for you the same now, compared to when you started?
CB: I’ve started to think of myself more as a songwriter than a guitar player because it’s become such an important part of my daily life. Sometimes they come and sometimes they don’t, but I try to be conscious of keeping that channel open. When I sit down with the guitar and an idea is there, I try to lean into it focus on it, and shape it. You never know when that’s going to happen. It can be when you wake up. It can be during lunch, or waking up in the middle of the night at two in the morning. It’s a weird thing when it presents itself to you. I have to tackle it or it will disappear into the ether. Sometimes the best stuff comes when you feel the worst.
I was talking to the great jazz drummer David King, and we were on the road and it was crappy out. It was raining and storming for this long drive. I was like, “I hate days like this,” and he said “These are the best days, man. You can’t be inspired to make something great when it’s 75 and sunny. This is where the real inspiration comes.”
Photo: Cover of ‘Love Letters & Graffiti’
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