7-time Grammy Award winner Paul Wertico, David Cain, and Larry Gray continue to cultivate their artistic exploration of new worlds of sound-making: “original and visionary music from original and visionary musicians.” Wertico Cain & Gray came together to realize new music and art, winning a prestigious live performance album award along the way, and gathering international audiences in search of sonic stimulation. Chicago-based, this spontaneous trio composes and orchestrates everything in real-time, melting acoustic and electronic sounds with new-tech and word- tech, in-sync with an inner muse that connects to the universe of possibilities, and musically conversing to the point of sheer telepathy.

Windows Of Time ~ Limited Edition LP

Deluxe limited edition audiophile quality 12″ vinyl version of Wertico Cain & Gray’s 8th album, Windows Of Time, is now available! Pressed on clear with metallic gold vinyl from Smashed Plastic Records (Chicago). Includes liner notes with lyrics, bios, and behind-the-scenes info. Includes unlimited streaming of Windows Of Time via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Sound Portraits

** Best Live Performance Album, 13th Annual Independent Music Awards (2014). **

~ “Awesome! A total trip! Amazing! Great music!” ~ Frank Alkyer, Publisher, DownBeat 
~ Winner of the 2013 Independent Music Awards: Best Album, Live Performance 

7-time Grammy Award Winner Paul Wertico (Pat Metheny Group), David Cain, and Larry Gray take musical artistry to unchartered waters with explosive, creative improvising that is truly on the cutting edge … and beyond. A passionate, trailblazing, mind-blowing performance setting a new direction in music and digital cinema! 

Available as Video On Demand

Out in Space

100% improvised live in concert at Evanston SPACE (2013). 7-time Grammy Award winner Paul Wertico, David Cain, and Larry Gray continue to cultivate their artistic exploration of new worlds of sound-making: “original and visionary music from original and visionary musicians.” 

Review: “Wertico Cain and Gray sound of a piece – like old friends finishing each other’s sentences. And these are very, very interesting sentences… and excursion into free-form, completely symbiotic creativity.”

Organic Architecture

Organic Architecture is a seamless, genre-expanding marriage of sound and vision performed with a quality never before experienced. Inspired by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright, 7-time Grammy winner Paul Wertico, David Cain and Larry Gray take musical artistry to unchartered waters with explosive, creative improvising that is truly on the cutting edge … A passionate, trailblazing, mind-blowing performance setting a new direction in music and video!

Live concert movie performed in the historic Frank Lloyd Wright in the beautiful landmark “Dana-Thomas House State Historic Site.”

Available as Video-On-Demand

Realization 

7-time Grammy Award winner Paul Wertico, David Cain, and Larry Gray explore new worlds of sound-making and filmmaking as Wertico Cain & Gray (WCG). All things are possible for this trio, as they plan nothing ahead of time, or even discuss what they are going to play, freeing them to go in the direction of their dreams, to become WCG dreams, and sharing those dreams with their listeners. 

WCG’s 4th album, REALIZATION, is the story of back-to-back improvisational time capsules, one at The S.N. Shure Theater, Shure Incorporated headquarters, and one at Reelsounds Chicago. This spontaneous trio composes and orchestrates everything in real-time, melting acoustic and electronic sounds with new-tech and word- tech, in-sync with an inner muse that connects to the universe of possibilities, and musically conversing to the point of sheer telepathy. 

Please check out the Realization filmmaking by David Cain, reminiscent of the Renoir and Godard auteur theory, with a personal signature visible from film to film, relating to how you experience life. On-demand video link on Vimeo. 

Available as Video-On-Demand

• Review: “Original and visionary music from original and visionary musicians… Spontaneous composition sounds so cool in the hands of @werticocaingray.” My rave of their new album ‘Realization’ (S. Victor Aaron)
• Nakedly Examined Music Podcast #30: Paul Wertico and David Cain: Improv Without a Net. December 4, 2016 by Mark Linsenmayer. Seven-time Grammy winning drummer Paul Wertico and his multi-instrumentalist/filmmaker/soundscaper cohort David Cain are two-thirds of Wertico, Cain and Gray, an improvisational trio who have released five albums since 2013…

Short Cuts: 40 Improvisations

Our intention was to create short, spontaneous compositions. These 40 tracks form a complete compositional thought. The mixes were realized as living, breathing moments of creative flow and the titles of the tracks vibrate as poetry that tells our story. Fun fact: Paul read where streaming music services paid the same minuscule royalty for all music tracks over 30 seconds, regardless of overall length. We have maximized our profits over the streaming services on a per second basis! Take that Apple, Spotify, Pandora…!

AfterLive 

Wertico Cain & Gray’s 6th album, AfterLive, is the story of improvisational time capsules: the live concert impro- visations and the soul-searching listeners’ mix. Seven-time Grammy Award winner Paul Wertico, David Cain, and Larry Gray continue to cultivate their artistic exploration of new worlds of sound-making, giving rise to this AfterLive. All things are possible for this trio, as they plan nothing ahead of time, or even discuss what they are going to play, freeing them to go in the direction of their dreams, to become WCG dreams, and sharing those dreams with their listeners.

Without Compromise

“This is a wonderful, curious, enigmatic, and virtuosic musical experience, in which the artists build soundscapes that will take you into new worlds. You will hear groove and grit, form and formlessness. This production will keep you thinking and stretching for days.” Kabir Sehgal (Grammy winning producer, NY Times best-selling author)

Award-winning trio creates sound portraits through improvised compositions. High resolution analog recordings made with Billy Joel’s “Angela” vintage mixing desk, John Lennon’s u47 mic (mic list in extras). Mixed with Waves plugins. Mastered for stereo ear candy experience and 5.1 versions are available.

NOTE: This project is also available as VR 360 and 2D Video-On-Demand recordings of the actual recording session!

Windows Of Time

Pushing the envelope of music improvisation, composition, and collaboration, Wertico Cain & Gray create musical worlds from their past experience while imagining the future of music. Paul has 7 Grammys and 3 Gold Records with Pat Metheny, and performer/producer credits with Kurt Elling, Larry Corryell…. David is a composer/performer with a lineage to Arnold Schoenberg and Geffen Records, an is also an award-wining filmmaker, author… Larry has performed w Jack DeJohnette, McCoy Tyner, Branford Marsalis, the Chicago Symphony… Together, you get to hear the magic of each performer’s magic, not tied to a style or genre, but emanating from a place of truth and fearlessness, and intimate expressions that you rarely experience in music.

Stream WCG music on Spotify:
Sound Portraits  by Wertico Cain & Gray
Out In Space by Wertico Cain & Gray
Organic Architecture by Wertico Cain & Gray
Realization by Wertico Cain & Gray
Short Cuts by Wertico Cain & Gray
Afterlive by Wertico Cain & Gray
Without Compromise by Wertico Cain & Gray

DUOs with David Cain
My spontaneous collaborators: Paul Wertico (drums), Larry Gray (cello), Luda Bella (dance), and special guest Meghan Loman (aerialist), are sharing our inner most thoughts, feelings, and stories with you.

David Cain has released a new album of Piano Improvisations titled MEDITATIONS, available on Bandcamp and iTunes. MEDITATIONS is the story of improvisational time capsules, moments of musical meditation. The spontaneous recordings were inspired by the memory of David Cain’s composer-mentor, Dr. Roque Cordero.