Monday, July 30, 2018

USA/INDIA: Dual Musicianship: Pianist and Hindustani Vocalist Anita Aysola Cross-Pollinates and Cultivates Personal Hybrids on Beyond Our Dreams

Anita Aysola

Dual Musicianship: Pianist and Hindustani Vocalist Anita Aysola Cross-Pollinates and Cultivates Personal Hybrids on Beyond Our Dreams

Years ago, the Indian-born, Michigan-raised, Atlanta-based singer-songwriter Anita Aysola was weighing a career as a concert pianist. One afternoon, however, she played a piece for her sister’s music professor. The professor listened carefully and asked one unforgettable question: “What if you brought your Indian classical training into this?” she wondered, pointing at the piano.
That moment stuck with Aysola for decades. Then, in 2008, she dived into a favorite raga and wrote “Long Way Home,” one of her first songs that bridged her two lifelong loves, Western classical and jazz, and Hindustani classical. Highly trained in both disciplines, Aysola uncovered how beautifully they could blossom together, once cross pollinated.
Aysola’s exploration and discovery are intimately American, a theme she unpacks musically, lyrically, and emotionally on her latest album, Beyond Our Dreams. Produced by a polymath actor and composer of Indian heritage, Samrat Chakrabarti, in collaboration with musical polyglots from the Brooklyn Raga Massive circle, Aysola’s songs fold radiant flights of Indian-style improvisation and rhythm into solid storytelling and piano chops. Think Anoushka Shankar meets Randy Newman.
“For a long time, I felt I had to be one or the other, Indian or American, in both my music and my life,” reflects Aysola. “Once I broke through that assumption, I realized the power of being both, of creating my own personal hybrid.” That hybrid speaks poignantly to our time of either/or, to divisive political and cultural rhetoric, with a tender but unforgiving tension, a heartfelt and incisive ambiguity.
Aysola never set out to be a professional musician, though she took both Indian and Western classical music seriously from an early age, studying piano and Hindustani classical vocals, singing in the school chorus and at Hindu religious gatherings, and playing in orchestra and band. She even took sitar lessons for a while. “I would play other music by ear,” recalls Aysola. “In Hindustani classical music, you learn how to play harmonium by ear, whatever you hear. So I’d listen to Tori Amos. She was the first person I heard growing up who was a female piano player who also sang and wrote at the same time.”
However, like many daughters of immigrant families, she resolved to find a more predictable professional career, and her formal education spans everything from engineering to international education policy. Yet music became increasingly important to the young artist, and she found herself longing to write songs, not simply perform other’s creations.
She began to study more Western styles involving improvisation, especially jazz and blues. While living in Chicago, she connected with master boogie-woogie blues pianist Erwin Helfer. There and while in grad school in Boston, she played everything from trip hop to jam-based rock to Indian fusion, before focusing more intensively on her own material. Then after a move to Houston, she met Gary Norian, who became her jazz piano mentor and frequent co-writer. Norian’s influence can be felt strongly on tracks like “Bet on Us,” with its rollicking, uplifting New Orleans meets gospel feel.
Her songwriting sprouted from all these seemingly disparate experiences, connected by her love of piano and Indian vocal approaches. “I felt this real need to bring all my passions into my music. To make it a home for both cultures,” Aysola recalls. “I’m one person in all these things, and my music could speak to all these things.” How this would work became a matter of experimentation. “I thought it would be the goofiest thing, sargam [solfege] improvisation over piano. I thought people would laugh,” she recalls. “People loved it. They wanted more.”
Inspiration can run in both directions for Aysola. For “Long Way Home,” she used a raga (raag desh) as a springboard for the song’s melody. “Beyond our Dreams,” written for her youngest child, “toggles between raag jog and jazz and the blues, especially in the piano solo” thanks to the role thirds play in the raga. For “America,” a love song for a country striving for universal ideals despite recent rancour, Aysola found the chords first, then began to play with Indian elements on top. “As I was finishing this song, I was jamming out with my new Hindustani vocal teacher,” says Aysola. “I realized the sargam felt really good with the chords I already had in mind.”
Aysola, with help from Chakrabarti, unites with musical kindred spirits on Beyond Our Dreams, artists who can move fluidly between Indian and Western styles. “Sameer [Gupta] plays the drum kit like a mridangam and the tabla like a drum kit. Everyone on the album,” including Arun Ramamurthy on violin and Jay Gandhi on bansuri flute, “brought that fusion sensibility. Samrat would suggest, ‘Hey try some alaaps [extended improvisions] here, that might work.’ Everyone got what I’m doing and could even encourage it, to help me find that sound.”
The lyrics in Aysola’s songs have a similar--and similarly complementary--dual nature, dwelling in two realities at once, be it as a person of two cultures, or of several callings, as a musician and a mother and wife. “Beyond Our Dreams” captures that tension and the hope and inspiration it brings, as Aysola sings to her newborn son and reminds herself that her journey continues, even though her life has been joyfully upended by her children’s arrival.
One thread runs through all her reflections, however: “You have to blend it and unify it. It’s hard to bring things together, but it’s essential.”

