Leland Whitty has been part of Toronto-based band BADBADNOTGOOD for seven years. He joined BBNG in 2015, but had met the group in 2010 while they were all studying in the Humber College jazz program. When the band decided to rework their line up after their third album, Alexander Sowinski (drums), Chester Hansen (bass) and Matthew Tavares (Keyboards) approached Whitty to complete the quartet on saxophone and guitar. Whitty has also worked with artists including Charlotte Day Wilson, Kali Uchis, Kendrick Lamar, Ghostface Killah, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Earl Sweatshirt, and Kaytranada. Whitty’s current solo project is a departure from the improvisation focused collaborative band that has made his name. Anyhow began in 2020 after Whitty had finished working on several film score projects including Disappearance at Clifton Hill (Albert Shin) and Learn to Swim (Thyrone Tommy). That focus on narrative fed into his own work, which combined elements of cinematic composition with jazz and rock like he has created in the past. His latest album Anyhow features Whitty on guitar, synthesizer, woodwinds, production, composition and strings. Narrative is built into each of Whitty’s tracks in some way. Rather than a specific story, he drew from photographic or cinematic sources. The aim was for the production and arrangement to imply the kind of structural narrative found in jazz improvisation. Whitty’s compositions emerged from voice notes and short loops, for example guitar riffs that he would feed into Ableton and flesh out into larger arrangements.
