Trumpeter Darren Barrett, winner of
the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition, was flipping
through cable television channels while taking a break from a recording session
when he stumbled upon a live concert by Amy Winehouse. He had heard the buzz
about the unconventional British artist, but hadn’t heard any of her music
until that moment. The musician of Jamaican descent with a proclivity for
incorporating reggae into his neo-bop jazz recordings was instantly struck by
the way the rhythm & soul singer-songwriter infused reggae into her
throwback tracks.
“I was surprised to discover that the majority of her
concert consisted of performing music mirroring the spirit-liberating sound of
reggae music. Damn! Amy was laying the music down like one of the ‘old heads.’
She immediately gained much respect from me and I soon became a fan and a loyal
follower of her fast-moving musical career,” Barrett recalled about his 2008
discovery and the inspiration for his eighth album, “The Music of Amy
Winehouse,” which will be released August 26 on the dB Music label.
Barrett and his Trumpet Vibes band, a jazz and reggae group,
selected nine songs from the late artist’s songbook and spent over a year
working on the arrangements and rehearsing before entering the studio. To
recreate Winehouse’s high voltage, multi-tiered sound, Barrett augmented his
band by adding guitars, keyboards, saxophone and percussion to the Trumpet
Vibes lineup that consists of the trumpeter-producer, bassist Alexander Toth,
drummer Anthony Toth and vibraphonist Simon Moullier (noted vibraphonist Warren
Wolf is featured on “Our Day Will Come”). Naturally, the toughest part was
casting a female vocalist capable of capturing Winehouse’s uniquely soulful and
charismatic spirit on hallmark hits such as “Tears Dry On Their Own,” “Rehab,”
“Back To Black” and “Just Friends.” Enter Joanna Teters.
“I met Joanna many years ago when she was a student at
Berklee College of Music, but never had the opportunity to work with her,” said
Barrett, who is an associate professor in the ensemble department at the
distinguished school in addition to his work as an artist. “I continued to
listen to many of her projects after she graduated, having a strong sense that
someday we would eventually work together. Well it happened just as I
predicted. Joanna joined us on the Amy Winehouse project and really captured
the essence of Amy's musicality without neglecting to incorporate the uniqueness
of her own personality into each song. The commitment and musical steadfastness
that each musician brought to the project has resulted in a recording that
Amy’s well-deserving fans will not only enjoy, but also appreciate as they
reconnect to Amy’s simple joy of creating music.”
A Toronto, Ontario native who has been based in Boston ever
since he attended Berklee, Barrett was a soloist on Esperanza Spaulding’s
two-time Grammy-winning “Radio Music Society.” Mentored by trumpet great Donald
Byrd, he has recorded or played internationally with jazz giants Elvin Jones,
Jackie McLean, Herbie Hancock, Antonio Hart, Wayne Shorter and Roy Hargrove.
Barrett has also performed with Common, will.i.am, Talib Kweli and D’Angelo.
Maintaining a prolific album release pace since 2014, “The Music of Amy
Winehouse” follows last fall’s critically-hailed jazz and reggae mashup
“Trumpet Vibes” and predates a straight-ahead jazz outing from the dB Quintet
that is expected in the first quarter of 2017. For more information, please
visit www.DarrenBarrett.com.
“The Music of Amy Winehouse” contains the following songs:
“Tears Dry On Their Own”
“Rehab”
“Our Day Will Come”
“Back To Black”
“Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow”
“Cupid”
“Just Friends”
“To Know Him Is To Love Him”
“Monkey Man”
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