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Thursday, August 29, 2019

Urban-jazz harpist Mariea Antoinette making a “Thing” about her new single #jazz

She previews her forthcoming “All My Strings” album with an imaginative take on Lauryn Hill’s
“Doo Wop (That Thing),” dropping September 23.

Strip away Lauryn Hill’s scathing admonition to men and women on her 1998 hit, “Doo Wop (That Thing),” and you are left with an innovative rhythmic track that astutely balances jagged hip hop edginess and a melodic R&B soul. It’s an unlikely composition for a classical harpist, which makes it Mariea Antoinette’s sweet spot. She has made it her mission to tackle unexpected funk, rhythm and blues, and pop songs, creating new possibilities for her instrument by presenting them with harp as the protagonist. Teaming with producer and arranger Allan Phillips, Antoinette’s reimagined “That Thing” goes for playlist adds on September 23.



Antoinette’s elegant stringed siren provides a surprising contrast over the buoyant beats Phillips constructed. Lush harmonic accoutrements are provided by a vibrant live horn section - trumpeter Derek Cannon, tenor saxophonist John Rekevics and trombonist Jordan Morita - and dramatic strings from the APM Allstars Strings along with Evan Marks’ guitar and Phillips’ keyboards. Antoinette debuted “That Thing” with her band on stage last month at the San Diego Smooth Jazz Festival, garnering an enthusiastic standing ovation.      

“I chose the track for its funky, innovative rhythm and the beats are very cool. It’s a perfect song for harp that people are not expecting. Lauryn Hill is a music pioneer and a leading voice for women and for her style, ingenuity and edginess. The stories she tells through her music and lyrics are fresh and unique. ‘That Thing’ schools both women and men on motivations, keeping your eyes open and being wise in relationships. Everyone loved it when we played it live in San Diego,” said Antoinette.

“That Thing” offers an alluring glimpse into Antoinette’s forthcoming album, “All My Strings.” She and Phillips are busy tracking material for her third album that is slated to drop January 31, 2020 on the Infinity Productions/MAH Productions label. Antoinette’s last outing, “Straight from the Harp,” went top five at Billboard when it was released in 2015. The San Diego-based musician has been balancing her solo career with being a member of the all-star female ensemble Jazz in Pink since 2007. In June, she made her Playboy Jazz Festival debut at The Hollywood Bowl playing with Jazz in Pink, with whom she has performed at several prominent festivals this year, including Seabreeze Jazz FestivalCapital Jazz Cruise and the upcoming Barbados Jazz Excursion and Cancun Jazz Festival. The award-winning harpist collected three statues last year for Instrumentalist of Year (San Diego Prestige Awards), Best Jazz Single for “Overture” (Black Women in Jazz & The Arts Association), and a BMA Image Award from the Black Music Awards. Her high-profile performances include playing for President Barak Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, with Ne-Yo at the BET Awards, at Vanity Fair’s Grammy party with Jamie Foxx and on American Idol. For more information, please visit https://www.marieaantoinette.com.



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Saxophonist Eric Wyatt to Release New Album “The Golden Rule: for Sonny” on Sept. 6th, 2019 #jazz

Tenor Tour de Force
Eric Wyatt’s new session is a powerful homage to Sonny Rollins
The Golden Rule: for Sonny

Through his six recordings as a bandleader, tenor talent Eric Wyatt has basically been performing unspoken tributes to Sonny Rollins. Wyatt calls Rollins his actual/musical godfather and has a way of injecting his passion for bebop and affection for geniuses like Rollins, Charlie Parker, and Pharaoh Sanders, into virtually every note he plays. Wyatt’s latest, The Golden Rule: for Sonny, is his inimitable way of paying tribute to those strong boppers of the past, joined by talents that have been contributing valiantly to the vibrancy of today’s jazz scene—guitarist Russell Malone, pianist Benito Gonzalez, trombonist Clifton Anderson, tenor JD Allen, and emerging youth like Giveton Gelin on trumpet and pianist Sullivan Fortner. Together, the posse exudes both class and bold promise as well as dashes of melodic invention. It is in this alchemy—blending experience with youth, merging tradition with progress—that Wyatt does his greatest service to jazz.