Contact

Publicist
Ron Kadish
812-339-1195 X 202

USA: "Getting Sentimental," Debut Recording by Chicago Jazz Vocalist Gayle Kolb, Due 8/31 from JeruJazz Records

"Getting Sentimental,"
Debut Recording by Chicago Jazz Vocalist
Gayle Kolb,
Set for 8/31 Release by JeruJazz Records
 
Kolb to Showcase Album,
Produced & Arranged by Bassist Dennis Carroll,
At Her 8/31 Chicago Jazz Festival Appearance
With Her CD Band:
Guitarist Bobby Broom,  
Pianist Joey Skoch, Drummer George Fludas,  
Trombonist Tom Garling, & Carroll
         
 
 
July 10, 2018
 
 
Gayle Kolb Getting SentimentalWith the August 31 release of her debut recording Getting Sentimental, Chicago's Gayle Kolb makes a triumphant statement in song after a stretch of years away from music. Produced and arranged by acclaimed Chicago bassist Dennis Carrollfor JeruJazz Records, the album reveals Kolb's metamorphosis from a former nightclub headliner in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and her hometown of Chicago into a compelling jazz artist in full command of her material and her gift.
 
Kolb will showcase the album on its release date during her Chicago Jazz Festival debut, performing with the same personnel heard on the recording: guitar great Bobby Broom, in whose trio Carroll has been a longtime member; Cleveland piano phenom Joey Skoch; ace trombonist Tom Garling of the Chicago Jazz Orchestra and Chicago Yestet; bassist Dennis Carroll: and the always-in-demand drummer George Fludas.
 
With her low tones and coolly relaxed phrasing, Kolb never settles for easy emotion. "Gayle sells a song without having to do the big dramatic stuff," says Carroll. "She is a subtle conveyor of story [with] real authenticity."
 
Among the tunes Carroll had Kolb cover was Ray Brown's rarely heard "Gravy Waltz," recorded by the Oscar Peterson Trio in the early '60s and with lyrics by talk show host and jazz pianist Steve Allen. "I had her go toe to toe, back and forth, with [Broom]," says Carroll. "It was real old school."
 
Kolb turns in a thoughtful version of "Two for the Road" featuring a smoldering trombone solo, and a bright but pensive reading of Marcos Valle's "If You Went Away," performed in a medium-tempo arrangement featuring Skoch on electric piano.
 
Another highlight is a beautifully restrained rendition of Jimmy Webb's masterpiece, "Wichita Lineman," recorded not long after the death of its beloved interpreter, Glen Campbell. Kolb had sung the song early in her career, when she mixed a lot of country and pop into her sets.
 
Gayle Kolb was born and raised in the southwestern Chicago suburb of Oak Lawn, where her father served as mayor for nearly three decades. She studied piano throughout her childhood, and later sang in the high school choir.
 
Relocating to Los Angeles in the early 1970s, she met the keyboardist and vocalist Mel Norfleet, who became her mentor and urged her to go hear Lorez Alexandria. Attending a show by the Chicago-born Alexandria, Kolb experienced a kind of epiphany. "Lorez was unbelievable," she says. "She spoke the lyrics, pronounced them, and you believed every word. I realized that that was what I wanted to learn and accomplish with my music."
 
