Curt Ramm Releases "Rogue Island"

Curt Ramm is excited to announce his newest album, Rogue Island, due out this July on Rocktorium Records. Born in the throes of 2020’s COVID-19 shutdowns, the new album is a beacon of positivity and uplifting vibes. This instrumental soundscape is set to be the perfect Summer soundtrack, and is available now everywhere you stream music. 

Curt Ramm is one of the preeminent horn players in rock and roll. As well as being an in-demand studio session player, Curt’s playing has kept him very busy over the years with electrifying live performances throughout the US, Europe and Japan. Some of his recording and performance credits include Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Bruce Springsteen Sessions Band, Nile Rodgers and CHIC, They Might Be Giants, Radiohead, The Levon Helm Band, Glen Hansard and Little Steven. 

Curt is certainly no stranger to jazz either. From his roots in Kansas City, playing lead trumpet with the Charlie Parker Memorial Foundation Jazz Orchestra, through the release of his album “Foundations” with fellow jazz luminaries Bill Cunliffe and Dan Moretti, jazz music is never far from Curt's heart or playing. 

Touring has for many years been a mainstay of Curt's musical career, but road work came to a screeching halt in the Spring of 2020. Curt recalls “the Damn-Panic was in full swing, so I had to face the fact that, for the foreseeable future, I wouldn’t be playing live shows, and definitely not touring.” 

Around that time, he was working with his long time friend and Rhode Island Music Hall of Famer, producer, musician, Ray Gennari ( Akae Beka (Midnite), Turbulence, Protoje, Roomful Of Blues, The Temptations, Lustre Kings Productions) to orchestrate and play instrumental versions of songs by Clatta Bumboo (aka Sheldon Townsend), a Jamaican born, and now RI based, reggae artist. “This collaboration was a joy and a success,” says Curt, “and with the pandemic at its peak, as a way to keep playing and have some fun, Ray and I started to create new songs, similar in style to what I had worked on with Sheldon's Project.” 

Unable to gather and perform with other musicians due to pandemic restrictions, Curt Ramm and Ray Gennari took a different and unusual approach to the recording process of Rogue Island. Tapping into Ray's recording experience with notable reggae artists they reimagined drum tracks from Aston Barrett, Jr. (The Wailers) and Brady Robinson (Pentateuch Movement) from earlier Rocktorium Records projects, and the heart of Rogue Island was born. 

Curt recalls “Ray would play bass, guitar, and some keyboard parts to set up the arrangement and vibe, and send the track to me to write horn melodies and background brass parts. We bounced the ideas back and forth, sometimes three or four times - changing the form, adding a bridge, and deciding on endings. Being unable to work together in the studio in person, we talked constantly on the phone until the song was feeling complete.” 

To round out the album, Curt and Ray decided to incorporate remotely recorded performances from friends on the record, and eventually, when Covid restrictions eased, to invite local musicians and friends to record in person to finish up Rogue Island. 

Reflecting back on the process, Curt comments, “Ray and I were both thankful to have a fun and creative escape from the pressures of the pandemic, and the few people we had shared our creations with really loved the positive and uplifting vibe of the songs.” 

From those sessions emerged Rogue Island, an eleven track LP, packed full of collaborations and standouts. Included on the new album are performances from Bill Holloman (Nile Rodgers, Danny Gatton) on saxophone, and Charlie Giordano (E Street Band) on piano and accordion. Noted reggae producer Andrew “Moon” Bain (Lustre Kings, Zion I Kings) contributed guitar to a song, and Andrew “Drew Keys” Stoch (Shaggy, Common Kings) played piano and organ on another. Curt's son, Gerard, even plays the sax solo on the album's opening song. Rogue Island was mixed by Ray Gennari and mastered by Robert Vosgien at Robert Vosgien Mastering.

Leading up to the album's release, Ramm unveiled four singles, all of which have received much praise. "Pontchartrain" mixes Curt’s swinging horns with classic reggae riffs to create an ode to the Big Easy and the resilience of the city. Topshelf Music hailed "Smugglers Cove" as a song to put wind in anyone’s sails, and the upbeat ska vibe of "Surfers End" makes it the feel good summer song we need right now!  Most recently Ramm released the music video for "Smuggler' Cove" which premiered on Reggaeville. 

The new record leans deep into its reggae influences but also showcases the diversity and versatility that has defined Curt's musical career, and his gift for melodies and horn arranging brings the album to a unique musical place. An album that takes the listener through a range of emotions and vibes ranging from the bouncing energy of “Smuggler's Cove” to the lazy New Orleans stroll of “Pontchartrain” to the slow burn of “Blue Wave.” The album closes with “From The Baseline” the track that started it all- Curt's instrumental version of Clatta Bumboo's vocal track “Baseline.” 

“We are so proud and excited to be releasing Curt Ramm's Rogue Island. To work with such an incredible musician was an honor and a joy, especially on such an amazing record,” comments Ray Gennari, album producer and owner of Rocktorium Records. Rogue Island is available now on all streaming platforms. Signed CDs and digital downloads are available now at Curtramm.com. 

Michael Mantler | "Coda"

Michael Mantler, who was born in Vienna in 1943, explains that reworking his earlier compositions has been an essential part of his modus operandi over the decades. “Re-using material from my own musical universe has, as a matter of fact, been my compositional procedure for a long time. Musicologists could have an interesting time divining what in my music has come from where and how it might have been re-shaped and recycled… Almost always, when I start a new composition, I begin with materials from previous work. More often than not, that procedure would spark or beget a new line of musical thought from which to continue.”

With the Jazz Composer’s Orchestra Update, issued in 2014, Mantler made his work method the subject of a new release. Reassessing, re-contextualizing and reshaping material written for his iconic album The Jazz Composers Orchestra in the 1960s, he was able to illuminate the music in new ways. DownBeat hailed the outcome as “pretty fantastic.” “Update is really what it says. Not a reproduction or look back, but a new take on this music… This unique counterpart album is quite simply required listening for anyone with a scintilla of interest in large-scale modern jazz,” London Jazz News emphasized.

Now Coda takes its concept further, as Mantler newly arranges and refashions music from several phases of his career – a personal “best-of “– into musical suites conducted by Christoph Cech. Where the large ensemble on the Jazz Composers Orchestra Update was an augmented jazz big band, here the orchestra is comprised primarily of classical players, although the presence of jazz soloists, including pianist David Helbock, guitarist Bjarne Roupé, and Mantler himself on trumpet “anchors the music in an environment clearly coming from jazz.” The focus is on Mantler compositions premiered between 1975 and 2010, and previously recorded – in very different form – on the WATT albums 13 & 3/4 and Alien, and the ECM albums Cerco un Paese Innocente, Hide and Seek, and For Two. The Coda transformations, complete in themselves, will send the attentive listener also back to the originals: old and new versions each have their own integrity, and Mantler’s compositional signature is unmistakable, then and now.

“I have always considered myself an orchestral composer,” says Michael Mantler, “even when circumstances dictated smaller ensembles. This time I did not retain the original instrumentation but settled on what seems to be my current favourite – a chamber orchestra consisting of flute, oboe, clarinet, bass clarinet, trumpet, french horn, trombone, tuba, guitar, piano, marimba/vibraphone, plus a string section…” explains Mantler.

The chamber orchestra fleshes out ideas sketched on the skeletal original version of “Alien” performed just by Mantler and keyboardist Don Preston back in 1985. Now the composer’s distinctive trumpet moves against evocative, otherworldly strings on the “Alien Suite”, with Bjarne Roupé’s tense guitar also contributing to the uneasy atmosphere. The Swedish-born guitarist has been an important contributor to Mantler’s music of the last 25 years, featured on a number of albums including the 2011 release For Two. The present album opens with the “Two Thirteen Suite” incorporating material from 1975’s 13, which featured two orchestras plus Carla Bley on piano. Expanding and contracting his instrumental forces, merging elements from pieces written in different phases of his life, and featuring Roupé and David Helbock as soloist-interpreters, Mantler signals at once that these Orchestra Suites are indeed new music. 

The “Folly Suite” similarly brings fresh orchestral colours into play, building upon the template of 1992’s Folly Seeing All This. The “Cerco Suite” and the “HideSeek Suite” present music originally created to envelop the words of, respectively, Giuseppe Ungaretti and Paul Auster, with vocal lines assigned now to the instrumentalists. 

The Orchestra Suites were premiered in September 2019 at Vienna’s Porgy & Bess, where 

Coda was recorded, with additional recording and mixing taking place at Studios La Buissonne in the South of France in November 2019 and June 2020. 

