Italian composer and innovator Paolo Rustichelli saw jazz icon Miles Davis at the Umbria Jazz Festival in the summer of 1986. Rustichelli slipped Miles’ manager a demo cassette of his music. Several weeks later at the Rome Jazz Festival, intrigued by the demo, Miles invited Paolo to record with him and the magic began at a private studio in Europe. This session yielded beautiful results that have been stored away for decades, until now. “Love Divine” (The Smooth Jazz Mix) unearths these long-lost recordings and sets them into a contemporary yet timeless jazz setting. Steeped in perpetuity, this duet is likely to send chills down your arms and fill your heart with an unfamiliar hope… Almost like rewinding to a better place and time. ~smoothjazz.com
Jim Self is one of the busiest jazz musicians in Los Angeles. Besides being a prolific recording artist, the tuba master is also an in-demand studio musician. On his 21st release, Touch And Go, he once again shares production credits with guitarist John Chiodini. The two masters have produced three duo jazz CDs together and one with the David Angel Jazz Ensemble. Each of Self’s recordings have featured different kinds of bands, usually either classical or jazz. For Touch And Go, The Jim Self & John Chiodini Quintet includes some of LA’s top jazz musicians. Self says, “When Chiodini and I talked about who we wanted for this quintet recording we chose Ron Stout, Ken Wild, and Kendall Kay because of their great playing and impeccable time.” The project was highly collaborative, and all of the players contributed suggestions, arrangements, or compositions to the project. Like many of Self’s songs and album titles, he took the title Touch And Go from his 30+ years as a small plane pilot. It is a term that pilots use for practicing take offs and landings where, after touching down, you immediately take off and “go around” the pattern again. From the opening high-energy title tune, “Touch And Go,” written by Self, through standards like “Only Trust Your Heart” and “Whisper Not” to originals like Chiodini’s bluesy “Restless” to the bebop closing tune “Dig,” the swinging, hip arrangements and original writing on Touch And Go deftly demonstrate that this entire band - Self, Chiodini, Stout, Wild, and Kay - are all masters of their instruments.
TheEEs – the Eclectic Experiences – combine elements from the broad spectrum of 60s and 70s sounds ranging from Soul, Latin and Afrobeat to Reggae, Psych and Jazz, with a contemporary attitude and eclectic approach. Music and sound surround us throughout our lives, they captivate our body and our brain, get absorbed, mixed and combine within us to form our individual sound language. Some sounds come and go, others stay with us forever. TheEEs, the musical project of composers and producers Claus Hartisch and Andre Neundorf (Bahama Soul Club / Kojato), is here to stay. The duo explores new musical possibilities and creates something unique: audible feelings and thoughts communicate with one another, becoming experiences, transcending individuality. With a bit of luck, the record button will light up red and capture something magical. Sounds and beats weave patterns, moments become repeatable, perspectives become shareable – eclectic experiences. Their debut release was the reggae remix of “Mango“ by Bahama Soul Club out in 2020, but fast forward a few years and there’s a whole album’s worth of material waiting to see the light of day and spread more eclectic experiences worldwide!
Inspired by early 70s noir thrillers, second single ‘Driven’ features a saxophone solo from Jim Piela, with added tremolo and long time collaborator Ken Long, contributing Wurlitzer keys with Baxter playing drums, guitar, bass and Rhodes. The track is taken from 'Palms' , Robohands' 5th album in a series of seven LPs. Moving towards different genres and arrangements from his previous albums, ‘Palms’ features duelling harp parts, tape echo, double bass and draws inspiration from artists such as Dorothy Ashby, Azimuth, Alice Coltrane and Toquinho. In parts tropical and synth drenched, and in others stripped back and acoustic, ‘Palms’ is a journey back to saturated analog recordings of the late 60s and 70s, with a subtle modern layer of glitch FX and pitch control experimentation in places. The album makes also reference to classic releases from jazz fusion that feature the legendary Arp Odyssey synthesiser, used by artists such as Herbie Hancock and George Duke.The seventeen track album features performances from multiple session musicians including Jim Piela on saxophone and Marco Cremaschini on Rhodes, with Baxter taking on drums, guitar, bass, keys and also mixing duties. ‘Palms’ is a new direction for his project and a record that thematically journeys into modern reinterpretations of jazz, downtempo, acoustic and ambient music.
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