From the opening notes of the opening title track, Wyatt sets out to make a statement. His driving tenor is confident and beautiful, with just enough boogie to put a smile on your face. His improvisation surrounding the Bacharach chestnut “What the World Needs Now” is charming, familiar, and challenging all at once. Elsewhere, the splashy “Don’t Stop the Carnival” is fizzy and fresh, pivoting on Anderson’s sweet trombone. “Best Wishes” lets Fortner loose with the kind of up-tempo hard bop that an ambitious young talent can tackle. The recording closes with the Rollins’-esque “The Bridge,” featuring extended work from Wyatt, with a little room leftover for Fortner. It’s a blast and a great way to fade this session out.
Wyatt has said that he will never forget the impact Rollins—who often played with Wyatt’s father—had on him growing up. Here, on The Golden Rule: for Sonny, he proves he is a man of his word. Wyatt’s Whaling City Sound recording is a tenor-driven tour de force that you won’t soon forget.


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Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Eliane Elias - "Love Stories" - Release August 30th, on Concord Records #jazz

GRAMMY AWARD-WINNING ELIANE ELIAS’
LOVE STORIES SERVES AS A CLASSIC HOMAGETO LOVE IN ITS MANY FACETS AND FORMS
New orchestral project features originals, compositions
from bossa nova’s golden age, and songs made famous by Frank Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim
Eliane Elias ascends to a new echelon of artistic expression with the August 30, 2019 release of Love Stories on Concord Jazz. A multi-hyphenate musician whose recent releases Made in Brazil (2015), Dance of Time (2017) and Man of La Mancha (2018) have earned her multiple GRAMMY Award wins and No.1 Billboard chart debuts, Elias’ new orchestral project serves as a classic homage to love in its many facets and forms.


Love Stories is an orchestral album, revealing Elias’ mastery and preeminence as a multifaceted artist – a vocalist, pianist, arranger, composer, lyricist and producer. Sung almost entirely in English, the album features three original compositions plus seven superb arrangements of pieces from bossa nova’s golden age, including songs made famous by Frank Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim. 