Joey DeFrancesco | "More Music"

After a year of pandemic lockdown – with stages dark and nightclubs shuttered, friends and families kept at a social distance, and political and social tensions raging – the one thing we could all use right now is More Music. And who better to supply that demand than Joey DeFrancesco? 

More Music, due out September 24 via Mack Avenue Records, is “more” in every conceivable way. It offers up ten new DeFrancesco originals, brought to life by a scintillating new trio. And the master organist, who has long supplemented his keyboard virtuoso with his skilled trumpet playing, here brings out his full arsenal: organ, keyboard, piano, trumpet, and, for the first time on record, tenor saxophone. He also steps to the microphone to croon Mario Romano’s yearning “And If You Please.” 

Joey D isn’t the only one wearing several hats on the album. A fellow torchbearer of the Philadelphia organ jazz tradition, Lucas Brown takes on the unenviable task of sharing organ duties with his generation’s most influential practitioner. Not only does he fulfill those duties admirably, freeing DeFrancesco to juggle his other talents, but he also showcases his six-string wizardry on several traditional organ-guitar trio tracks. Michael Ode sticks to the drums throughout, anchoring the trio’s multiple configurations with muscular swing and electrifying grooves. 

“It’s time for more music,” DeFrancesco declares. “This situation has been difficult for so many people. It's definitely time to get back at it.” 

While this period of re-emergence from our collective quarantine turned out to be the perfect time for it, DeFrancesco had envisioned a project to showcase his multi-instrumentalism well before COVID was on anyone’s mind. The trumpet has been a feature of his repertoire for most of the organist’s career, inspired by his tenure with Miles Davis while still a teenager. 

He first decided to try his hand at the tenor 25 years ago. His grandfather and namesake, Joseph DeFrancesco, had played tenor and clarinet and his horns were still in the family home in Philly. “One day I just decided to get his tenor out of the case and see if I could play it. So for about two weeks I practiced and it actually came pretty quick. I got so comfortable that I went down to Ortlieb's for a jam session. I got on the stage and [Philadelphia saxophonist] Victor North was standing next to me. I didn't know who he was, but he looked like Buddy Holly so I figured I'd be fine. Well, Victor North kicked my ass, and the horn went back into the case for another 25 years.” 

His interest was renewed in recent years by a confluence of factors – primarily the opportunity to record with legendary tenor titan Pharoah Sanders, with whom DeFrancesco collaborated on his 2019 Mack Avenue Records release, In the Key of the Universe. The subsequent tour found the organist paying particular attention to the sound of his regular tenor player, Troy Roberts, and at the same time delving deeper into the music of sax icon Charles Lloyd. In November 2018, DeFrancesco approached his father and once again borrowed his grandfather’s tenor. 

“My dad said, ‘If you're going to play, you can have it. But you gotta play it.’ That's how it started, and now I have about 15 saxophones.”

The preciousness of the family heirloom means that DeFrancesco largely keeps it safely at home, but Joseph DeFrancesco’s 1925 tenor makes one appearance on More Music, for the warm, burnished solo on “And If You Please.” 

DeFrancesco shredded on the tenor with renewed vigor, and though the influence of countless greats from Sonny Rollins to Sanders to John Coltrane to Lloyd all echoed in his mind, it wasn’t difficult to find the voice for what he wanted to express on the instrument. “What separated me from a lot of other organists was the huge influence I took from tenor saxophone players,” he explains. “So I have a certain sound that I love, and that was already in my mind. No matter what instrument I'm playing, there's a certain concept that always comes through.” 

The next challenge was to find a player with the virtuosity and confidence to take over the organ bench while DeFrancesco focused on his other outlets. He naturally turned to Philly and found the perfect candidate in Lucas Brown, whose skills were honed over years spent with the late tenor great Bootsie Barnes. His original instrument was guitar and he remains a gifted player, making him versatile enough to fulfill multiple roles in this ever-shifting trio.

 While Brown, a decade DeFrancesco’s junior, inevitably reveals elements of the bandleader’s pervasive influence, DeFrancesco is quick to point out, “He plays differently than I do. We don't sound alike at all, and that's important. What's the point of having somebody that's going to be playing my stuff note for note? You need somebody to bring a nice contrast and Lucas is confident about who he is, plays at a very high level and sounds like himself on the instrument. It's nice to be able to introduce another organist to the world that's got his own approach.” 

DeFrancesco met Michael Ode (also a Philly native, though he grew up in Durham, NC) while the drummer was still a student at Oberlin Conservatory. Ode’s first major gig with the organist was a high-pressure one: the studio date for You’re Driving Me Crazy, DeFrancesco’s collaboration with legendary Irish singer Van Morrison. “He’s just cutting his teeth in the business and I really threw him into the fire,” DeFrancesco recalls. “And he nailed it. He hears every note, but Michael also brings an element of what's going on rhythmically as drummers have evolved and changed. So he keeps me current.” 

More Music also applies to the range of stylistic choices in DeFrancesco’s original tunes for the album. “Free” opens the proceedings on a brisk, uptempo note with DeFrancesco testifying on trumpet. He makes his tenor bow with an enticing, breathy tone on the sultry ballad “Lady G,” a dedication to his wife, Gloria. Ode’s ricocheting drum intro ushers in “Just Beyond the Horizon,” which finds DeFrancesco back at the organ. He slides over to the piano to lead into the wistful “In Times of Reflection,” which features Brown playing silken acoustic guitar and a pensive DeFrancesco trumpet solo. 

Charles Lloyd’s searching influence can be strongly heard on the spiritual jazz of “Angel Calling,” while “Where to Go” proves a highlight with the album’s sole organ duel between DeFrancesco and Brown. “Roll With It,” with Joey DeFrancesco on organ and Brown on guitar, takes off from a fleet unison melody in classic organ trio style, while the title track makes its case with a taut, mellow groove. DeFrancesco takes over the organ with Brown on keyboard for the last two tracks, the contemporary vibe of “This Time Around” and the celebratory, gospel-inflected send-off “Soul Dancing.” 

“More music is what's needed to create positivity and wellness for everybody, regardless of what's happening in the world,” DeFrancesco concludes. “Music just solves a lot of problems. So more live music, more original music – just more music. Without that, we're in big trouble.”

Upcoming Joey DeFrancesco Performances:

July 29 | Rockport Jazz Festival | Rockport, MA

August 28 | Oshkosh Jazz Festival | Oshkosh, WI

September 30 | Jimmy's on Congress | Portsmouth, NH

October 1 - 2 | Blue Llama | Ann Arbor, MI

October 7 - 10 | Dizzy's (Jazz at Lincoln Center) | New York, NY

October 15 - 16 | Crooners Lounge and Supper Club | Minneapolis, MN

October 21 - 24 | Jazz Showcase | Chicago, IL

October 28 | Florida State University | Gainesville, FL

October 29 - 31 | Keystone Korner | Baltimore, MD

November 5 - 6 | Jazz Kitchen | Indianapolis, IN

November 18 | Bop Stop | Cleveland, OH

November 19 | BLU Jazz+ | Akron, OH

November 26 - 27 | SOUTH Jazz Parlor | Philadelphia, PA

December 10 - 11 | Jazz Forum | Tarrytown, NY

Wendell Harrison Tribe - Get Up Off Your Knees

Fantastic new music from Detroit reedman Wendell Harrison – working here with a renewed version of the Tribe Records scene, at a level that makes the album one of his best in many years! Wendell blows tenor and bass clarinet, and his group here is mostly younger, lesser-known players – but who soar with Harrison in a mix of spiritual jazz modes and a few more rhythmic currents – all with the kind of powerful, progressive vibe that made the Tribe Records material of Harrison and his contemporaries so important in the 70s! Other musicians include Vincent Chandler on trombone, Steve Woods on flute, Luis Resto on piano, Walter White on trumpet, and Jacob Schwantz on guitar – although players shift often from track to track – and frequent Harrison partner Pamela Wise also provides a bit of keyboards, and the set features both sung vocals on two tracks from Pathe Jassi, and a recitation from Mbiyu Chui on another. Titles include "Revoltuion", "Siera", "Wandering Thoughts", "Samoulen Khale Yi", "What's Up", and "Saga Of A Carrot". ~ Dusty Groove