Though Kolb did mostly commercial singing during engagements at the Hyatt and Bel-Air hotels, she discovered that when she inserted a jazz classic like "Midnight Sun" into her set, she drew the crowd in. (Kolb has been compared to such cool-school singers as Peggy Lee and June Christie, but says her primary influences were actually Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae, and Joe Williams.)
 
After moving back to Chicago in 1974, Kolb was contracted to work five nights a week in a suburban showroom, a gig that lasted four years and gave her the opportunity to take her show to Las Vegas. Back in the Windy City, she was asked to fill in for Lainie Kazan, the theater and TV star.
 
Eventually Kolb became fed up with commercial singing and quit the music business to devote herself to her family. She also found satisfying work as an interior designer. But jazz beckoned in the early 2000s. Newly single, Kolb reached out to musician friends and sat in at jam sessions, getting her chops back and learning tunes again. Singing before audiences after all her time away proved "difficult and scary," she says.
 
Gayle Kolb Dennis Carroll 
Having seen the highly regarded Carroll (pictured above with Kolb) in performances in Chicago and admired his work with singers, Kolb called him out of the blue for advice on reentering the music world -- or not. "I knew he would tell me the truth about my singing," she says. "He would tell me if I should go home. I was ready for that."
 
During her afternoon "audition" at his house, Carroll had Kolb sing songs at extended lengths and also scat -- something she had done very little of. "I wanted to see how much jazz she had in her," Carroll says. She passed all tests with flying colors, and it didn't take him long to make a decision. "We can do a CD," he told her after seven minutes, by his estimation.
 
And thus began Gayle Kolb's exciting new chapter as a jazz artist on record -- singing, swinging, truth-telling.   
 
 
Photogrpahy: Suzanne Plunkett 
 
 
 
Web Sitegaylekolb.com



Media Contact:
Terri Hinte
510-234-8781
hudba@sbcglobal.net
terrihinte.com
Follow us on Twitter 

USA: Guitarist Denny Jiosa explores the sensuality of Latin jazz fusion on "Mueve Tu Cuerpo"



Guitarist Denny Jiosa explores the sensuality
of Latin jazz fusion on “Mueve Tu Cuerpo”

The July 27 album release moves more than just bodies with the emotional radio single, “Missing You,” serving as testament.

NASHVILLE (23 July 2018): Four-time Grammy nominee Denny Jiosa sees parallels between the curvaceous body of the guitar and the human body. Indulging his passion for “sexy” Latin music, the jazz guitar slinger uses his electric and nylon-string guitar bodies to get people to move their body as well as expressively stir emotions on his eighth album, “Mueve Tu Cuerpo,” which drops July 27 on the Sonic Canvas Records/BFD imprint. Radio is already getting a taste with the evocative first single, “Missing You,” one of eleven songs Jiosa penned and produced for the collection.
Jiosa endeavored to craft an upbeat Latin-influenced, jazz-rooted album that would get people to move and grab attention via an exciting blend of musical styles. But he also wanted to go deeper, “shy away from the norm” and touch people emotionally. Beneath the energizing layers of exotic Latin percussion that create lusty rhythms and sensual grooves emerge moving harmonies and rousing melodies that resonate. Whether he’s furiously strumming impassioned nylon-string guitar rhythms, precisely picking lyrical phrases and bending extended notes, or intensely issuing scorched earth electric guitar pyrotechnics, Jiosa’s deft fretwork establishes and maintains a commanding presence throughout the recording.

“‘Mueve Tu Cuerpo’ is about what music does to get people to move. I wanted this to be an exciting, compelling and expressive blend, tapping into my huge passion for Latin music. I love the sounds, rhythms and sexiness of Latin music, which I blended with jazz rhythms, lines and harmonies. My intention from the outset was to reach a broad scope of listeners with this album. Guitar is one of the most expressive and sexy instruments. Whether I’m playing nylon string to electric guitar with an edge, it’s about moving people emotionally. If you can move people emotionally with an instrumental, then you’ve accomplished something,” said the Nashville-based Jiosa.