As both an interpreter and composer, Elias inhabits the rich tradition of bossa while bringing the music into the present. She infuses familiar songs with unexpected twists that intensify the music’s evocative power – whether by creating harmonic modulations that enhance a lyric or shifting the rhythmic feel of a section to heighten its emotion – allowing the subtle complexities of her voice to take centerstage, all the while.
Noting that romantic love is just one of a wide range of ways the emotion gets manifested, Elias says, “The idea for this album was to bring to life various stories of love and loving through this collection of songs.”
As she tells those stories, Elias brings a depth of feeling to the album that comes courtesy of her evocative approach as a pianist and singer as well as the precision with which she’s able to execute her musical vision.
“From the moment of conception, it couldn’t be more integrated,” she explains. “From the first note that’s chosen, every color I create in the arrangements, the modulations, the choice of keys, the small group arranging, the possibilities for orchestra – it’s as deep into my personal taste as it can go…because I’m envisioning the arrangement; deciding how to convey the song and perform it with the band, and being mindful of the future orchestrations all at once.”
For the album, Elias invited some of her favorite Brazilian rhythm section players to join her – Marcus Texiera on guitar and Edu RibeiroRafael Barata and Celso Almeida on drums – plus her core collaborators, co-producer and bassist Marc Johnson and co-producer Steve Rodby. Orchestrator Rob Mathes returns for his fourth recording with Elias as well, bringing his lush string arrangements into flawless sync with Elias’ rich harmonic and varied rhythmic approaches, as he did on her GRAMMY Award-winning 2015 album, Made in Brazil.
A celebrated interpreter of Jobim, Elias sees undercurrents of his long collaborative history with orchestrator Claus Ogerman in the working relationship she’s developed with Mathes.
Says Johnson: “Rob’s orchestrations all go so deep and are so beautifully intertwined with Eliane’s small group arrangements. He also understands voice distribution so well. He’s said that in the process of writing the arrangements, he immerses himself in the recorded basic tracks, and, in even more detail, into Eliane’s piano voicings. Rob is absolutely on the same emotional wavelength as Eliane.”
This emotional connection is essential given the circumstances from which the album was born. Elias began working on the music foLove Stories through a difficult year in which she lost her father, and four months prior to his passing, fractured her shoulder in an accident in her hometown of Sao Paulo, Brazil. She was rendered virtually immobile for months while recovering in her apartment there. As she recuperated, her window view of breeze-tickled palm trees and balconies against the blue Sao Paulo sky became the backdrop for a new set of musical inspiration.
“During that period, I wasn’t allowed to move, my left arm was in a sling and so to avoid surgery I had to stay immobilized and really still,” she recalls. “Meanwhile, I created and wrote all of these arrangements in that state.”
The album opens with a tone-setting bossa nova groove and Elias’ sensual, velvety voice, inspiring us with the message of taking a chance on love, from the vintage pop gem of Frances Lai’s theme song from the Oscar-winning 1966 French film, “A Man and a Woman.”
It’s a seamless jump from that to Elias’ take on “Baby, Come to Me.” Made famous in the early ’80s by Patti Austin and James Ingram, the song gets reworked here in characteristic Elias fashion, as she smoothly moves from a bossa nova to a hybrid Latin feel, with brilliant harmonic and tempo modulations. Added to the backdrop of soaring strings and rich piano voicings, the tune becomes altogether new. 
“I like the message of cultivating a relationship, of keeping the romance alive when you find someone you love.” says Elias, who enlisted yet another of her go-to collaborators, Take 6’s multiple GRAMMY Award-winning Mark Kibble, to cover the background vocals.
There’s a heartfelt vulnerability to Elias’ lilting, expressive singing on “Bonita,” a dreamy rendition of one of Jobim and Sinatra’s late ’60s collaborations that features some lovely interplay between the piano and orchestra alongside Elias’ delicate and nuanced vocal phrasing.
“It’s a very pure expression of someone who wants their love to be accepted and returned,” Elias says.
The Sinatra homage continues with a twinkling, sexy take on “Angel Eyes,” followed by a brilliant rendition of “Come Fly with Me” that’s re-imagined with a Brazilian groove and carries the listener away with a passionate, high-flying piano solo.
Elias explores yet another aspect of love on her warm toned original “The Simplest Things,” a rich and multi-layered musing on a love that has stood the test of time. The message here – about looking back on a love that’s matured and discovering that “the simplest things are the wonderful things” in that shared life – is a profound and sweet universal truth that we can all relate to.

On “Silence,” the album’s second original piece, the mood is decidedly more intense as Elias channels the protagonist of the story’s anguish. “My voice here is the most exposed on the album,” Elias says. “I believe that most everyone has experienced disappointment or disillusionment at some point in their lives. The question is how does one respond to that?”

A bright and buoyant rendition of “Little Boat,” where you can almost feel the waves gently undulating in time with Elias’ rocking piano solo, changes the mood again. Roberto Menescal, the song’s composer, plays the guitar on this track and the opening verse features the only moment on the recording in which Elias sings in Portuguese.

The album closes with one more original, “The View.” This story is a bit more adult and complicated, given its suggestive imagery. There’s a rendezvous and a vision of a woman rolling down her stockings – but her apparition is almost like a dream or an angel. “The story is about something more internalized,” says Elias, “somewhere between reality and imagination, erotic yet pure in love and love’s expression.”

It’s also an appropriately complex finish to an album that digs deep musically to shine new light on one of our deepest human experiences. In the process, it offers a portrait of an incomparable artist whose sound resonates from decades of experience – in music as in life.

Of the connection with her instrument Elias has said, “the piano is an extension of my body and the deepest expression of my soul.” Love Stories proves her voice now occupies that place, as well.




