NEWS
THE GENERAL DANCE - releasing 2/7/25
This album features 11 of my original
compositions played by a world class
group of musicians that I feel lucky to
work with and call my friends. Gary
Wheat, Choko Aiken, Nick Walker,
CJ Brown, and I spent a couple days
recording at Ivy Manor in Sheffield
back in July. It was a special couple of
days recording because we were all
comfortable with the material, felt at
home in the studio, and at ease
working with each other as well as
our engineer Jared Przybysz and his
crew.
After that, the album was mixed by
Jared and then mastered by
Dave Darlington at Bass Hit
Recording, NYC.
Faith Carpenter did the art and
design for the full album that you see
above plus album art for two singles.
Videographer, Blake Butler filmed
and edited two full length videos
for the albums two singles.
Subscribe on YouTube to see these
on release day!
It’s been quite the process to get this
all together, but it’s almost here and I
can’t wait to share it with you all!
With love and gratitude,
Josh
.
1st single “Fertile Ground” 1/10/25
2nd single “Hope” 1/24
full album - THE GENERAL DANCE
2/7
Album release show at
News Archive
1 August 2024
I spent the past two days at Ivy Manor Music recording my next album of original music with some of my favorite musicians and fav people in general! Gary Wheat, Choko Kimura Aiken, Nick Walker, and Carldario Brown are brilliant musicians and creative improvisers. Their dedication to learning and working on my tunes has really brought these songs to life and I’m so glad we had this opportunity to record them.
The head recording engineer for the session, Jared Przybysz, was well prepared for the session and incredibly helpful during the process. He’s very intuitive and sympathetic to the artistic vision. The rest of the team at Ivy Manor was great to be around and work with as well. Michael Wright, Dan Hannon, Clint Ingersoll, and Jared y’all have a special thing going on at Ivy Manor. Thank you for the warm welcome and a smooth session!
Thanks to my wife, Megan Bartlett Couts, our boys Evan and McCoy and my parents Rob Couts and Jeanie Lyons Price for the love, patience, and support. I couldn’t do these things without y’all!
Photographer Lily Martin captured some great shots from the session as you can see above and videographer Blake Butler got some footage for future release!
I can’t wait to get this album out and for you all to hear it! Stay tuned for updates
23 August 2023
I’m excited to be joining the adjunct faculty at the Alabama School of Fine Arts in Birmingham this year! I’ll be working with some exceptional guitar students in individual classical and jazz lessons as well as teaching the guitar ensemble a couple days a week.
Also, I’m glad to be continuing my other adjunct positions teaching guitar at Alabama A&M and UAH. I’ll be teaching the jazz combo at UAH starting this year as well.
So grateful for all the opportunities to work with students in music!
17 December 2022
Curtis Lundy Umoja show at The Carver Theatre in Birmingham featuring Curtis Lundy on bass, Michael Cruse on trumpet, Emilio Modeste on saxophones, Josh Couts on guitar, Louis Heriveaux on piano, and Eli Howell on drums.
I gotta say it was tough for me make the gig on this one. In fact, I thought about telling Curtis I wouldn’t make it but I knew he was counting on me and I knew that the couple hours of making music with my mentor and world class musicians would provide some peace of mind in a tough time. Not only did the concert provide that, but conversations with Curtis and his wife Dr. Lundy the following day helped me and my family to have a some solid ground to stand upon. I’m forever indebted to their generosity and wisdom. I have met a lot of people and fostered many relationships that point me back to the power of God and Prayer and certainly at the top of that list is Curtis.
keep my family in your prayers this season. Peace and much love
16 August 2022
Hey friends, here’s a little life update from my summer of unforeseen ups and downs.
I was asked to start teaching jazz guitar lessons at UAH in an effort to expand the program for guitar majors as well as those taking secondary guitar lessons! I played a duet with Keith Taylor for the music faculty meeting on Sunday and it sure felt good to play some notes in Robert’s Hall again. In general the whole meeting and gathering afterwards felt like coming home for me considering I did my undergrad there coupled with the fact that the music faculty was so warm in welcoming me back in this new capacity. It’s nice to be part of a program that puts student success and musicianship first. Thank you all! UAH Department of Music
I put out my album “All Things Green” featuring three of the greats Curtis Lundy, Louis Heriveaux, and Terreon Gully at the beginning of July along with a video for the title track by PhilWeaver. Thank you all for the continued support on that front! I hope to be booking some shows across the southeast to help promote the album in the coming months!