More than just sultry enticements to body movement or coaxing emotional responses, “Mueve Tu Cuerpo” also transmits meaningful messages. “Missing You” ruminates on the absence of Jiosa’s loved ones who have passed, such as his desire for his parents to be here to see their grandkids and hear his music. Alluring and mystical, “Dance In Heaven” contains the gut string guitarwork of multiple Grammy nominee Phil Keaggy. The festive, gospel-funk cut “Selah, Love Each Other,” featuring drummer Chester Thompson (Genesis, Frank Zappa), pays tribute to Jiosa’s late bassist, Chris KentJohn Santos contributes lead vocals to “Freedom Tower,” a song about the historic Miami structure that still stands as a landmark for Cubans who fled to the US in the 1960s and were processed at that location. The atmospheric meditation “From The Fire” appeared in the Christian film “Believe: The Misfit Pawn” a couple years ago and addresses embracing “the fire” we face in our lives.   

Jiosa developed his brand of guitar play that borrows from jazz, rock, blues and R&B while living in Los Angeles where he studied under the tutelage of innovative guitarist Frank Gamble (Chick Corea). He dropped his solo debut, “Moving Pictures,” in 1995. Subsequent collections spawned a string of singles that proliferated the radio charts. Jiosa’s diverse body of work includes roles as a producer, engineer, mixer and/or guitarist for artists such as Yolanda AdamsKirk WhalumTake 6Ben TankardPhilip Bailey and Crystal Gayle. “Mueve Tu Cuerpo” is his first album in ten years. For more information, please visit http://jiosa.com.

Jiosa’s “Mueve Tu Cuerpo” contains the following songs:

“Fumarlo Bebe”
“Mueve Tu Cuerpo”
“Missing You”
“Dance In Heaven”
“Abre La Puerta”
“Selah, Love Each Other”
“The Gift”
“Freedom Tower”
“Backroads”
“From The Fire”
“Embracing The Fire” (remix)

Sunday, July 29, 2018

BRAZIL: Brazilian power trio DIALETO releases new album LIVE WITH DAVID CROSS (ex-King Crimson) 

DIALETO
NELSON COELHO / GABRIEL COSTA / FRED BARLEY
from São Paulo Brazil
​​​​​​​releases the new album
LIVE WITH DAVID CROSS
INDEPENDENTLY RELEASED IN BRAZIL.
CD $17 +shipping
Download $10
Brazilian band DIALETO is releasing independently, under the auspices of MoonJune Records, their fifth album “Live with David Cross”, which was recorded in 2017 in São Paulo, Brazil, at the band's second of two concerts held to promote their previous album,“Bartók in Rock”. The material of this album includes some live versions for the Béla Bartók pieces that were adapted by DIALETO, as well as renditions of a few King Crimson classics and one track by the David Cross Band.

Apart from David Cross (violin), the album features Nelson Coelho (guitars), Fred Barley (drums, vocals) and Gabriel Costa (bass, vocals) on full flight, delivering tight, powerful music to the people lucky enough to be in the audience at those concerts. From the climatic opening of “Roumanian Folk Dances 3” on through the other Bartók tunes, Dialeto exhibits a great variety of styles, from calm smoothness to hard tension, from delicate climates to sheer heavy rock, like “The Young Bride”. Among the Bartók renditions, “Mikrokosmos 78” is of special interest because it’s not on the “Bartók in Rock” album: it was arranged especially for this concert, by David Cross’ suggestion.

Four King Crimson songs are featured on the album: David Cross’ version of “Exiles”, from his homonymous record, which highlights Barley’s melodic vocals. “Talking Drum” and “Lark’s Tongues in Aspic part Two” feature furious impressive improvisations by the band, and the beautifully tense “Starless” closes the concert with great power and emotion.

“Tonk”, a song by the David Cross Band, with all its complex time signatures and heavy riffs, is also played by the group, completing the setlist.

Carefully mixed and mastered by Fabio Golfetti (GONG, Violeta de Outono), this music can now be appreciated by anybody, in all its energetic and crystal-clear sound.

Whether you are a King Crimson or David Cross fan, a Bartók enthusiast or an appreciator of DIALETO’s previous albums, this live album will certainly please and surprise you.

