The Home of Vertical Alignment
“The Trail of Tears Suite” page on this site!
“Journey to Tanasi”: Peter J’s visit to Carl Groves of Salem Hill!
Announcing the current project by Vertical Alignment:
The Trail of Tears Suite
“The Trail of Tears Suite” is a concept album that tells the tale of the Cherokee Nation. With over two hours of cutting edge progressive rock music filled with Native stylings, this project explores the history of this First Nations people from before contact with Europeans through the infamous Trail of Tears and beyond history to the near future. The Suite was conceived as a testimony of a noble people who have been cruelly displaced by the greed of white men. Their ongoing tale is one of victorious overcoming through the power of their Creator even amidst crushing and impossible odds.
The story also touches on the history of the Oglala band of the Lakota tribe whom white men have named the Sioux. Both the Cherokee and the Lakota show a deep spirituality that sets them apart from the descendants of Europeans who now inhabit America. “Of the Cherokee and the Oglala can be said the thing that Jesus remarked to the scribe in Mark 12:34,” Peter J of Vertical Alignment explains, “‘You are not far from the Kingdom of God.’ The Cherokee had always worshipped the Creator who they defined as the One True God. They found embracing the forgiveness of His Son an easy step. The Oglala Lakota were likewise monotheistic and many of them also easily embraced the Jesus Way. The cool and amazing thing is that those who chose this Way from both tribes did so without losing their Native identity. They can worship Him in the drum and the dance and many other beautiful Native traditions.”
Mike Florio joins Vertical Alignment in this epic project. Contributing his awesome vocal skills and his keyboard virtuosity, Mike is a welcome addition to the VA ranks. He also shows his songwriting chops in several places. His talents in arranging and mixing add a new richness to the signature VA sound.
The Suite now includes fifteen songs which will span two CD's. Highlights include “Battle of Pea Ridge,” a rocking piece that tells the tale of a Civil War battle in Arkansas in which the Cherokee Mounted Rifles were involved. That is followed by “Ghost Dance” which introduces the Oglala Lakota into the story and tells the terrible tale of the massacre of some three hundred Lakota by U.S. soldiers in 1890 at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. Mike Florio adds “Native Son,” a tribute to the famous Cherokee humorist, Will Rogers. The penultimate piece is the forty-two minute long epic, “The Story Trunk.” This traces the life of fictional Cherokee-Oglala Phillip Shouting Crow as he travels through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first.
Like the still coming “Joseph’s Dream,”, the concept has also spawned a book. “Generations of the Eagle” is now in first draft and traces the story of “The Trail of Tears Suite” in much greater detail. It is conceived as a companion to the release. Peter J uses several characters from the future “Joseph’s Dream,” in a way that makes this book a prequel for Joe. Consider it historical fiction / fantasy / sci-fi. The book will be released with the CD's in a yet to be determined fashion.
See album and tentative book art and track listing on the new “Trail of Tears Suite” page on this site!
The Signposts CD is still available!
Order yours at ThunderSongs.
“…This is prog that has been multi-layered and incredibly well-arranged with wonderful vocals and hooks… The first time I put this on I was captured and knew that I was in for a treat. I have played this album countless times already and am sure that I will continue to do so… If you enjoy your prog symphonic with great vocals and music then you simply must investigate these guys…
-Kev Rowland, Feedback #89, Oct 2006
“‘Signposts’ is awesome, in-your-face C-Prog! You all need to pick it up ASAP!”
-Dave Taylor, Virtuosity
Click on above banner to navigate to ThunderSongs and buy "Signposts"
Visit us at ThunderSongs… click above for the best in Christian Progressive Rock.
“I just wanted to let you know that I got the ThunderBundle a few days ago and have been listening to ‘Signposts’ ever since. It really is a great work! I love the music, the lyrics, and the theme of the CD. It's hard to be original these days and you have pretty much done that. It is a great piece of music and I congratulate you.”
-Dave Wolfe, Colorado, May 26, 2006
“This is high prog rock at its best... With over 70 minutes of hot-off-the-press original spiritual progressive rock... ‘Signposts’ is sure to lead the way among the best albums of 2006.”
-Dave Taylor, Virtuosity, May 18, 2006
“…Peter J, you have done a wonderful job producing this album. I am personally enjoying what I have heard so far… I think you are going to get a great response from this disc.
Overall a remarkable work. Very well done… there are many places on the album that I find beautiful and flawless…”
-Gene Crout, Audio Digital Enterprises and America Gomorrah, March 6, 2006
“Wow... I just listened to one of the new songs coming up on VERTICAL ALIGNMENT’s new CD ‘SIGNPOSTS’…
“I love this ‘Jefferson Airplane meets ELP’ approach to prog! It ‘works’ so convincingly because it clearly is *not* an attempt to duplicate either band… NOBODY sounds like VA… Nobody!
“So… How long must we *wait* for VA's new CD ‘SIGNPOSTS’ to officially become available for purchase? I'm hearing it may hit the street in a very cool and BIG way sometime around April of this year… And that is *all* I can say about it right now!!! :-)”
-Mark Stephens, Progressive Positivity Internet Radio, January 19, 2006
“Hi, Peter J -- what a blast from the past! You guys are a trip.”
-Stephen Lawhead, Lawhead Website, June 23, 2004
Welcome to our Web House. We are a recording project, we are a band; we are a musical concept waiting to be heard. Vertical Alignment is based in Mt. Pleasant, SC but we live across America. As a recording project we have contributors from Seattle, New York, Nashville, Chattanooga, Cleveland, Houston and more. As a band we play together in the beautiful coastal Lowcountry of South Carolina. As a musical concept we want to blow your mind and fill your spirit with The Song…
Vertical Alignment began at the turn of the 21st century as Pete & Terri Jorgensen and Monty Pierce began collaborating on increasingly long and complex progressive rock tunes. It was shortly thereafter that Pete discovered Bill Hammell's Internet C-Prog mailing list. A whole new world opened up to us as we discovered Christian progressive rock friends from around the globe.
A little more than a year later this all went to a whole new level when Mike Tennenbaum of the band Akacia sent us and about twenty other musicians an invitation to join a new Internet mailing list to promote our genre. This new beginning has turned into CPR and has since spawned two compilation CD's with a collection of the finest Christian progressive musicians on the planet. Vertical Alignment had the singular honor of being included on the first two disc compilation, CPR Volume One. We had the privilege of being on the same discs with such greats as Rick Wakeman, Kerry Livgren, and Neal Morse.
We now look forward to the release of a series of albums that we hope will excite your hearing and enrich your life by pointing to the One True God through the unmatched palate of progressive rock. "Signposts" will be the first of four planned releases that we will send your way. We only ask that you have ears to hear…
"Imagine if Keith Emerson had been a member of Jefferson Airplane! If *that* doesn't motivate you to hear Vertical Alignment - I don't know what will!" -Mark Stephens, ProgPositivity
"Hi! I'm Fred Schendel, the (main) keyboard player from Glass Hammer. We got our copies of the CPR CD today and on first impression I thought the Vertical Alignment tune was the standout on the collection. Obviously there is a ton of excellent music on the disk, but Vertical Alignment just seems more in tune with the kinds of influences I have." -Fred Schendel, Glass Hammer
Vertical Alignment
progressive music… Eternal Purpose
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