Behind every musical overnight sensation are years
of toiling away in rehearsal halls, recording studios and sweaty nightclubs
meticulously honing one’s craft. In trumpeter Joey Sommerville’s case, it’s
more than two decades of writing, recording and touring to cultivate his
following and establish his presence on the national scene. On October 28, the
award-winning soul-jazz musician, songwriter and producer will release a new
collection of songs that he’s been working on as far back as 1993 that will
comprise his fifth album, “Overnight Sensation,” slated for release on his
Jayvox imprint. The title track will crank up the party when it is serviced to
radio stations for airplay at the end of this month.
Sommerville’s
forte is serving as an impresario of fun and funky frolics and pretty harmonies
that touch the heart. He wrote or co-wrote nine of the disc’s ten tracks and
produced the entire session sharing production duties on two cuts with fusion
icon Jeff Lorber. Like a ringmaster who skillfully unifies the eclectic acts of
a three-ring circus, the trumpeter who also plays flugelhorn, piano, keyboards,
synth bass and drum programming on the record has scripted a colorful
collection of short stories with his horn serving as the common thread binding
gripping chapters in contemporary and straight-ahead jazz, R&B, hip hop and
rock.
“In this
era of singles downloads, I still believe in the concept of albums and a
cohesive body of music,” said the Atlanta, Georgia-based Sommerville, who will
perform at an album launch gig there on October 30 at the Suite Food Lounge.
“I’ve always wanted to record these songs and I really like them, but they
didn’t fit on previous projects. They were all inspired by real life
experiences thus they have meaning. The long journey that is a music career is
a marathon, not a sprint, and the timing finally came around for these songs to
be recorded for the first time. Surprisingly, they fit together despite being
written over a long period of time and the variety in their sound and style.”
Sommerville’s
trumpet seduces on the sensuous “Desire” highlighted by gossamer guitar from
legend Earl Klugh. Venturing in a divergent tangent, Sommerville tosses a bone
to Jeff Bradshaw on a raucous and imaginative take on “Caravan,” a
scintillating thrill ride that Duke Ellington never would have seen coming.
“Red Cups Up” is a playful party anthem while Sommerville surprises when he
steps to the mic on the stunner “I Just Wanna Be With You” on which his husky
voice quivers and cracks with raw emotion while crooning an autobiographic
story of romance to his wife. A spiraling Lorber groove, “The Next Big Thing”
is a tightly-wound R&B-jazz-funk mélange illumined by Sommerville’s trumpet
and quirky synth along with a touch of sax from Elan Trotman. The elegiac
“Rebecca of Birmingham” was penned years ago after Sommerville’s grandmother
passed and is graced by a stirring blues-jazz guitar eulogy from Eric Essix.
“Karma” induces reflection during the straight-ahead jazz exercise after which
Sommerville closes the album with the throwback R&B instrumental “Forever”
followed by the boisterous “The Passport Life.”
A
spotlight soloist on the Grammy-nominated and Juno Award-winning album
“Alegria” by Cirque du Soleil, Sommerville’s 2007 release “Like You Mean It”
won the American Society of Young Musician’s All That Jazz Award in 2009. His
trumpet artistry was featured on Hidden Beach Recordings’ “Unwrapped Volume 4”
and he’s written and produced a Top 20 single for Bob Baldwin and an album by Rhonda
Smith that features performances by Prince, Sheila E. and gospel icon Fred
Hammond. Sommerville is a high-octane performer who is a regular at festivals
and on music cruises. Outside of music, he can be heard voicing spots for BMW,
Coke, Ford, the U.S. Army and more.
The
songs contained on the “Overnight Sensation” album are:
“Overnight
Sensation”
“Desire”
“Caravan”
“Red
Cups Up”
“I Just
Wanna Be With You”
“The
Next Big Thing”
“Rebecca
of Birmingham”
“Karma”
“Forever”
“The
Passport Life”
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