Tony Allen - There Is No End

A very different album than some of the more recent efforts from the legendary drummer Tony Allen – and a set that shows that, as the title proclaims, there is no end to the creative talents of the mighty musician – even after he departed our planet! This set has Allen working with a variety of singers and MCs – serving up tunes that mix Afro Funk elements with a heavy dose of hip hop – thanks to contributions from a shifting lineup of guests that includes Sampa The Great, Tsunami, Nah Eeto, Zelooperz, Koreatown Oddity, Danny Brown, Marlowe, and others! Co-production and other instrumentation are from Vincent Taeger and Vincent Taurelle – working here strongly alongside core contributions from Allen, and clearly helping shape the creative sound of the record – on titles that include "Mau Mau", "Coonta Kinte", "Rich Black", "Gang On Holiday", "Stumbling Down", "Tres Magnifique", "Cosmosis", and "My Own".  ~ Dusty Groove

Phyllis Hyman: Old Friend – The Deluxe Collection 1976 to 1998

An insane tribute to one of the greatest female soul singers to emerge in the 70s – the magnificent Phyllis Hyman, a vocalist who first began in jazz, then moved to soul music to help chart a whole new sound for the future – a new sort of sophistication that was key to a shift in the way that female soul singers came across – with plenty of pride, maturity, and subtle power that really comes through in these recordings! Right from the start, Hyman was very much her own artist – as you'll hear in this set, which begins with some of her earliest, jazziest work, and includes a few contributions with Norman Connors – then moves through a rich legacy of full length albums before Phyllis was taken from our planet all too soon! The set features nine full albums, most with some bonus tracks – and albums include Phyllis Hyman, Somewhere In My Lifetime, You Know How To Love Me, Can't We Fall In Love Again, Goddess Of Love, Living All Alone, Prime Of My Life, I Refuse To Be Lonely, and Forever With You. 119 tracks in all!  ~ Dusty Groove

Too Slow To Disco Presents Yacht Soul – The Cover Versions

An incredibly cool collection – one that offers up all sorts of weird and wonderful soul music covers of mainstream mellow 70s hits – new versions of the famous tunes that pull them strongly over to the world of R&B, often with results that are better than the original versions! The set is both a great demonstration of how much soul there was lurking in the original AOR productions of the mid 70s, and how strongly those currents could be unlocked even more in the right hands – as you'll hear in these sublime takes on tunes by Hall & Oates, Toto, Seals & Crofts, The Doobie Brothers, and other 70s pop giants. Titles include "Dirty Work" by Pointer Sisters, "Minute By Minute" by Peabo Bryson, "Georgie Porgy" by Side Effect, "He's Gone" by Dee Dee Bridgewater, "Summer Breeze" by Main Ingredient, "Lazy Nina" by Greg Phillinganes, "In The Way" by Brothers Johnson, "This Is It" by Millie Jackson, "Takin It To The Streets" by Quincy Jones, "I Hope You'll Be Very Unhappy Without Me" by Tavares, "God Only Knows" by Betty Lavette, "Let Em In" by Billy Paul, and "A Love Of Your Own" by The Ebonys. ~ Dusty Groove

Adam Nolan Trio | "Prim Aand Primal"

A fresh new concept album based on contrasting personalities and approaches to free jazz. One is clean, tidy, polite and humble while the other is aggressive, bold, raw, risky and wild. Each track is based on reflecting scenes called out by Adam Nolan before the take.

"Some of my influences leading up to this recording session included Ornette Coleman, Kaoru Abe, Anthony Braxton, Kenny Garrett, Bobby Watson and Sam Rivers.

1: This first track I really wanted to bring elements of Elvin Jones's swing feel with Ron Carters urban sound whilst breaking out of a set tempo and creating a new version of that 60's sound. I feel we took it beyond the original idea and stretched the music out to new levels of expression.

2: Inspired by modern trios and that room sound recording free jazz. I remember I was watching some cool bands online including Michaël Attias New York Trio 'Renku' and it did inspire me. I also was watching the German double bassist Peter Kowald Chicago free jazz documentary which featured some of my favourites including the great saxophonist Fred Albert who inspired my previous album 'The Great Conjunction'

3: Coming up to the recording session Stan Getz kept coming to my mind, however I didn't listen to him as I was listening to other styles at the time. When it was time to record this track I decided to bring elements of latin jazz into this piece but with a complete new contemporary edge. I explained this to the guys and Derek Whyte expressed haunting contemporary harmony while Dominic played in a bossa inspired style. One of my favourites!

4: I have always been fascinated by the Mayans and the tropical jungles of the ancient world. Didn't I notice in the recording session that there was a mayan art rug used to dampen the drums sounds. This was something I had to incorporate into this track. I really like to use what's in an environment to create/express scenes. One of my favourite movies is also Mel Gibson 'Apocalypto' which really gave me great visual images of hunt scenes in the jungle as was in my teenage years.

5: Visualising the three of us in a desert. Thirsty and dying for a drink of cold water we spot a magic carpet flying past in the air realising if we can somehow catch and tame it we can save ourselves and find an oasis sanctuary.

6: Looking for something to really define the whole album concept this scene came to my mind just before we decided to record the final track.

The Kung Fu Master Vs The Ape in a smoking area and they are the same strength! Just so it's an even fight! This scene really expresses the wild raw power of an ape along with a Kung fu masters precision, awareness and discipline complimented by the rustle and tumbles of a smoking area along with a bewildered crowd experiencing this bizarre scenario."

Brandee Younger | "Somewhere Different"

Today Harpist and Composer Brandee Younger announces her major label debut album, Somewhere Different, set for release August 13 on Impulse! Records.  The genre-busting set is a seamless fusion of classical music, R&B, hip-hop, jazz and funk with the new bounce-infused single "Reclamation" out now.

Recorded at the legendary Van Gelder Studios and in New York City from November 2020 to February 2021 Somewhere Different expertly showcases Brandee's ethos of weaving genres that pay homage to her predecessors while forging new sonic ground. The eight-track collection, Produced by Dezron Douglas, features Allan Mednard on Drums, Rashaan Carter on Bass, Trumpeter Maurice Brown, Tenor Saxophonist Chelsea Baratz, Flutist Anne Drummond, and Drummer & Drum Programming by Marcus Gilmore. The set also features a Special Appearance by legendary Bassist Ron Carter on "Olivia Benson" and "Beautiful is Black", and Guest Vocals from Tarriona "Tank" Ball from Tank and the Bangas on "Pretend." 

Overall, the album touches on a vast number of themes without losing focus.  The lush soundscapes of the musical tracks encapsulate the contemporary musical hybrid that represents Brandee's newfound artistic liberty.  As told to music journalist and author Marcus J. Moore, who wrote the liner notes for the record, Younger states, "I hope it is enjoyable to listen to, not hard to listen to, nothing to be analyzed or over-analyzed, but that people will just enjoy it. Everything has a groove, and that's me." 

Widely recognized as a musician who is willing to push boundaries, Brandee has shared the stage with jazz leaders and popular hip-hop and R&B luminaries including Ravi Coltrane, Maxwell, John Legend, Pharoah Sanders, Common, and Lauryn Hill. Her original composition "Hortense" was also featured in the Beyoncé documentary Homecoming.  Recently, she was featured on Apple's 2021 unprecedented Juneteenth Album, collaborating with Grammy Award Winning Artist Terrace Martin.  

Impulse!: For nearly sixty years, Impulse Records has stood as a label of musical integrity and lasting cultural significance. Known as the "house that Trane built" in honor of its best-selling artist John Coltrane, the label produced music exciting in its experimental charge, and spiritual in its priority. Sonny Rollins, Quincy Jones, Max Roach, Ray Charles, Alice Coltrane, Keith Jarrett, Charles Mingus, Sun Ra, and Pharoah Sanders were but a few of the legendary musicians who helped define the label's sound and message. To this day, Impulse continues to proudly wear its distinctive orange-and-black color scheme, and is home to the new vanguard of creative musicians including Brandee Younger, Shabaka Hutchings and his groups Sons of Kemet, Shabaka & the Ancestors, and the psychedelic jazz trio The Comet Is Coming. 

Jonathan Bauer | "Sings & Plays"

Multitalented trumpeter, singer and composer Jonathan Bauer - most notably from the Grammy award-winning New Orleans Jazz Orchestra - returns with his highly anticipated sophomore release, Sings & Plays.

A distinctive new musician on the rise, Bauer has been widely celebrated for his dark and buttery trumpet sound, often mistaken for that of the mellower flugelhorn. As a singer, his voice is filled with an earnest joy, instantly connecting with all audiences. Along with an A-list cast of some of New Orleans’ most swinging musicians, Sings & Plays is dripping with energy from the city they call home. Early listeners have described the new album’s aesthetic as "New Orleans meets Chet Baker."

