GUITARIST/COMPOSER PETER WHITE SET ENERGIZES HIS ACOUSTIC SOUND ON SMILE, OUT OCTOBER 7, 2014
New Heads Up recording completes trilogy of original material
Special guests include Mindi Abair, Rick Braun, Euge Groove,
Philippe Saisse, Nate Phillips, Charlotte White, Ramon Yslas and Stevo
Theard
In the era ruled by the electric guitar, British-born, LA-based Peter
White reigns supreme as one the world’s greatest masters of the
nylon-string acoustic guitar. From the time he burst on the scene with
rock legend Al Stewart in the seventies and singer Basia in the eighties
to his session work with Richard Elliot, Jeff Golub, Lee Ritenour, Kirk
Whalum and Boney James, White’s fabulous fingers continue to showcase
the timeless tones and timbres that come from wood, skin and an
expansive musical imagination.
Smile, set for release
October 7, 2014 on Heads Up, a division of Concord Music Group, is
White’s fourteenth recording as a leader, and his scintillating,
contemporary jazz sound is buttressed by his equally-impressive command
of several instruments and augmented by an impressive array of special
guests, including vocalist
Mindi Abair, trumpeter
Rick Braun, soprano saxophonist
Euge Groove, keyboardist
Philippe Saisse, bassist
Nate Phillips, violinist (and daughter)
Charlotte White,
Ramon Yslas on bongos and vocalist
Stevo Theard. (International release dates may vary)
“This CD is my third recording for Concord of all original songs,” White says. “It started with
Good Day (2009) and continued with
Here We Go
(2012). What I try to do on every single album is produce a story that
has adventures; that has different styles that take you to different
places.”
The ten tracks on
Smile reflect the wide
reach of White’s musical horizons, which emanate from contemporary jazz
and branch out into R&B, classical and world music vistas. White’s
nuanced and nimble fingers take the listener on an aural movie, set in a
multitude of musical places and spaces.
The title track kicks off with some spirited vocals from Abair. “I’ve
done hundreds of shows with Mindi – she’s a great friend,” White says.
“So I asked her to sing the lead part. And she did a great job.” Abair
also sings on “Hold Me Close,” which features Stevo Theard’s jazzy
vocals. “On that song, Stevo and Mindi were singing in unison,” says
White. “Then Stevo started scatting and improvising, and I thought –
this is great, something new for me that I haven't recorded before.”
Smile’s other tracks, “Head Over Heels,”
“In Rainbows,” “Floating In Air,” “Coming Home,” “Nightfall” and
“Awakening (Jordan’s Song),” written to mark the twenty-first birthday
of a friend’s daughter, all have equal and evocative doses of quiet
storm, anthemic, atmospheric, Latin, Motown and uptempo musical
tableaus, showcasing White’s poetic and piercing plectral prowess.
Two selections stand for their special subject matter. “‘Beautiful
Love’ is my tribute to Barry White,” the guitarist fondly recalls. “I
was sixteen or seventeen when I heard him back home in England. He did
those long intros…So this was my attempt to do something like that – to
have the intro just build. I wrote ‘Don Quixote’s Final Quest’
(co-written with keyboardist Freddie Ravel) a long time ago, but I
almost didn’t put it on the album, because it was so different. It took
us three days to mix the song – there are so many elements in it. It’s
my tribute to ‘Classical Gas’ by Mason Williams, which influenced me to
take up the Spanish guitar when I was a kid. I was heavily into rock and
roll. But this guitar being played finger-style had so much power, I
said, ‘Wow! I want to play guitar like
this.’”
Born in 1954 in Luton, and raised in Letchworth – both suburbs of
London, White played the clarinet, trombone, violin and piano before
settling on the electric guitar, and, like most kids of his era, he fell
under the electric spell of Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page,
before he crossed over into the acoustic realm, which was also
encouraged when his brother, pianist Danny White, accidently destroyed
his electric axe.
White started his professional career at the age of nineteen. The
next year he joined Al Stewart and stayed with him for two decades.
Originally hired as a pianist, White’s first big break was on Stewart’s
1976 hit “The Year of the Cat,” and he also co-wrote many songs on
Stewart’s 1978 LP,
Time Passages. White later moved to Los
Angeles and formed the band Shot in the Dark. His brother Danny was one
of the founding members of the British pop group Matt Bianco, which
included singer Basia. When she went solo, the guitarist and his brother
recorded several albums with her, including her 1987 debut,
Time and Tide, and the 1990 follow-up,
London Warsaw New York.
“I learned a whole lot from Al Stewart,” White says. “How to write a
song; how to record a song, how to perform onstage and talk to the
audience…It’s impossible for that not to rub off after being with him
for twenty years. He was very big on songs having an instrumental motif
that runs through the music, and I have that same concept in my music
now. With Basia, there was a lot of jazz in the music; a lot more
saxophone, a lot more jazzy chords and playing in flat keys. I realized
that there’s a lot more to music than just 1-2-3-4 rock ‘n’ roll.”
After years of session work with some of the best contemporary jazz
stars, including Richard Elliot, Warren Hill, Marc Antoine and Boney
James, White struck out on his own in 1990 and recorded his debut album,
Reveillez-Vous, that same year. His previous recordings as a leader include
Glow (2001),
Confidential (2004),
Playin’ Favorites (2006),
Good Day (2009) and
Here We Go (2012), featuring Kirk Whalum and David Sanborn, all of which ranked at the top of the
Billboard
Jazz charts. He also participates in the critically acclaimed Guitars
and Saxes tours, and he created his annual Peter White Christmas Tour,
which grew out of the success of his two holiday albums,
Songs of the Season (1997) and
A Peter White Christmas (2007).
On his latest CD
Smile, Peter White proves
yet again that he doesn’t have to plug in to electrify audiences.
“People have told me that when I play electric guitar, it sounds good,”
he says. “But as soon as I play acoustic guitar, it sounds distinctive.
And that’s because I put what I learned from playing the electric guitar
and apply it to the acoustic guitar. It’s very easy for me to go that
route. My musical voice speaks on the nylon-string guitar.”
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