AL SCHULMAN

As Is, the Project Led by Guitarist Al Schulman and Vocalist Stacey Schulman, Releases Crazy World featuring Drummer Jeff “Tain” Watts, Bassist Corcoran Holt, Spoken-Word Artist Kokayi, Vocalist and Multi-Instrumentalist Dante Pope, and Pianist and Arranger Gil Goldstein

 

Available on May 1, 2026 via Nite Nite the Elephant Productions

 

The First Single, "Better Than Anything," is Available Today

 

Conceived during a period of cultural and technological fragmentation, Crazy World reflects a moment when the ground beneath daily life feels perpetually unstable. Rather than offering answers, Crazy World inhabits the uncertainty of the present moment — questioning what is real, what is manufactured, and what still holds when familiar systems fall apart.

 

The sessions bring together drummer Jeff “Tain” Watts, bassist Corcoran Holt, spoken-word artist Kokayi, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Dante Pope, and pianist and arranger Gil Goldstein, with James McKinney producing and Scott Jacoby mixing at Eusonia Studios in New York.

 

Like As Is’s earlier work, Crazy World moves fluidly between jazz standards, pop, Brazilian repertoire, soul, and original material. What distinguishes this album is not a stylistic pivot but an expansion of scale and intention. Building on a trajectory that has widened from intimate duo settings into increasingly flexible ensemble forms, the music embraces denser textures, deeper rhythmic interplay, and a more open fusion of genres, while rooting itself even deeper in the fundamentals of song and human connection.

 

The name As Is reflects the project’s guiding principle: meeting the music — and the moment — exactly where it stands, without nostalgia, novelty, or artifice.

 

As Is first took shape on the 2015 debut A Love Like Ours, a largely acoustic recording made in Rome and Florence. That foundation widened on 2018’s Here’s to Life, which introduced a broader circle of collaborators including David Binney, Grégoire Maret, Marcus Baylor, and Christie Dashiell.

Writing for Jazz Artistry Now, critic Scott Yanow called Here’s to Life “an excellent introduction to the music of Stacey and Al Schulman,” while Jazz Mostly observed that the duo “find new ways to approach the songs, ways that preserve the origins yet make out of them very personal statements.” Dan Ouellette praised the album as “a superb collection of heartfelt storytelling with sublime performances,” and The Jazz Page noted that “the musical chemistry between vocalist Stacey and Al Schulman is energetic and contagious.” The record also reached listeners beyond the press, appearing on Amazon Jazz, iTunes Jazz, and Billboard’s Traditional Jazz charts.t, and th

e JazzWeekradio chart.

The duo’s musical paths extend well beyond any single scene. Stacey Schulman grew up recording in studios and working across country, rock, and metal before moving more fully into jazz and the American Songbook, drawing from the lineage of classic singers such as Nancy Wilson and Dinah Washington. Possessed with an enchanting and singular voice, with bell-like clarity of tone, wide stylistic range, and emotional directness, Schulman has forged an expansive career grounded in adaptability, musicianship, and a passion for performing live and connecting with audiences. Scott Yanow, in Jazz Artistry Now, notes that "Stacey's calling cards are ballads where both the strength and expressiveness of her art shine," while All About Jazz describes her agile voice as "delicate lace on one song and bouncy jam on another."

 

Al, originally from Cincinnati, studied early with Benny Goodman’s guitarist Cal Collins, and refined his bebop language in Chicago at the Bloom School of Jazz, where he performed as both a leader and sideman with artists such as Charles Earland, Brad Goode, Chris Forman and others. He went on to immerse himself in arranging and composition at Howard University in Washington, D.C. studying with such jazz greats as Grady Tate, Geri Allen, Keter Betts and James Williams.

 

While his sound draws deeply from the jazz-blues guitar lineage of Kenny Burrell, Grant Green, and George Benson, his sound is equally shaped by the soul and R&B traditions of Ernie Isley and Wilbert Longmire, giving his sound both harmonic weight and forward motion.

 

Those histories converge on Crazy World, which unfolds as a carefully sequenced arc. The album opens with “From This (Very) Moment On,” Cole Porter’s 1951 standard transformed into an extended, genre-crossing statement. Stacey’s rewritten lyrics place the song firmly in the present tense, while Kokayi’s spoken-word verses, Christylez Bacon’s beatbox textures, and Dante Pope’s vocalese introduce hip-hop inflections and vocal percussion. The performance shifts between swing, vamp, and call-and-response, reframing a familiar love song as a meditation on truth, justice, and human connection.

 

“Better Than Anything” follows, a buoyant celebration of love built around Corcoran Holt’s opening bass line and Stacey’s steadily intensifying vocal performance. She wrote original lyrics referencing Apple, Google, AI, and more to comment on what is worth our praise today — extraordinary tech or profoundly powerful love.

 

The album then turns to “Children’s Games” and “PrAilude,” its most dramatic inflection point. These AI-articulated pieces blur the boundary between the authenticity of human phrasing and the artificial perfection of simulation, functioning as a commentary on imitation and authorship in an era of machine learning and large language models.

 

That tension gives way to “Double Rainbow,” Antonio Carlos Jobim’s instrumental “Children’s Games,” later given English lyrics by Gene Lees. Stacey quotes “The Age of Aquarius” before the first verse, and the arrangement gradually opens into a swirling accumulation of sound. Conceived as a kind of musical tornado — a reference to The Wizard of Oz, where fragments of a life pass by in motion — the extended coda allows melodies, rhythms, and personal musical touchstones to surface and recede, while Watts’ improvisation drives the storm forward.

 

“A House Is Not a Home” places the Bacharach and David standard over a funk-driven groove, with McKinney’s layered background-vocal writing and Dante Pope’s harmonies pushing the song toward Northern soul while preserving its emotional core. “The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress,” recorded only with Stacey, Al, and Holt, strips the music down to its essentials, leaving space around every phrase and chord.

 

“Tiny Dancer” reimagines Elton John’s 1971 ballad as a jazz waltz, arranged by Al Schulman, reshaping its familiar contours through altered harmony and form. “As Falls Westphal,” an unplanned instrumental captured late in the sessions, allows Watts and Holt to stretch rhythmically in a moment of open reflection.

 

The album returns to its opening theme with “From This Very Moment On (Reprise),” a more compact, forward-leaning take that pivots into the closing title track. “Crazy World,” a lesser-known Henry Mancini song from Victor/Victoria, brings in Gil Goldstein’s accordion and McKinney’s string writing, closing the album with a cinematic sweep that balances unease with gratitude.

 

For As Is, the album represents a continuation rather than a conclusion: a project rooted in human interaction, collective improvisation, and songs treated as living forms. In a time defined by simulation, division, and fragmentation, Crazy World insists on presence — staying human, staying present, and continuing to make something real together, from this very moment on.