Part of this album was recorded in January of 2020, just before to the onset of the COVID pandemic. In spite of all of the uncertainty they faced, Bauer and his band were determined to keep Sings & Plays from being shelved. Ultimately, the losses and obstacles of the last year bred new depths of appreciation for the music and each other, making this project all the more special.

Sings & Plays will be released worldwide on Friday, August 13th 2021 on Slammin Media.

Carmela Rappazzo | "Love And Other Difficulties"

While experiencing covid lock down in New Orleans Carmela wrote and recorded her seventh project "Love and Other Difficulties" an exploration of the many aspects of love. 

The thirteen tracks are comprised of six original songs of Carmela's and three collaborations with pianist and composer Oscar Rossignoli. There are also three standard covers and a cover of New Orleans singer songwriter Paul Sanchez.

The standards chosen were Cole Porter's "So In Love" with it's tango-esque arrangement and it's sense of longing, Billy Strayhorn's "A Flower is a Lovesome Thing" his love song to flowers, and Hoagy Carmichael's "Skylark" another beautiful song of longing.

New Orleans's own Paul Sanchez's "Empty Chair" about a lost love rounds out the cover songs with it's own form of heartache.

Carmela's original compositions also represent many types of love and some are a departure from her usual jazz influences. "Cicada's" childhood memories of summer was inspired by one of Duke Ellington's "Queen Suites", "Lightning Bugs and Frogs". "Dancer ", inspired by Eric Satie's Gnossienne No.1 is a tale of a love that may disappear as quickly as a ballerina's pirouette. "Love Tune" is the musing of how one would cope without love, and has some additional voicing contributed by Oscar Rossignoli, yet "Love Tune 4 Real" is about true love. "Ursula (redux)" is a new arrangement of a song of her's about the reluctant bride and the groom who loves her."Keep Your Distance", a free form piece, about obsessive love, and "Sweet Sleep" a lullaby about an ideal fantasy love round out the original compositions.

When Carmela heard Oscar Rossignoli's compositions the dark and richly textured "Heartbeat" and "Endless Fall" with its overtones of melancholy she wrote lyrics for both.

The musicians chosen for this project all bring a unique perspective and sensibility to their playing and their contributions were invaluable. None are ‘strictly jazz' players, which was an important criteria for the material.

Carmela has been playing and recording with Honduran pianist and composer Oscar Rossignoli since she arrived in New Orleans and he was a natural fit for this record having both an extensive back round in jazz, Latin and classical music. He also served as Musical Director on this project. 

Martin Masakowski, bass, is from a New Orleans musical family and his style and training span across jazz, classical, experimental, Eastern European and Indian cultures. He brings a unique musicality to this project.

Doug Belote is a South Louisiana native who grew up in Cajun country immersed in the sounds of jazz, funk, R&B, Cajun, Latin, and second line drumming and that versatility brought a perfect amount of spice to this project.

Recorded at Esplanade Studios in New Orleans, mixed by Pete Snell in Los Angeles and mastered by Robby Hunter at The Attic Studios in southern New York, this collection represents Carmela Rappazzo's newest endeavor. It's title "Love and Other Difficulties" was inspired by a collection of poems by Rilke. 

The record was produced by Carmela Rappazzo and co-produced by Tony Award winning producer Barbara Manocherian. 

Harley Cortez | "An Inventory Of Music: Vol. II"

If we were only to focus on Harley Cortez’s forthcoming second chapter in his four-album “An Inventory of Memory” recording series, it would be like having a phone conversation with someone with spotty cell service that allows you to hear every fourth word. The Los Angeles-based musician turned painter, filmmaker and writer utilizes the full scope of his artistic gifts to communicate his messages and themes. Set to release “An Inventory of Memory: Vol. II” on August 13, Cortez’s examination of genetic memory has been the muse of his multidisciplinary art for several years, but this musical exploration delves deeply into loss and how to process it after the passing of his mother and nephew with the goal of turning loss into beauty.   

The evocative, cinematic music Cortez composed for “An Inventory of Memory: Vol. II” is indeed beautiful. He wrote and performed the eight Avant-classical tracks that he brought to life with the aid of accompaniment by Modeste Colban on flute and saxophone, violinist Andy Baldwin and Nancy Kuo’s (Janelle Monae) strings.

The album opens with the minimalist “Metaphors,” a soothing, electronic vibrational mantra. The gentle piano cadence on “Y” and its gorgeous melody intimately convey raw emotion, planting the seed of renewal and the blossoming of hope in its radiance and simplicity. “How We Become Butterflies” is transcendental, nurtured by airy piano passages, a plunging upright bass line, and gentle dancing upon a ride cymbal. A string quartet illumines “Be Still,” turning it into a sweeping, emotionally poignant meditation. A somber majesty reigns on the contemplative “Seven Mountains” while “After the Tz’utujil Ceremony in Atitlan” includes an audio sample from a Mayan tribe recorded in Cortez’s mother’s native Guatemala. A serene interlude, “Selected Memories” feels transitional, offering comfort and optimism. The recording closes with a “How We Become Butterflies” (Reprise) on which Colban’s moody saxophone plunges to vaster depths than on the original.   

“After a hard year of many losses, I decided to resume finishing these albums. The thing I realized is that we all experience loss in some form, but it’s a whole other thing to create beauty from it. I suppose the job of the artist is to be the vessel, one that the traumatic experience can filter beauty from,” said Cortez, who has exhibitions of his paintings and sculptures opening in Mexico City at the Museo Tamayo in October and at another venue (to be announced) in the same city in November.

“The album series title comes from an idea of genetic memory —it has been a focus of mine for a few years now and a narrative that is at the center of a lot of my exhibitions. It’s usually an attempt to dissect ancestral language in some way. Art for me is a way to call on the duende (or soul). I sometimes think souls speak a language that is beyond human understanding, and so we have art.”

The music heard on the “An Inventory of Memory” series is vastly different from Cortez’s earlier career, which included solo, duo and group projects as part of Just an Animal, Red Cortez and the Weather Underground as well as touring as the opening act for Morrissey. This four-part series is entirely instrumental.    

“As I have explored the world of classical and ambient music and less pop, lyrical music, it has become something I have been exploring more. I decided to release a series of albums not just because I had so much material, but because I wanted to gather it and split it up in a way that felt like individual experiences. Each volume has its own field recording from different places I’ve been to around the world. Usually, these field recordings have a spiritual or religious ritual specific to that place such as on ‘After the Tz’utujil Ceremony in Atitlan,’ which was recorded in Atitlan, Guatemala,” said Cortez, who will release a companion book of short stories, poetry and other recollections titled “An Inventory of Memory” early next year.

Cortez grew up in Los Angeles and Queens and lived for a short time as a young kid in Guatemala. His paintings, drawings and abstract pieces have exhibited in Los Angeles, New York City and Tokyo. As a filmmaker, he’s released short films, experimental films and music videos. In fact, “How We Become Butterflies” from “Inventory of Memory: Vol. II” is the theme song to the film he made about his experiences with his younger brother, who is schizophrenic.

Emma-Jean Thackray | "Yellow"

Bandleader, multi-instrumentalist and producer, Emma-Jean Thackray was born and raised in Yorkshire but is today a resident of Catford, south-east London. Her 2020 EPs Um Yang 음 양 and Rain Dance marked Thackray out as standard-bearer of a spiritually-minded, dancefloor-angled take on jazz that stood at a slight remove from the broader UK scene. But Yellow - released on Thackray’s own Warp Records-affiliated imprint, Movementt - feels like a further step into a fresh and distinct space. Its 14 tracks bloom with brass and strings, choral segments and ecstatic chants. But this deeper, richer sound is not at the expense of immediacy. “The groove is the most important thing,” says Thackray. “Even if it's a tune that's really mad and free, all kinds of crazy shit happening, there's usually a groove there - an anchor, locking it down.” 

If Yellow sounds like an ecstatic live experience, that is intentional. Still, it conceals much about the way it was created. It features performances from Thackray’s long-term band – drummer Dougal Taylor, pianist Lyle Barton and tuba player Ben Kelly - caught in sessions between London and Margate. But it was in large part concocted in her home studio, Thackray cutting, splicing and multitracking vocal and instrumental takes until the finished compositions bore little resemblance to what went down in the studio. Take a track like “About That”. Its jockeying horns and licks of Rhodes give it the feel of an improv jam, but besides sampling from her drummer, it’s Thackray playing all the parts and lacing them together. Really, you might best understand what Thackray does through reference to auteur figures like Brian Wilson or Madlib, who straddle instrumentation, arrangement and production in order to bring the sound in their head to fruition. “My band don’t really get an opinion,” she laughs. “It's kind of like, ‘Thank you for this bit, I'm gonna take that away now.’ And then they don't see me for months. But there’s a love, and a trust, there.” 