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Jeff Lorber and Mike Stern join forces on 'Eleven' September 27, Concord Records #jazz

KEYBOARD WIZARD JEFF LORBER AND GUITAR HERO MIKE STERN JOIN FORCES ON POTENT NEW COLLABORATION

Concord Jazz set to release Eleven on September 27, 2019

GRAMMY Award-winning keyboardist/composer/producer Jeff Lorber recalls seeing guitarist Mike Stern during his much-ballyhooed tenure with Miles Davis in the early ‘80s. “I’ve been a fan of his for a long time,” said the keyboardist, who was touring hard in support of his hit records Wizard Island and It’s a Fact in those analog days. “Jeff Lorber Fusion and Miles Davis were playing some of the same festivals back then, so I got to hear him play.” For his part, Stern offered, “To be honest, I was aware of him, and had heard a bunch of good things, but I had never really checked him out. We were just in different orbits, me and Jeff.”


In subsequent years, each staked out his respective musical territory — Lorber, the electric maestro from Los Angeles, pioneering the post-fusion sound of contemporary jazz with his radio-friendly, groove-oriented instrumental music; Stern, the esteemed six-stringer from New York, lending his considerable chops to bands led by Jaco Pastorius, Michael Brecker and Joe Henderson as well as groups like Steps Ahead, Vital Information and the Brecker Brothers while also leading his own band and cutting 18 recordings under his own name. 

Credit bassist-producer Jimmy Haslip, a charter member of Yellowjackets, with bringing these two seemingly disparate musical forces from opposite sides of the country together. And rather than being a musical Odd Couple, it turns out that Lorber and Stern fit hand-in-glove on the ten scintillating tracks that comprise Elevenset for release on September 27, 2019 via Concord Jazz. (The title is a joking reference toThis Is Spinal Tap’s Nigel Tufnel, who proudly demonstrates in the 1984 movie how his amplifier has a volume knob that goes to eleven… “for when you need that extra push over the cliff.”) 

Haslip was already well acquainted with Stern’s playing, having recruited him for the Yellowjacket’s 2008 album, Lifecycle, and follow up two-year tour. The bassist had also cultivated a longstanding musical relationship with Lorber, having played on and co-produced six of the keyboardist’s previous albums — 2010’s Now Is the Time, 2011’s Galaxy, 2013’s Hacienda, 2015’s Step It Up, 2017’s Grammy-winning Prototype and 2018’s Impact. Sensing a natural blend between the two, Haslip proposed the collaboration. “Jeff and Mike both admired each other’s musicianship and talent,” he said. “As far as my conception for this collaboration, I thought working together would create something new and different, which was compelling to me.”

“I was definitely very enthusiastic about it because I knew it would be something different and challenging,” added Lorber. “And I liked the idea that it would take me away from what some people call ‘smooth jazz,’ which is a moniker that I don’t really love. Because Mike is not that at all. He’s a lot jazzier in terms of his phrasing. He’s just a bebop wizard, he’s got an incredible jazz feeling. And by the same token, he’s got the rock and blues thing covered too. He’s on both sides of the musical spectrum. So when I heard he was up for it, I was delighted to have a chance to work with him in the studio on this project. And I think we really hit it off musically as well as personally.”

Said Stern of his main collaborator on Eleven, “When the idea was floated for this project, I asked a bunch of cats who worked with Jeff, like Randy Brecker, Dave Weckl and Bob Franceschini, and they all said, ‘He’s cool, he throws down, he can really get it going.’ And they’re right. Jeff’s got a strong rhythmic groove and he comps and plays beautifully on acoustic piano, Fender Rhodes, and organ. He’s got an especially beautiful touch on the acoustic piano, and I know that he studied with Madame Charloff, an amazingly great teacher in Boston.  And I feel like his music really comes more from soul music than smooth jazz. That Philly soul thing is definitely in some of his tunes on this record.”

As for the stigma attached to so-called ‘smooth jazz’, Lorber believes that was more a marketing term than a musical category. “I was doing my music way before there was the term ‘smooth jazz.” he said. “I guess the Venn diagram of my music intersects with some of those characteristics of smooth jazz, but my music has always been melodic, it’s always been funky and I definitely try to keep an attention to soloing. It represents something more ambitious, more jazzy and more compelling, I hope.”