USA: Sean Noonan "The Aqua Diva" CD Release Shows ShapeShifter Lab 8/2 Barbes 8/9

Sean Noonan
"The Aqua Diva"
CD Release Shows
ShapeShifter Lab 8/2
Barbes 8/9

shem.gif
Sean Noonan The Aqua Diva
CD Release Show
Thursday, August 2nd 8pm
ShapeShifter Lab
18 Whitwell Place
Brooklyn, NY 11215
(between 1st and Carroll Streets, off 4th Ave)
(646) 820-9452
Sean Noonan drums/vocals/compositions,
Alex Marcelo piano, Peter Bitenc bass
Music Charge $10
www.shapeshifterlab.com

Sean Noonan The Aqua Diva
CD Release Show
Thursday, August 9th 10pm
Barbes
376 9th St.
(corner of 6th Ave.)
 Park Slope, Brooklyn
347 422 0248
Sean Noonan drums/vocals/compositions,
Alex Marcelo piano, Peter Bitenc bass
Music Charge $10
http://barbesbrooklyn.com/

Sean Noonan "The Aqua Diva"
(Sean Noonan Music-7)
Street Date: June 1, 2018
Sean Noonan drums/vocals/composition/producer
Alex Marcelo piano Peter Bitenc bass

Listen on Soundcloud

or
Bandcamp


Artist: Sean Noonan
Title: The Aqua Diva
Label: Sean Noonan Music-7
Street date:June 1, 2018
www.seannoonanmusic.com

1. A Sunny Day 6:52
2. When My Band Goes with Me on the Road 3:15
3. As the World Spins Around Me 5:00
4. Butterflies Away 3:26
5. Don Knotts 4:52
6. Elijah Rocks 5:02
7. Smoking Man 5:52
8. The Aqua Diva 7:11
9. Where Would I Go 6:16
10. Make her great again 3:24

Sean Noonan:drums/vocals/composition/producer; Alex Marcelo:piano; Peter Bitenc: bass
Diko Shoturma: tracking engineer; Michal Kupicz: mixing/mastering
Kaja Gwincinska: photography; Matthias Gleixner: design


Recorded April 22, 2017 at Atlantic Sound Studios, Brooklyn, NY

All compositions and lyrics: SPNoonan (ASCAP)
 

Rhythmic storyteller Sean Noonan composes and conducts original multi-stylistic music with a pair of drumsticks. His “wandering folk” theory captures the elusiveness of ever-evolving world music traditions and reorients them through his own distinctive lens, fusing his discoveries from harmolodic jazz-rock to avant-garde classical music. The far-ranging sounds of Noonan’s wide-spectrum music combines the loquacity of an Irish bard, the narrative rhythms of Samuel Beckett, and the raw physicality of a street-smart boxer. The treasures that he finds along the way are filtered through his distinctive vision to become the unpredictable.

Noonan has produced an explosion of more than 20 unclassifiable releases, featuring Malcolm Mooney, the original singer of the German rock band Can; composer/violinist/violist Mat Maneri, composer/guitarist Marc Ribot, bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma, and the Malian griot Abdoulaye Diabaté, featured on Noonan’s Afro-Celtic album Boxing Dreams

Bassist Peter Bitenc and Alex Marcelo—jazz legend Yusef Lateef’s pianist of choice—who were featured on the 2016 release Memorable Sticks, once again join Noonan on his new release The Aqua Diva, which is rooted in a wide spectrum of American musical, cultural, and lyrical themes. Noonan recasts a tune named for the iconic TV personality “Don Knotts”with experimentalist composer Conlon Nancarrow, in a 12-tone additive rhythm composition. “Where Would I Go” is a folk song adaptation of “Wayfaring Stranger,” and “Elijah Rocks” is a traditional spiritual. 