As you may know from my last post on here, I was supposed to record a collaborative album with one of my good friends in R.I. three weeks ago. I flew up there, had a couple of really productive rehearsals with the incredible quartet we had lined up (see the video above!), then the day before our studio date I tested positive for covid complete with 103 fever. Needless to say I wasn’t able to make the session and instead quarantined in my hotel room for a week. Thankfully I was able to reunite with my family just in time to celebrate my youngest son, McCoys, first birthday. Megan Couts
In other news, I’ll no longer be directing the jazz band at Calhoun CC. I’m thankful for the many wonderful student musicians that I got to teach about this art form over my 5 years there. So many that came through the band really took jazz and improvisation seriously. There’s nothing quite like seeing a group of students inspired to put in the work to grow and sound their best.
As you see in the pictures above, I finally got some professional music pictures (that weren’t taken at a performance). These were done by the wonderful Lance Keeth. I’ll be updating my website, one sheet, and other promo stuff with more of them soon! Thanks for checking in and stay tuned!
1 July 2022
All Things Green featuring Curtis Lundy, Louis Heriveaux, and Terreon Gully out today.
For me, green represents a renewal on multiple levels. A renewal of a love for the sound of the instrument I play and it’s great players, a renewal of faith in a higher power and of a meaningful direction of this chaos even though I can’t see it, a rebirth of things that seem forever lost, a representation of the cyclical process of things and the faithful patience required to not lose oneself to the wishing one could control how things turn out.
Even what is not green, what is the opposite of green, loss, death, failure, and seeming dead ends signify the cycle and rebirth long before we see how it will be, when it will be, or how it will play out. Not only that, but they are completely necessary to the process. We must fall to get back up, it’s part of the natural flow and it’s the only way. These are the lessons taught by nature, by life lived, by our elders or mentors, and by time.
All Things Green represents a renewal of confidence, hope in the face of uncertainty or adversity, of love and gratitude for the spring of life as well as an understanding of fall, a renewal of the awareness of the love that covers all, of the love that is God.
Thanks to everyone involved in recording and post production, my family and friends for the love, inspiration, and support, and thanks to all that listen!
3 November 2021
I’ve been blessed beyond belief to get to play four shows with some of my musical heroes over the past week; Curtis Lundy and Bobby Watson’s Umoja group with Terreon Gully on drums and Marc Payne on the piano. At the Velvet Note show, we were joined by Terence Harper on trumpet and Kevin Bales on piano.
The four shows were filled with lessons on and off stage that I’ll be processing and learning from for months to come as well as some of the most transcendent musical moments I’ve been a part of or witnessed.
I have a lot more to say about the experience and I’ll probably share more at a later date, but for now I’d just like to thank the creator, the musicians listed above as well as the other musicians and jazz fans I met at the shows in Nashville, Atlanta, and Memphis.
10 January 2017
The Josh Couts Quartet is pleased to announce that we will be recording our first album as a group in the coming months! The album will include our arrangements of some of our favorite jazz standards including works by Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, and Wayne Shorter as well as some of my original compositions. Working with Steve Motz, Devere Pride, and Tom Branch over the last few months has been a great learning experience for me. I believe the group has developed a sound and cohesion unique to us that allows the individual musical personalities of each member to shine. I can't wait to see what the next few months have in store for the group!
23 August 2016
In May of 2016 I graduated with my Masters degree in Modern American Music from Longy School of Music of Bard College and moved back to the Huntsville, Alabama area. Since moving back I've been playing with some great local musicians and teaching music lessons. I still have slots open for lessons if you are in the area and interested in jazz guitar, classical guitar, improvisation, or music theory lessons please contact me at jwct87@aol.com or visit the "contact" page for other contact options.