Yorkshire is famous for its brass bands, a culture with its roots in the region’s coal mining communities. Thackray started her musical journey in primary school, playing a cornet her parents had bought her from a second-hand music shop, and by the age of 13 she was principal cornet in a local brass band. One day, downloading brass band recordings, she came across the Gil Evans arrangement of Miles Davis’ take on “Concierto De Aranjuez”, and it was an instant ‘mind blown’ moment. Soon, she was voraciously collecting jazz - Miles, Coltrane, anything with a cool sleeve. Still, her time in a brass band taught Thackray the power of a communal approach to music. “Sometimes in jazz, there can be ego. And it's, like: ‘How can I play my best stuff, how can I come off as being the winner of this?’ That was never my musical roots – it was always about making a nice sound together, as a unit.” 

Yellow is as rich lyrically as it is musically. Shot through with references to astrology and the cosmos, tracks like “Third Eye” and “Sun” grapple with ideas of spirituality and expanded consciousness. From her father, Thackray learned Taoism, an ancient eastern philosophical tradition, and became a student herself. “I was learning how to meditate from being a child,” says Thackray. “I picked up all these philosophical ideas. Like, everything is cyclical, life is cyclical. And the universe is in balance - this perfectly balanced system that’s all around you.” You can hear this in the two tracks that bookend Yellow, “Mercury” and “Mercury (In Retrograde)”. The latter is the former, reversed - the chord sequences, basslines and melodies spun backwards, the kick drum literally reversed to add to the sense of psychoacoustic disorientation. 

Thackray has always been a little bit out on her own. At the Royal Welsh College Of Music And Drama, she studied jazz under the free improviser Keith Tippett, all the while trying to turn her coursemates onto the sounds in her headphones (“Everyone wanted to like play bop – I was like, ‘Yeah, but have you heard this guy Madlib?’). After the Royal Welsh, she took a master’s in jazz orchestral composition at Trinity College alongside future names like Moses Boyd and Nubya Garcia. But she says, she still “felt like an outsider”.  She formed her own band, and by 2016 she was playing rapturously received live shows across the capital. But she really found her sound alone, holed up in the instrument-packed home studio that occupies a room of her South London flat. Her 2018 EP Ley Lines found Thackray playing all the parts herself, including a clarinet she’d picked up for the first time 10 minutes before recording. 

It’s an unconventional approach, but one that gives Yellow a distinct vantage point, allowing Thackray to speak with honesty and truth. And there is real talk here. “Spectre” channels the language of a haunting to confront the harsh reality of depression. “Say Something” is an entreaty to empty vessels, a plea for people to talk with meaning, not just volume. But overwhelmingly, Yellow speaks the language of positivity. “Our People” and “Venus” feel in tune with some higher power, feats of communion that long to be experienced out on a dancefloor. On her 2020 track “Movementt”, Thackray chants her musical mantra  “Move the body, move the mind, move the soul”. It’s a principle by which she creates all her work – and Yellow is its boldest, brightest manifestation to date. 

 

Andrew Cyrille Quartet | "The News"

Andrew Cyrille’s album The News carries forward the story from The Declaration of Musical Independence, the 2014 ECM recording described by Down Beat as “an unabashed exploration into time, pulse space and atmosphere…ambitious yet simple, rich yet stripped-down, challenging yet infinitely satisfying.” The New York Times cited the album as evidence of a “late career renaissance” for the drummer.

A force in improvisation for more than sixty years, Cyrille has played across the landscape of jazz from Coleman Hawkins’s The Hawk Relaxes to Cecil Taylor’s Unit Structures, led his own bands, and worked extensively with Milford Graves, Walt Dickerson, David Murray, Muhal Richard Abrams, Oliver Lake, Reggie Workman and many, many more. His first ECM appearance was on 1970’s Afternoon of a Georgia Faun, Marion Brown’s album with Chick Corea, Anthony Braxton, Bennie Maupin and Jeanne Lee. Half a century later Cyrille appeared with his Lebroba trio with Wadada Leo Smith and Bill Frisell at Lincoln Center’s 50th birthday tribute to the label.

For The News, recorded at Sound on Sound Studio in New Jersey in August 2019, David Virelles was drafted as last-minute replacement for old associate Richard Teitelbaum, whose involvement had been ruled out by ill-health. Virelles had previously played with Cyrille and Ben Street in contexts including the group Continuum. Gently guiding from the drums, Cyrille gives his revised line-up plenty of freedom while also shaping, subtly, the group’s sonic identity with his flowing sense of pulse.

The title track “The News” revisits a conceptual piece that Andrew first recorded on a solo percussion album, The Loop, made for the Italian Ictus label in the late 1970s. Here a newspaper is placed over the snare drum and toms and played with brushes. In the quartet version, Frisell, Virelles and Street all impressionistically extend its rustling, whispering textures on their own instruments.

“Leaving East of Jordan” is a tune by AACM-associated pianist Adegoke Steve Colson. Cyrille has previously played it both with its composer and with the group Trio 3 with Oliver Lake and Reggie Workman. Cyrille’s “With You In Mind” is also a piece that has gone through diverse interpretations: there are earlier recorded interpretations in trio with Hentry Grimes and Bill McHenry and in duo with Greg Osby. Here the music takes off from Andrew’s unaccompanied spoken word introduction with the band amplifying its sentiments, with a particularly tender guitar solo from Bill Frisell.

The guitarist has three tunes here “Mountain”, “Baby” and “Go Happy Lucky”, the last of which, as an abstracted blues, has a distant kinship with Duke Ellington’s “Happy Go Lucky Local.” Frisell has recorded extensively for ECM, from early leader dates such as In Line and Rambler to the recent duet projects Small Town and Epistrophy with Thomas Morgan. Along the way there has also been a long association with Paul Motian and Joe Lovano documented on recordings from Psalm (1981) to Time and Time Again (2006). Frisell has also contributed to other recordings of enduring significance including Paul Bley’s Fragments, Kenny Wheeler’s Angel Song, Marc Johnson’s Bass Desires, Jan Garbarek’s Paths, Prints and Gavin Bryars’s After the Requiem. 

David Virelles. who contributes the tune “Incienso” to the programme and shares composer credits with Cyrille on the exploratory “Dance of the Nuances”, first appeared on ECM with Chris Potter in 2011. Albums with Tomasz Stanko followed (Wisława, December Avenue) as well as Virelles’s own recordings Mbókò, Antenna and Gnosis. 

Ben Street and Andrew Cyrille have collaborated in contexts including the trio of Danish pianist Søren Kjærgaard. The bassist’s ECM credits include albums with the Billy Hart Quartet (All Our Reasons, One Is The Other) the Ethan Iverson/Tom Harrell Quartet (Common Practice), and the Aaron Parks Trio (Find The Way).

Gregory Goodloe | "Somewhere Out There"

After releasing the single, “Cool Like That,” R&B-jazz guitarist Gregory Goodloe attempted to stay calm early in the COVID-19 pandemic despite the uncertainty and concern for his mother’s health. As we move closer to the other side of the pandemic, the man of faith ventured out earlier this year with a single, “Step’N Out,” that he wrote with fellow Billboard chart-topping guitarist Adam Hawley. Combining their energy felt so good that the pair reteamed to write the hopeful new single, “Somewhere Out There,” which drops August 27 on Hip Jazz Records ahead of its August 30 radio add date.  

As the world continues to recover and reemerge from the coronavirus, the Denver-based Goodloe is focused on moving forward. Produced by Hawley, Goodloe co-wrote “Somewhere Out There” to encourage and inspire. With a midtempo groove anchored by drummer Eric Valentine and bassist Melvin Brown, Goodloe’s lyrical fretwork and cool-toned electric jazz guitar calisthenics evoke his iconic influencers: George Benson and Wes Montgomery.  

“The title ‘Somewhere Out There’ came to me as a reflection of hope in an ever-changing world. Adam and I wrote the song with inspiration in our hearts, determined to face what’s ahead positively, and with hope for a brighter tomorrow. We wrote the track purposely to be an upbeat, feel-good tune. The song is bright and just feels so good, with its toe tapping steady groove and arrangement,” said Goodloe, who recently made his return to live concert performances at the Keystone Wine & Jazz Festival in Keystone, Colorado.

