Leonardo

The Cast:
Leonardo da Vinci - James LaBrie
Ser Piero da Vinci - Davey Pattison
Caterina - Michelle Young
Lorenzo de' Medici - Josh Pincus
Mona Lisa - Lisa Bouchelle
Melzi - Mike Baker
Verrochio - Trent Gardner
Salai - Robert Berry
Calco - Steve Walsh
Sforza - Chris Shryack
Francois 1 - Bret Douglas

The Musicians:
Trent Gardner - keyboards and trombone
Wayne Gardner - guitar
Jeremy Colson - drums
Patrick Reyes - guitar
Steve Reyes - bass

Joe Franco - drums and percussion on
"This Time, This Way" and "Apparition"
Luis Maldonado - guitar and bass on
"This Time, This Way"

Music and lyrics written by Trent Gardner.

Leonardo - The Absolute Man is a reasoned, selective re-telling of the life of a great man, Leonardo da Vinci, the ultimate Renaissance man. It has been in the works for years, originating as the ultimate artistic dream of Magna Carta label head Peter Morticelli, who then placed the intellectual blueprints in the hands of Trent Gardner who commenced to create what is by far, the most complex, grand and magnificently sweeping collaboration the label has ever attempted.

Leonardo sounds like no other progressive rock construct you have ever heard. It is a mix of cinematic progressive rock, symphonic rock, progressive pop and progressive metal, graced and articulated by true classical music and the theatrical scope of state-of -the-art soundtrack or dramatic stage music.

Its prime mover is of course, Trent Gardner (Magellan, Explorers Club), who wrote the whole thing, music, lyrics, arrangements, who then had to play traffic cop with the myriad of performers playing specific, interwoven parts, tackling seemingly insurmountable technological feats, creating what is an awesome piece of rock art, built incidentally, for a life well beyond the album, and onto the living stage.

Trent offers a little background into this pivotal Magna Carta project. "Once the idea got off the ground, I committed to doing some research and reading and once I got into the story I started to realize that there was a lot more there than I realized. I always had the view that Leonardo was just a Renaissance artist and that was it, and I didn't realize the full impact of his story. And that's when I got more inspired musically. We could have called this Leonardo - The Enigma. The trained scholars who have done the most research, all of academia - and believe me, I've run it all down - they don't know who this guy is. They know of him, they know things he did, but they don't know Leonardo the man. So what we tried to do is find out who he might be through those who were around him, look at some of the relationships there and deduce to the best of our ability and from the available academic information, who Leonardo was, making sure it was reasonably historically accurate. And the answer might surprise you. It really surprised me. There was much more to this guy than the artist who did The Last Supper or Mona Lisa. That was the LEAST that was amazing about him (laughs)."

Further on the extensive research the project entailed, Trent says that "the hardest element of this entire thing was what NOT to say. There's so much information that the lyric book would have to be three inches thick. How do you boil that down to something cohesive, that captures the essence? Imagine this man that was so far ahead of everyone else, really quite isolated, and trying to capture what it must have been like, the torment that he was going through. I want someone who reads the lyrics and tries to get into the story to be moved emotionally, not just by the musical fireworks. It had to be such that the listeners want to come back and engage with the album multiple times."

As an album, the instantly impressionable characteristic is the variety of talented vocalists who are given roles that advance, take centre stage, fade, and incredibly, engage in dialogues and full-on choral arrangements as the story dictates. "There's something like 21 performers on this," note Gardner. "The main character, Leonardo, is covered by Dream Theater's James LaBrie. James has pulled off, in my opinion, the vocal performance of his life. James has not only operatic training, he's got some theatrical study as well. Bringing him into this is probably the single best decision we made in the process. He has really outdone himself. To tell you the truth, I gave him some challenging stuff to do. He's covering two areas, the real dramatic, piano, vocal-based themes, to the hard, heavy-edged stuff; he's doing solo stuff, duets... the range throughout the album - over an hour - is really nice. I also liked the interaction between James and the other characters. Instead of one singer singing a song you have different people coming in and out within one song. And the accumulation of all this vocal activity creates a lot of excitement. Steve Walsh from Kansas also plays a fantastic role. I recently worked with him on his solo record and we've developed not only a friendship but a musical connection that we want to continue to explore. Robert Berry is involved, Chris Shryack from Under The Sun, Michele Young, an amazing solo artist, who just has the most stunning female voice I've ever heard. We were excited to have her involved. The core rhythm section is actually taken from the Dali's Dilemma band, Jeremy Colson, and Patrick & Steve Reyes, with Wayne Gardner on guitar and myself on keys, which is a good foundation for all these folks' performances to happen. And what we've done is create a story where we can have 15 or so different characters play parts. It's kind of a full-on a rock opera approach."