Noonan, an Irish-American drummer with a theatrical bent, scripts tracks 1, 4, 8, and 10 like the plot of a soap opera series. T.A.D. (The Aqua Diva) is stalked by Butterflies, who is jealous of Bubbles for having an affair with T.A.D. The saga ends with Butterflies murdering them in a swingers club’s swimming pool. Noonan’s original story has a direct correlation with his Zappanation Rock Opera, which was inspired by Frank Zappa and Edgard Varèse; it recently premiered in Germany. Read about it here: https://seannoonanmusic.com/zappanation-rock-operaread The Aqua Diva lyrics here: https://seannoonanmusic.com/the-aqua-diva-album-lyrics.


"Independence might be the ruling concept of this drummer/leader’s career. It defines a common relationship not only among his hands, feet, and voice, but between his art and almost everything else in drumland."
 —Modern Drummer Magazine

"The drummer and composer Sean Noonan approaches postmodern jazz and world music from the same angle of self-discovery. ... He manages to make his pieces speak coherently, and in a unified voice." —The New York Times

Reviews for Noonan’s 2017 record, Man No Longer Me:
“…prime time Sean Noonan. The sound of an artist in his imperial phase. Intense, daft, tricksy, virtuoso, addictive: an absolute trip from a ‘modern-day sonic griot.’ ” —The Quietus
“As if the early Pink Floyd had a free jazz session with The Mars Volta in Africa.” — Intro Magazine

www.seannoonanmusic.com

Media Contact
Jim Eigo
Jazz Promo Services
272 State Route 94 South #1
Warwick, NY 10990-3363
Ph: 845-986-1677 
Cell / text: 917-755-8960
Skype: jazzpromo
jim@jazzpromoservices.com
www.jazzpromoservices.com
"Specializing in Media Campaigns for the music community, artists, labels, venues and events.”

Saturday, July 28, 2018

USA: Brian Simpson-Something About You (2018)

Something About You
2018 release from the contemporary jazz pianist and composer. Highlights include the hit single "Morning Samba," the uplifting "Something About You," the sensuous ballad "Blue Horizon" and more brilliant Brian Simpson originals!


USA: Debut Release: Lucia Jackson “You And The Night And The Music” @ Zinc Bar Monday, September 10th 7pm

Debut Release:
Lucia Jackson
“You And The Night And The Music”
@ Zinc Bar
82 W 3rd St
New York, NY 10012
212-477-ZINC (9462)
www.zincbar.com

Monday, September 10th 7pm


Featuring
Lucia Jackson-Vocals, Ron Jackson-7 String Electric Arch Top Guitar-7 String Acoustic Classical Nylon String Guitar- Steel 7 String Guitar, Yago Vazquez-Piano, Matt Clohesy, Double Bass, Corey Rawls-Drums.
Special Guests Daniel Garcia, Flamenco Classical Guitar, Samuel Torres-Cajón/Congas/Percussion, Javier Sanchez-Bandoneón, Frederika Krier-Violin

shem.gif
You And The Night And The Music is the debut of Lucia Jackson, a promising young jazz singer who displays a fetching voice on a set of standards along with a few surprises.  

With her father, jazz guitar great Ron Jackson, contributing arrangements and leading an impressive rhythm section joined by guests, Lucia Jackson creates fresh variations of timeless material.

Lucia Jackson has had busy careers as both a dancer and a model. However her love of singing, her obvious talents as a vocalist, the encouragement of her father, and very favorable receptions at many venues in the New York area have led her to release her debut recording. Her many fans raised $15,000 through Indiegogo for the project. With the vocal coaching of the world renowned bassist-vocalist Nicki Parrott and an inspired repertoire, Lucia is heard at her very best throughout the program.

For the memorable effort, Lucia Jackson is joined by her father Ron Jackson on guitars, pianist Yago Vazquez, bassist Matt Clohesy and drummer Corey Rawls, with guest appearances by Daniel Garcia on flamenco guitar, violinist Frederika Krier, Javier Sanchez on bandoneon and percussionist Samuel Torres playing cajon and congas.

The music on You And The Night And The Music features new twists on classics from the Great American Songbook, many of which are arranged in tango, bossa-nova or bolero styles by Ron Jackson, who is also the set’s producer. The song choices, which include not only vintage tunes that have special meanings for the singer such as “Beautiful Love,” “Sophisticated Lady” and “Never Let Me Go,” but Julia Michael’s recent “Issues,” the Beatles’ “And I Love Him,” and Ms. Jackson’s original “Feel The Love,” give the set both variety and consistent high quality. While the supporting cast is strong and Ron Jackson’s solos are colorful and tasteful, the main focus is on the young singer, who comes through in winning fashion.