Two years ago, Goodloe scored his first Billboard No. 1 single, “Stylin’,” a collaboration with GRAMMY-nominated songwriter-producer-saxophonist Darren Rahn that has garnered more than three million Spotify streams. After a successful outing last year with urban-jazz keyboardist Bob Baldwin on “Cool Like That,” which was Billboard’s No. 1 most added single in its debut week, the guitarist began a fruitful creative relationship with Hawley. 

“Adam Hawley is a genius arranger/producer with a feel for music that is extraordinary,” gushed Goodloe who wrote, produced and performed his debut recording project, “It’s All Good” (2016), entirely on his own.

Since the self-taught musician and US Army veteran arrived on the scene, Goodloe has performed with or opened for a wide variety of R&B, jazz and gospel headliners, including Howard Hewett, Tank, Ben Tankard, Norman Brown, Dave Koz, Brian Culbertson, Michael McDonald, James Ingram, Roy Ayers, Shirley Caesar, Angela Spivey, John P. Key, The Rance Allen Group and fellow Denver native Larry Dunn of Earth, Wind & Fire fame. Goodloe has also served as musical director for R&B-pop group Surface and soul-jazz singer Aysha.

With the upcoming release of “Somewhere Out There,” Goodloe has his sights firmly set on the promise that lays ahead, saying “We can believe in our dreams and hold on to hope for a brighter tomorrow.”

Vincent Ingala | "Fire & Desire"

To live a life of filled with passion and purpose is one of the greatest gifts of all. The wise, young and chart-topping multi-instrumental genius Vincent Ingala seems to have mastered this feat. A Billboard Smooth Jazz Artist Of The Year, Ingala has garnered 18 Top 10 Smooth Jazz radio singles and ten #1 radio hits. “I believe it is our job as musicians to simply make music that people enjoy, and hopefully along the way, bring some happiness and inspiration into their lives,” shares the Prospect, CT native. “That is certainly my hope for when Fire & Desire is heard.” September 17, 2021 Shanachie Entertainment will release the multi-instrumentalist’s third recording for the label and seventh as a leader. The charismatic and handsome Ingala has endeared fans, contemporaries and critics alike with his consummate musicianship, fun-loving stage presence, energized and inspired performances and all-around passion. “My earliest memories are of banging on pots and pans until my parents had to buy me a drum kit and from there it was like a domino effect.” From banging on pots to churning out hits, Ingala is a chameleon in the recording studio. Like an alchemist, he concocts the perfect elixir of his broad musical influences spanning the worlds of Jazz, R&B, Disco, Pop and beyond. On the exhilarating Fire & Desire, Ingala confidently dons multiple hats. He plays every instrument heard on the new album from saxophones and keyboards to drums, guitar and bass. He also produced, recorded and mixed the album, as well as composed all of the songs with the exception of Jimmy Roach’s “Disco Sax,” recorded in tribute to tenor titan Houston Person. Due to the challenges of the past year, Ingala was able to hone in and devote his undivided attention to Fire & Desire. “If anything, the most positive result of recording during the pandemic was the amount of time I had to dedicate to this project alone without any other distractions that could affect the flow." 

Fire & Desire opens with the multi-layered and soul-drenched original “Shadow Dancer.” The finger-snapping and funky ditty promises a joyous affair ahead and Ingala delivers. “My compositions are a result of the many music influences that have surrounded me since an early age,” shares the saxophonist. As far back as I can trace, I’ve been listening, absorbing, analyzing, recording and replicating music, so I call upon those tools and skills when I compose and record.” The breezy and melodically pleasing “Could This Be Real” follows and the album’s first single “On The Move,” is sure to elevate your mood. The track’s four-on-the-floor’s pulsating groove is reminiscent of the fabled glory days of Studio 54. “This Or That” shines a spotlight on Ingala’s gorgeous tone and effortless phrasing and he pulls out all of the stops for his unforgettable rendition of “Disco Sax,” which has the polish and shimmer of Philly International and the deep groove of Salsoul. The saxophonist shares, "’Disco Sax” was a song that my father played for me many years ago. It was in fact one of the first ever Disco 45’s he bought right before the whole Disco scene really took off - it was still ‘early’ disco. I remember that I couldn’t believe that there was this disco track with a gorgeous and full string/horn arrangement, but with a saxophone on lead at the forefront. And to top it all off, it was sax legend Houston Person who normally is heard in a more traditional/straight ahead setting. So you really don’t expect for it to work, but it DOES - and it’s a great song that makes you smile, dance and feel good!”

On Fire & Desire Vincent Ingala takes us cruising with his rock-steady and smooth sailing “Riding The Wave” and he creates the perfect mood for the scintillating “Hypnotic Flow.”  Kicking it up a notch, he shows off his penchant for ear-catching melodies and undeniable swing on the ebullient and delectable “Turkey Strut.” Ingala shifts gears with the ethereal and meditative “Aftermath.” Following a year and a half of changes during the pandemic, Vincent Ingala shares, “If Covid has taught me anything, it’s to never take for granted the fact that I get to make music for a living. The sad reality for most human beings is that we never truly realize or appreciate what we have until it’s gone. For most, 2020 was a wake up call to bring attention all the things that we have and are grateful for in our lives. Now that things are slowly returning to normal again, we can resume our lives with a fresh and renewed perspective.” Fire & Desire closes with the electrifying and high-octane title track, reminding us to keep the fire burning and to rekindle our passions.

For Vincent Ingala music and cooking are both sustenance for the mind, body and soul.  “I’m definitely a huge foodie and enjoy going out to eat (something we can finally resume coming out of the pandemic age), but with that I very much enjoy cooking! I cook a lot at home, love trying new recipes out, and I’m not afraid to experiment either. I see so much correlation between cooking and creating music - that must be a reason why I connect to it so well. Ingala was drawn to the saxophone as a kid. He recalls hearing tenor saxophonist Sam Butera on the radio and was instantly taken. “I remember hearing his saxophone solo on ‘Oh Marie’ in the car one day while my cousin was driving us around, and immediately knowing that I wanted to play tenor sax. He is one of the most underrated saxophonists of all time. What inspires me most about his playing is his use of the melody and his phrasing. Coming from a musically rich New Orleans background and playing with Louis Prima taught Sam that it's not necessarily about how many notes you can cram in, or how fast you can play, but rather playing for your audience and giving them a beautiful melody that everyone can relate to.” Ingala has taken lessons from Butera both on and off the stage. He shares, I have always valued what Sam Butera once said: “It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.” Ingala has lives by this motto. 

Vincent Ingala burst on the Contemporary Jazz scene in 2010 with the release of his critically heralded debut North End Soul. Two years later he was crowned Billboard “Smooth Jazz Artist of the Year” and Sirius XM Watercolors “Breakthrough Artist Of The Year” in 2013. Ingala’s sophomore recording, Can’t Stop Now, was released in 2012 and Coast To Coast followed in 2015, featuring two singles that hit #1 on the Billboard Contemporary Jazz Chart. Vincent Ingala featured his vocal driven Christmas in 2016, showcasing holiday classics. Ingala is a DJ on Smooth Jazz 24/7 where he can be heard weekly. “It's a completely different dynamic being a radio host because you're now sitting on the other side!,” he exclaims. “You get used to hearing your music being played on the radio, but then suddenly the roles reverse and you're now the one introducing and spinning the songs. I enjoy being a mascot for the genre and supporting the artists, many of them my friends who I have collaborated with or shared the stage with over the years.” In 2018 he made his Shanachie debut with Personal Touch, which featured the #1 hit “Snap, Crackle, Pop.” Ingala’s Echoes Of The Heart followed in 2020 with special guests and Shanachie label mates David Benoit and Steve Oliver. The album featured the Top Five single “Caught Me By Surprise” and the Top Ten single “Maybe You Think.”

With the release of Fire & Desire and the upcoming Dave Koz & Friends Summer Horns and Peter White Christmas tours, Vincent Ingala is excited to reconnect with his fans.” Most of us have had to get creative and use the internet to our advantage to broadcast live streams and artist collaborations. While it was a great way to stay in touch and remain connected with our music family in a time of crisis, it can still never replace the interaction of a live audience and physically being there in person. This time away has given me a greater appreciation for performing and interacting with my colleagues and live audiences. I am ready and can’t wait to be back at it again!”

