New album from Grammy and Brit-award winning artist freshly signed to Dave Stewart's Bay Street Records. Co-written and produced by Dave Stewart (Eurythmics) and recorded at Blackbird Studios, Nashville. Bay Street Records is proud to announce ‘Never Forget My Love’, the new album by GRAMMY Award-winning singer songwriter Joss Stone. With worldwide sales in excess of 15 million albums, Joss Stone is without question among the most iconic soul singers of the modern era, whose remarkable career now spans two decades. Produced by Bay Street Records founder Dave Stewart, and co-written by Stewart and Stone, the duo wrote every song for the album on acoustic guitar at Bay Street Studios in the Bahamas before recording them at Nashville's famed Blackbird Studios. The project marks Stone's first full length LP in more than five years as well as her first new music with Stewart in over a decade. Describing it, Joss says, "You know – think of Dusty Springfield, Burt Bacharach, Dionne Warwick – those kinds of classy, timeless songs. Think long gloves and a dress."
Gaetano Letizia does not like labels. The guitarist, composer, and vocalist (whom friends and fans know as “Tom”) fronts a jazz band, whose music is inflected with reggae, R&B, blues, funk, and soul. Letizia also fronts another band, a popular blues trio, called Underworld Blues Band, that features his blazing electric solos, and slide and nylon string guitar mastery. Letizia’s newest project, Chartreuse, featuring the Gaetano Letizia Jazz Quintet, his eleventh album as a leader, is a multi-genre jazz suite of original compositions that showcases his expansive creativity and serious guitar chops. The music on Chartreuse is modern and pleasantly unpredictable. “I prefer to not try and fit in to any particular genre,” says Letizia. “I make extensive use of jazz harmonies and leave plenty of room for improvisation, but I like the freedom to explore whatever style or musical idea crosses my mind at the time.” Indeed, if you listen carefully, you can hear the influence of jazz greats like Wes Montgomery, perhaps Letizia’s favorite, as well as George Benson, Jim Hall, Grant Green, and Pat Martino, with whom Letizia was friends and took some lessons with while staying at Martino’s house. With influences of jazz, blues, funk, reggae, and classical, the music on Chartreuse does not fit easily into one category. But that is precisely what makes it so engaging. Letizia’s fluent guitar playing, improvisations and creative compositions are the work of an artist at the peak of his powers.
Jon Gordon is one of the most accomplished and in demand alto and soprano saxophonists of his generation. A past winner of the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition, Gordon has made multiple appearances in Downbeat Magazine’s critics poll over the years. His past recordings have been consistently celebrated for their unique brilliance. Gordon’s new ArtistShare release Stranger Than Fiction is a nonet project of all original music. It features faculty members and former students from the University of Manitoba jazz program - where Gordon teaches - alongside special guests from across North America, including jazz greats Orrin Evans, John Ellis, and Alan Ferber, among others. Stranger Than Fiction is an incredible addition to an already remarkable catalogue of music.
The moods here are anything but blue – as the group's got an upbeat, positive way of laying into a tune right from the start – as they take on a range of compositions by Charles Mingus, but all served up in a lean quartet formation that really helps transform the songs! Diego Rivera is often in the lead on tenor, and the rest of the group features Boris Kozlov on bass, Joe Strasser on drums, and Art Hirihara on piano – save for a few tracks where David Kikoski comes in on the keys! If you dig Mingus as much as us, you'll recognize most of the melodies – but the treatment is nicely fresh, and also not nearly as slavish as some other Mingus-related projects – really breathing new life into songs that include "Reincarnation Of A Lovebird", "Orange Was The Color Of Her Dress", "Nostalgia In Times Square", "Tonight At Noon", "Better Get It In Your Soul", and "Pithecathropus Erectus". ~ Dusty Groove
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