Some of the highlights on You And The Night And The Music include:

“Just One Of Those Things”:  – The 1930s standard is taken uptempo, includes some superior and straightforward jazz singing, and has a hot guitar-drums tradeoff.

“And I Love Him”; - The Beatles classic is transformed into a vocal-guitar duet and sung with great tenderness.

“I’m A Fool To Want You”: - Lucia Jackson’s interpretation is full of quiet longing, accentuated by Frederika Krier’s passionate violin.

“Feel The Love”: - An original by the singer and Daniel Garcia, this piece gives her an opportunity to sing over a funky rhythm that, with Garcia’s acoustic guitar, also has the feel of flamenco.

“No Regrets” and “When You’re Smiling”: - The pair of joyful swingers are each given exhilarating treatments with Ms. Jackson also scatting quite effectively on the latter.

You And The Night And The Music is a significant recording debut for it introduces Lucia Jackson as a subtle and lightly swinging jazz singer, one with a very attractive and often-fetching voice who displays a quiet intensity and a real feeling for the lyrics that she interprets.

Lucia Jackson, who was born in New York, grew up in Madrid, Spain where she started singing when she was ten. She studied voice and piano at the prestigious Escuela de Musica Creativa when she was 13 and also ballet and flamenco at the Professional Dance Conservatory. Returning to New York when she was 18, she has since danced with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre as a guest student, at the Jacobs Pillow Dance Festival and, as a member of FJK Dance, toured China for two months. As a jazz singer, she has performed with many groups including the Bud Maltin Orchestra, Marty Schwartz, and the Art Lillard Big Band.

At age 26, Lucia Jackson is set to make a major splash in the jazz and music worlds with the release of You And The Night And The Music from the Roni Music label.  Her large fan base, which through the Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign made the recording possible, will be pleased.
 

Lucia Jackson “You And The Night And The Music”
(Roni Music 6672)
September 14, 2018
 Lucia Jackson-Vocals, Ron Jackson-7 String Electric Arch Top Guitar-7 String Acoustic Classical Nylon String Guitar- Steel 7 String Guitar, Yago Vazquez-Piano, Matt Clohesy, Double Bass, Corey Rawls-Drums.
Special Guests Daniel Garcia, Flamenco Classical Guitar, Samuel Torres-Cajón/Congas/Percussion, Javier Sanchez-Bandoneón, Frederika Krier-Violin
UPC Code: 888295795708

www.luciajackson.com

Media Contact:
Jim Eigo
Jazz Promo Services
272 State Route 94 South #1
Warwick, NY 10990-3363
Ph: 845-986-1677 
Cell / text: 917-755-8960
Skype: jazzpromo
E Mail: jim@jazzpromoservices.com
www.jazzpromoservices.com
"Specializing in Media Campaigns for the music community, artists, labels, venues and events.”
 
RADIO PROMOTER CONTACT INFO: 
GROOV MARKETING AND CONSULTING
Mark Rini: mark@groovmarketing.com
Josh Ellman: josh@groovmarketing.com
(877) 476-6832
 Available From: iTunes & Apple Music, Amazon, Google Play Music, Tidal, Youtube Music, Spotify

Friday, July 27, 2018

USA: Rachel Caswell "We’re All in The Dance" CD Release Jazz at KitanoSat., Sept. 15th

Rachel Caswell
CD Release Concert
Saturday, September 15, 2018
Set Times: 8pm & 10pm
Jazz at Kitano
66 Park Ave. @ E. 38th St.,
New York, NY 10016
Reservations (212) 885-7119
www.kitano.com