Relief: A Benefit For The Jazz Foundation Of America's Musicians' Emergency Fund

A consortium of major jazz labels – Concord Music Group, Mack Avenue Music Group, Nonesuch Records, Universal Music Group’s Verve Label Group and Blue Note Records, and Warner Music Group – has taken the unprecedented step of joining hands for Relief, an all-star compilation of previously unreleased music to be issued on LP, CD and digitally September 24, continuing the non-profit Jazz Foundation of America’s (JFA) ongoing efforts to aid musicians affected by the international shutdown of venues and other performance opportunities in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. 

All net proceeds from the package – comprising studio and live tracks by top-flight jazz artists – will benefit the JFA’s Musicians’ Emergency Fund, established in the spring of 2020 after the pandemic ground the music industry to a sudden, catastrophic halt. 

JFA executive director Joe Petrucelli says, “The Jazz Foundation of America deeply appreciates the artists, songwriters and label teams who contributed to this project with such compassion and generosity. As pandemic restrictions continue to lift, we recognize that musicians will face a particularly lengthy recovery. They were among the first to be hit by the effects of the crisis and will be among the last to achieve a true sense of normalcy or stability. We and our partners are here for the long haul.”

Relief commences with a recording that exemplifies the extreme challenges faced by musicians in the depths of the 2020 health emergency: “back to who,” a track by vocalist Esperanza Spalding and pianist Leo Genovese, recording as IRMA and LEO, was created remotely at home studios in Hillsboro, OR and Brooklyn, NY. 

The compilation concludes with a live quintet performance captured at the JFA’s 2014 “A Great Night in Harlem” benefit show at New York’s historic Apollo Theater. It features pianist Herbie Hancock, trumpeter Wallace Roney, who died after contracting the coronavirus, bassist Buster Williams, drummer Albert “Tootie” Heath and tenor saxophonist Jimmy Heath, the composer of the number, who died at the age of 93 in January 2020, in a poignant version of “Gingerbread Boy.” 

“I'm honored to be part of this meaningful project that supports the important work of the Jazz Foundation, who has always been there for musicians going through tough times. They have been an especially critical resource for the community during the pandemic, helping those in need of medical care, putting food on the table and paying their rent,” says Hancock.  

Offering a compact overview of jazz’s past, present and future, the album also presents fresh tracks from bassist Christian McBride, vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant, saxophonists Kenny Garrett, Joshua Redman and Charles Lloyd, pianist-vocalist Jon Batiste and pianist Hiromi Uehara. 

The set is merely the latest pandemic relief effort mounted under the aegis of the JFA’s Musicians’ Emergency Fund. 2020 benefit events included the virtual concert #TheNewGig in May, an international “Gershwin Global” online performance led by Israeli pianist Guy Mintus in July, and the Charlie Parker-themed “Bird Calls” streaming fundraiser in December. 

Mack Avenue Music Group president Denny Stilwell, who spearheaded the formation of the label consortium with longtime JFA board member and entertainment lawyer Geoffrey Menin last spring, says, “We had met via conference call for about two months before the idea of putting an album together came up. The initial impetus was to raise money for the fund. Sometime around eight weeks in, Blue Note’s president, Don Was, said, ‘Why don’t we make a record? Let’s all contribute some tracks.’ There was a nanosecond of silence, and then everybody in our core group – including John Burk at Concord, Jamie Krents at Verve – said, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’ 

“We all decided that we were going to look into the vaults and agreed that we wanted to have unreleased tracks…it just came together organically. Once we got all the music together, we traded some ideas and Joe Petrucelli, John Burk and Will Wakefield laid out the final sequence of how the tracks would flow. I think it works great!” 

Relief marks the first appearance on record of a performance from one of the JFA’s annual benefits at the Apollo. (The 2020 “A Great Night in Harlem” show, which had been set for April 14, was postponed due to the COVID outbreak.) 

Stilwell recalls, “Joe Petrucelli was pretty excited about including a live track. The thing that makes that track heartbreaking and relevant is the inclusion of Wallace Roney, who was one of the first of our community to pass from COVID. I think that track, which also features Jimmy Heath, who also left us last year, has some extra weight and meaning for all of us.” 

In his notes for the album, Rolling Stone senior music editor Hank Shteamer writes, “Even in a pandemic, the jazz ecosystem – not just its practitioners and facilitators but those who value the music as a lifelong sustenance – has managed to summon grace, dignity and unexpected joy. That spirit extends to Relief, a compilation which continues the relief efforts undertaken last year. This album reflects the duality at the heart of jazz: It's a music of cooperation, of intuitive teamwork, that also leaves room for a broad array of personal idiosyncrasy. Differences of generation, heritage, methodology…strengthen the music's vast collective mesh.”

Track Listing:

IRMA and LEO | "back to who" feat. Esperanza Spalding and Leo Genovese | 4:41

Christian McBride | "Brother Malcolm" | 4:47

Cécile McLorin Salvant | "Easy Come, Easy Go Blues" | 2:32

Kenny Garrett | "Joe Hen’s Waltz" | 8:07

Jon Batiste | "Sweet Lorraine" | 3:52

Hiromi | "Green Tea Farm" [2020 version] | 7:52

Joshua Redman | "Facts" feat. Ron Miles, Scott Colley, Brian Blade | 3:39

Charles Lloyd & Kindred Spirits | "Lift Every Voice and Sing" [live] | 8:26

Herbie Hancock, Wallace Roney, Jimmy Heath, Buster Williams, Albert “Tootie” Heath | "Gingerbread Boy" [live] | 6:54

Vocalist Patricia Barber Announces "Clique"

Patricia Barber, the performer known for boldly blurring the lines between poetry, jazz, and art song, has announced the forthcoming release of a new all-standards album Clique (Impex Records), due out August 6th in breathtaking hi-fi. The long-awaited successor to Nightclub, her critically acclaimed and fan-favorite first all-standards album, Clique features a tracklist of tunes that Barber has frequently performed as encores throughout her illustrious career, including classics by Rodgers & Hammerstein, Stevie Wonder, Lee Hazlewood, Lerner & Loewe, Thelonious Monk and more. After growing an international cult following, earning the first-ever Guggenheim Fellowship awarded to a non-classical songwriter, and becoming an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Patricia Barber is back with a "silk, velvet, languid, warm" journey through music history as she "respects traditions, bends them to make her own points, and freshens them into something new," as noted in the album liner notes by NPR's Susan Stamberg.

"The harmonic language of jazz, as well as that of the Great American Songbook, is certainly rich -- look how much has come out of it -- but it's circumscribed. I started wanting to hear something else," Barber said of recording an all-standards album. 

Today, Patricia Barber has also debuted Clique's lead single "This Town," written by Lee Hazlewood and popularized by Frank Sinatra. Barber pulls the 1967 hit into her own aesthetic domain, creating unique sonic tensions with her "infinitesimally subtle vocal shadings" (Chicago Tribune) that demand listeners rethink the original meaning of the song. 

Clique, recorded at the same time as Barber's 2019 release Higher, finds Barber once again teaming with GRAMMY award-winning engineer Jim Anderson, to write the next chapter in a 26-year working relationship that has very few precedents in jazz. Anderson's recordings render every inflection of Barber's voice with such presence and clarity, perfectly complementing her art which is so defined by nuance and shading. The sessions for Clique, recorded, mixed and mastered in Digital eXtreme Definition (352.8kHz/32bit) at Chicago Recording Company's Studio 5, are among Anderson's finest engineering achievements and continue to set the sound quality standard for generations to come.

Harold Land | "Westward Bound!"

Continuing its mission to unearth important, previously unreleased jazz performances, Reel to Reel Recordings returns in June with Westward Bound!, a crucial collection of forceful quartet and quintet performances by the masterful tenor saxophonist Harold Land. 

Crisply recorded at the Seattle jazz club the Penthouse in 1962-65 by engineer Jim Wilke and originally aired as part of a weekly broadcast from the venue on KING-FM, the new collection was issued on June 12 in celebration of ‘Record Store Day’ as a 33-1/3 rpm two-LP set on 180-gram vinyl mastered by Kevin Gray of Coherent Audio and pressed by Standard Vinyl in Toronto. The album is also available on CD and digitally. 

Reel to Reel – a partnership between Vancouver-based jazz impresario and saxophonist Cory Weeds and Resonance Records co-president and award-winning “Jazz Detective” Zev Feldman – was launched in 2018 with a pair of releases that included its initial title drawn from the Penthouse’s audio trove, Cannonball Adderley’s Swingin’ in Seattle. The label has since issued Ow!, featuring 1962 Penthouse dates by tenor men Johnny Griffin and Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis; previous Resonance titles from the Penthouse archives have included sets by West Montgomery (Smokin’ in Seattle) and the Three Sounds featuring Gene Harris (Groovin’ Hard). 