On the music front, Trent has particular praise for the formidable virtuosity of Jeremy Colson, who drives these songs with a sparkled verve that keeps the many rock tracks on the album lively and live sounding. "I've got to tell you the story about the drums," relates Gardner excitedly. "When I initially came up with these parts, they were so specific and so complex, that I programmed a bunch of drum machine stuff as pre-production work that I could show a drummer, i.e. what the different feels were. And I spent about three months just doing that, which I took to Jeremy, and said 'Jeremy, here's what I'm looking for. I just need you to kind of embellish. Here are the feels, here's where it goes double time, here's the double kick, here's where this accent is.' And this guy did something that nobody I've ever worked with before has done. He actually learned, note for note, the parts I programmed, and then on top of that, embellished. He learned it so well, it became a part of him. I was in the studio when this happened. He blew out this entire album in about six hours. But it took him about three or four months of preparation to learn everything. He could do it in his sleep. He came into Steve Smith's studio and we witnessed him blow through this thing, most of the tunes, virtually first take, with minimal overdubs. He had it so down. I've never seen that happen in the studio. It was just amazing to watch. And this kid, at the time, he was like, 19? He's way beyond most people ten years older than him."

A spiritual highlight on the album is 'First Commission', featuring Steve Walsh and Michelle Young. It is a little slice of heaven, a sublime, ideal vocal duet set to sparse acoustic guitar and resplendent melodic detailing. It is also a testimony to the diversity on this record, from classical bombast to what Trent calls "full-on crunch guitars." Without a doubt, this track could be a smash single that opens the door to this Leonardo phenomenon entering the realm of live theater where it belongs. "To me 'First Commission' sounds reminiscent of something like 'Dust In The Wind'," notes Trent. "It's kind of got that 12-string thing going on. And him! His duet with Michelle is just so emotional. That's what he brought to the forefront of this project, his ability to be a front man. He's one of my favorite singers of all time. He just seems to be getting better all the time (laughs)."

'This Time, This Way', incredibly, skirts the clouds in a similar manner to 'First Commission', except this central power piece rides a full rock groove (and even a little trombone!), while James and Lisa sing a scintillating duet, James, pure and connecting, Lisa, soulful like a southern rock belle. 'This Time, This Way' is almost like a reprise performance, or a curtain call, on the duo's work on 'Mona Lisa', a metaphorical execution of a thematic complexity Gardner reveals was thoroughly planned and intended.

"One thing that I think is beautiful about this is that all the instrumental passages are relevant," explains Trent on the swirling revisitations throughout the album. "There are themes that start from the very outset, the very first note on this album, that recur throughout. So there is this instrumental tapestry that is woven amongst all the songs from beginning to end. They all relate to each other on every level, both lyrically and musically, and that was the big challenge, to make it all cohesive. If there was anything that wasn't an important idea and that wasn't a theme... that was kind of my litmus test for the thing. If it wasn't an important theme, I either mixed it out, or rewrote until I was happy with it. Just continual themes, hitting you over the head with themes..."

When asked about a particularly exciting Trent Gardner performance, the man is reticent about his obvious keyboard skills. "Let me say this, I'm proud of this entire thing as a composition, as a production. It was the most difficult thing I've ever put together, and I've put together some complex things in the past with a lot of different players. And this was just on such a different level logistically, getting that many vocal performances, all the different musical issues that had to be addressed. I've got to tell you, that's where my perspective was on this. I hope that my keyboards stand up. I've got a few vocal parts. I think the strongest one would be 'End Of A World', where I built a huge chorus thing, a big vocal harmony stack at the end of it. On that particular piece I did some extra layering that you won't find elsewhere, just to bring it up to a ridiculous level." And ridiculous it is, a bombastic closing segment - and only two minutes long - that is a gorgeous punctuation mark on a record splashed with class.

Mastering took three weeks, where most Gardner productions have taken a matter of a few days. Legendary Rush producer Terry Brown had to upgrade his equipment to deal with the approximately 100 musical tracks layered throughout. Emailed mp3s, DATs, synchronization problems, interruptions due to major concert tours... but it all coheres seamlessly, due to Gardner's rock and song sensibilities, Leonardo working both as a splendid, intellectual biography and (minus the many segues), as a collection of individual songs. In closing, Gardner offers a characterization of the musical thrust of the album as a whole.

"I think there is no question that this is a melodic progressive rock album, but really heavy at the same time. I think we've broken some new ground here. I'm getting really tired of the same prog rock thing over and over again. Everybody always sounds like the same four or five influences, and I think this is a really good mix of both those elements but it takes it a step further. Everything is a little more cohesive, the production values are high and the songwriting quality has definitely come a long way. Progressive rock is not immune from weak songwriting. I mean, we're probably more guilty of it (laughs). I've found over the years that it takes a lot more craft to create a three or four minute song that has one or two ideas that have been developed, more than it does to have a 15 minute instrumental fest with no discipline to the arrangement. This seems to have the right mix and the right elements and above all, amazing vocal performances. I think we're making better music than we ever have before..."

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THE ABSOLUTE MAN