Featuring

Rachel Caswell - vocals
Sara Caswell - violin
Dave Stryker - guitar
Glenn Zaleski - piano
Matt Aronoff - bass
Johnathan Blake - drums


shem.gif
Tracks:
1.         Fragile – Sting – 7:05
2.         A Lovely Way to Spend an Evening – Harold Adamson/Jimmy McHugh – 5:16
3.         We’re All in The Dance – Will Jennings/Christophe Monthieux – 5:11
4.         Devil May Care – Bob Dorough/Terrell P. Kirk Jr. – 6:46
5.         Two for The Road – Leslie Bricusse/Henry Mancini – 5:42
6.         Drown in My Own Tears – Henry Glover – 4:58
7.         I Didn’t Know What Time It Was – Lorenz Hart/Richard Rodgers – 6:06
8.         Tell Me A Bedtime Story – Tom Lellis/Herbie Hancock – 6:05
9.         Dexterity – Charlie Parker – 6:01
10.       Reflections (Looking Back) – Jon Hendricks/Thelonious Monk – 5:16


There’s no mistaking the message of “We’re All in The Dance,” the title track of singer Rachel Caswell’s latest album. It’s a lovely waltz that pairs the dance of life with the dance of music and somehow, through her purity of tone, intelligent phrasing, and flowing time feel, Caswell—cosigned by an ascendant solo by her younger sister, Grammy-nominated violinist Sara Caswell—navigates an alternate, bespoke pathway through a song whose simplicity and elegance pose a challenge to a singer steeped in the complexities of jazz expression.
 

She addresses the subject of love head-on throughout the proceedings, comprising ten songs culled from a long timeline and a panoply of stylistic genres. Caswell tells each story with equivalent levels of individualism and interpretive mojo, imparting a continuity and identity from the first track (an inflamed, incantatory reading of Sting’s “Fragile”) to the last (a mesmerizing meditation on Jon Hendricks’ bittersweet-yet-optimistic lyric to Thelonious Monk’s “Reflections”).
 

Along the way, Caswell puts deep blues inflections on “Drown in My Own Tears,” the Ray Charles classic, followed by a soulful guitar declamation by master blues practitioner—and album producer—Dave Stryker. She channels her inner Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan on “A Lovely Way to Spend an Evening,” eschewing a balladic approach for a well-wrought, lightly swinging delivery of the lyric. She renders the late Bob Dorough’s “Devil May Care” with apropos vertiginous flair, developing her rhythmic ideas on an instrument-like improvisation. She applies a spacious Latin feel to Henry Mancini’s “Two for The Road,” and showcases her broad registral range and deep pocket in conveying Tom Lellis’ evocative lyrics to Herbie Hancock’s “Tell Me A Bedtime Story.” Dave Stryker’s arrangement of Rodgers & Hart’s American Songbook classic “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was” plays on the title, shifting odd meters with finger-popping swing. And Rachel scats the melody of Charlie Parker’s “Dexterity” with an idiomatic bebop feel, giving her A-list partners full autonomy to play it in their manner and responding to their postulations with a pithy scat.
 

Another of the record’s great pleasures is an opportunity to hear how deftly each world-class member of the kinetic rhythm section locks into their task of reimagining and reconfiguring “standards.” Hopefully, Stryker’s imprimatur and this cutting-edge band will induce gatekeepers from radio and the press to listen closely to this superb album. If they do, and respond accordingly, Caswell may be moving to another level of visibility in the not so distant future.
Edited from liner notes by Ted Panken
 

“Rachel Caswell is that rara avis who is truly a jazz vocalist. Her intonation is impeccable, her diction precise, her jazz sensibilities above reproach, and she swings like mad!...Few
improvisers – vocal or instrumental – have better ears than she possesses and she has an exceptional instrument that is immediately identifiable among a sea of other vocalists.”
David Baker, NEA Jazz Master & jazz education pioneer

AVAILABLE FROM: CDBaby / Amazon / iTunes

www.rachelcaswell.com


NATIONAL RADIO CAMPAIGN:
KATE SMITH PROMOTIONS of CHICAGO
814.482.0010
katesmithpromotions.
kate@gmail.com 


NATIONAL PRESS CAMPAIGN:
JIM EIGO, JAZZ PROMO SERVICES,

jim@jazzpromoservices.com • www.jazzpromoservices.com
“Specializing in Media Campaigns for the music community, artists, labels, venues and events.”