In his notes to the new album, Feldman writes, ‘I feel that these recordings of Harold Land are special and need to be heard. Land was one of the purveyors of West Coast jazz whom I feel is an under-recognized genius who doesn’t get discussed enough….Land was on top of his game during this important part of his career in the mid-1960s.” Comparing the new release to In Baltimore, Reel to Reel’s 2020 live collection by George Coleman, Weeds adds, “Westward Bound! finds us celebrating another unsung hero of the tenor saxophone.” 

Born in Houston and raised in San Diego, Harold Land established himself as a jazz star with four EmArcy albums in the tenor chair of trumpeter Clifford Brown and drummer Max Roach’s celebrated ‘50s quintet. Based in Los Angeles from the mid-‘50s on, he worked fruitfully as a leader, recorded regularly with big band leader-arranger Gerald Wilson, and played behind such giants as Dinah Washington, Wes Montgomery, Thelonious Monk, Les McCann, and Hampton Hawes. In later years he forged fruitful alliances with trumpeter Blue Mitchell, vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, and the Timeless All Stars. 

Sonny Rollins – who replaced Land in the Brown-Roach combo – says in a new interview with Feldman, “Harold Land was one of the premier saxophonists of the time. He was one of the best….He was a great player, one of my favorites.” Contemporary tenor titan Joe Lovano tells Feldman, “Harold had his own sweet way of playing and his own flowing language….He was equal to Coltrane and Sonny.” 

The earliest of the Penthouse dates heard on Westward Bound! pairs Land with a similarly underestimated player, the gifted Kansas City trumpeter Carmell Jones; the two musicians worked together regularly on sessions for Pacific Jazz Records. In his overview essay, jazz historian and producer Michael Cuscuna notes, “He and Land made a like-minded team; each would play every note with purpose and articulation.” The band on the Dec. 12, 1962 performance also included Wes Montgomery’s brothers Buddy (piano) and Monk (bass) and drummer Jimmy Lovelace. 

During Penthouse gigs on Sept. 10 and 17, 1964, Land was joined by another prominent artist he had worked with before: pianist Hampton Hawes, who had led the storied 1958 quartet date For Real!, which also featured the saxophonist. In an essay about the keyboardists heard with Land on the new album, pianist Eric Reed says, “Although it is not widely acknowledged (or even known), Hamp was largely responsible for blending the language of the Blues, Jazz, and Gospel music in such a way as to influence many that came after him.” 

Westward Bound! climaxes with an Aug. 5, 1965, date featuring Monk Montgomery, pianist John Houston, and another jazz legend, the explosive drummer Philly Joe Jones. The rhythm turbine of Miles Davis’ magnificent ‘50s quintet, Jones relocated in the ‘60s to L.A., where he played regularly with Land. Cuscuna writes, “This is a high-octane quartet, thanks in large part to Philly Joe’s ability to swing hard and keep a tight rein on the music with the loosest feel.” 

In his own introductory note to the album, Charlie Puzzo, Jr., son of the Seattle club’s owner and operator, says, “I hope the release of this album will allow you to experience the magic of Harold Land’s performances at the Penthouse and also to feel the excitement of actually being in the audience. As a collector myself, I know how important it is that the packaging and esign live up to the source material, and I believe this album does just that.”

REEL TO REAL RECORDINGS LTD was launched in 2017 by jazz impresario Cory Weeds and renowned producer Zev Feldman and is focused on important archival jazz releases. Releases include Cannonball Adderley – Swingin' in Seattle: Live at the Penthouse (1966-1967), Etta Jones – A Soulful Sunday: Live at the Left Bank, Johnny Griffin/Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis – OW!: Live at the Penthouse, and George Coleman Quintet in Baltimore.

New Release: Black Heat - Wanaoh | Chip's Funk

Matasuna Records has dug into the archives of Atlantic Records and unearthed two funky treats from the band Black Heat. The funk & soul band was active in the 1970s and remained under the radar despite their talent. Both songs from their 1972 debut album are available for the first time as an official reissue on 7inch - the song Wanaoh even premieres on a 45.

Wanaoh on the A-side is a monster funk joint written by the band's guitarist Bradley Ownes. The song features a top notch mix with all kinds of delicious ingredients: a killer bassline, funky guitar riffs, crunchy drums, deep organ, tasty horns and a super funky flute. Absolutely astonishing that this song didn't go down in the annals of funk.

Chip's Funk on the B-side penned by bassist Naamon Jones also continues in the same vein and is an absolutely great tune which succinctly showcases Raymond Green's harmonica. The band's name couldn't apply better to this song either: Black Heat is exactly what the musicians deliver here.

King Raymond Green was born in 1951 to African American and Puerto Rican parents in San German, Puerto Rico. Green, a percussionist and vocalist, formed the eight-piece funk & soul band Black Heat in the early 1970s. They signed to Atlantic Records and released three LPs between 1972 and 1975. Despite a high level of talent and creativity, they never achieved a great degree of popularity or commercial success like other bands from that time. Only their funky midtempo song No Time To Burn was a moderate hit. The band broke up in the late 70s. In August 2008, members of the band reunited for the first time in over 3 decades to play together on one stage at a memorial concert in NYC for Joel Dorn, their original producer at Atlantic Records.

Black Heat is another example of a superb band with talented musicians who never managed to gain a foothold in the mainstream, but are highly regarded by connoisseurs. Their music was also influential in hip hop - their songs have been sampled many times by the likes of Wu Tang Clan, Notorious B.I.G., DJ Premier etc., proving their influence on subsequent generations.

King Raymond was rooted in music throughout his complete life. By studying audio engineering he was able to establish himself as a first class sound engineer and worked with many R&B greats like Chuck Brown & The Soul Searchers, Dr. John or Carlos Santana. In the 90's he joined the band The Flamingos as lead singer, until he changed to the legendary R&B group The Clovers in 1999, where he also worked as lead singer. Green was also a songwriter & producer in Washington, DC. King Raymond Green passed away in 2017.

The 7inch single will be released July 2nd 2021 exclusively on vinyl. 

Electronica, Jazz, Lo-Fi Funk Artist TOMÁ Releases "ATOM"

“ATOM” is the debut album of Austro-Bulgarian musician, Tomá Ivanov aka TOMÁ. With his avant-garde Lo-fi- Jazz-Psychedelic-Pop debut, the composer and guitarist asserts himself as a skillful and progressive state of the art producer. Influenced by the greats from the early Warp Records and Ninja Tune era (Squarepusher, Flying Lotus, Aphex Twin etc.) the Bulgarian-born artist began experimenting with electronic music production in his youth, only to then take a detour in form, as he followed an education in jazz music, which he completed in 2018. This characteristic musical diversity is present throughout his first album. He flawlessly blends the electronic spark of Stones Throw/Brainfeeder aesthetics with the distinguishing harmonic freedom of jazz and neo-soul improvisations, resulting in a trippy, sonic voyage. Elements of the classical LA-Beatschool are accompanied by lush strings, wind instrumentals, and wide-ranging vocal features.

The song “Catharsis” is a collaboration with the euphonious Austrian singer Lou Asril; a complex arrangement of strings, virtuosic vocals and a powerful beat, remind of a psychedelic James Bond soundtrack. The distinct counterpoint in the loaded harmonies, reveals Tomá’s versatile compositional abilities and evoke a baroque or classical atmosphere, which reappears in the somber tracks such as “Bad Dream”, “Wrong” and “Blind War”. In the latter track, experimental Chicago jazz-scene multi-instrumentalist, poet, composer and singer, Ben Lamar Gay, conveys a profound statement with his critical lyrics.

In contrast, the album’s opener “A Different You”, featuring New York rapper I am Tim, composed during the ghostly and yet freeing tranquility of the first lockdown, offers an aura of optimism. Even with the album’s vast stylistic range of electronic, jazz, hip-hop and psychedelic pop elements it preserves its coherence above all via its homogenous production and Lo-fi charm. The Californian vibe is further emphasized in the instrumental tracks “Green” (and its music video), “Brother” or “Water”. Despite the presence of a wide, international variety of classical and jazz artists, “ATOM” remains a personal album, a creative rebirth (an atomic rediscovery), and an intimate declaration on the universal language of music.