While Stern and Lorber may differ in their approaches in the studio, they found common ground on Eleven. “I like the raw, rough edges of recording live in the studio,” the guitarist maintained. “Jeff does it a different way, and he does it really well. He’s kind of amazing at the kind of more produced, almost pop approach to making a record. There’s a certain kind of clarity to that process that I admire. It’s just a different way of conceptualizing it.” Added the prolific composer-producer, “Mike just loves to play live and his thing builds around that, so we just picked some of his favorite tunes to play live. I wanted to kind of reinvent them and reimagine them, so hopefully we were able to step up and do that. What we did was try to add a modern touch by doing more layering, like with some of the overdubbed horn arrangements that David Mann provided on several tunes. And I think Mike was pretty happy with how they turned out.”

The result is an extremely copacetic session that is a far cry from smooth jazz. There’s too much harmonic meat and aggressive soloing from track to track to fit comfortably in that marketing category. Instead, both Lorber and Stern throw down with a vengeance on Eleven. From the melodic and catchy opener, “Righteous,” powered by Gary Novak’s crisp backbeat, Lorber’s signature Fender Rhodes playing and Dave Mann’s tight, East Coast/Brecker Brothers-ish horn arrangement, to Stern’s lyrical, African flavored “Nu Som” and his tender ballad “Tell Me,” to nasty, blues-drenched jams like “Jones Street” and “Slow Change,” this summit meeting percolates with insistent grooves and pulsates with energy and ideas. Stern’s runaway romp “Ha Ha Hotel,” fueled by drummer Dave Weckl’s muscular backbeat and punctuated by Mann’s crisp horn pads, has the guitarist unleashing his fabled ‘chops of doom’ before Lorber erupts on a killing organ solo. Lorber’s ultra-funky “Motor City” and “Big Town” add a swagger to the proceedings. The driving Lorber-Haslip number “Rhumba Pagan,” fueled by drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, features a choir of wordless vocals from Stern, Haslip and Chelsea Maull while Lorber’s intricate 6/8 closer “Runner,” has the keyboardist soloing tastefully on piano and the guitarist cranking his axe to Eleven

“This project was a joy to work on for many reasons, but I most enjoyed the collaborative effort in this work with Jeff and Mike,” said Haslip. “For me, as a co-producer, it was the kind of creative and experimental experience I look forward to. We did try to shake it up, and I think we really succeeded.”

Meanwhile, both Stern and Lorber and looking forward to opening up this material on their upcoming tour together. “The way I’m conceiving this is we’re going to stretch a lot live with much longer solos,” said Stern. “Hell, we’ll probably play two tunes the whole set.” Prior to their European tour, Lorber and Stern will commence their swing through the States in late Fall, beginning with a run at Blues Alley in Washington D.C. Sept. 26-29, then Jazz Alley in Seattle Dec. 3-4, Catalina Jazz Club in Los Angeles Dec. 5-8, Yoshi’s in Oakland Dec. 9-10, the Dosey Doe in The Woodlands, TX on Dec. 14, One World Theater in Austin, TX on Dec. 15 and culminating in a run at Iridium in New York Dec. 16-19.  

TRACK BY TRACK COMMENTS:
“Righteous”— “That’s kind of a modal piece,” said Lorber. “The musical development is not harmonic, particularly, in that same way as it is on many of the other tunes. The action is in some other areas. It’s more melodic and rhythmic. It’s one of those radio-friendly uptempo funky jams that people can enjoy. And Ned Mann did an awesome job with the horn arrangement here. I’ve been working with him for a lot of years now and he’s like a secret weapon on my recordings. Usually when I send him things to put horn arrangements on, I’ll put down some rough ideas about what the horn section should be doing. And he just goes into his little room on 70th Street in Manhattan and he plays like 25 tracks of doubled and tripled flute, alto and tenor saxophones while adding extra brass parts with synthesizers. It’s like magic, and it comes back sounding like a large ensemble.” (Stern enters at the 2-1/2 minute mark on the bridge, floating over the top with warm, liquid tones. Lorber switches to acoustic piano as the two take the tune out on an upbeat note, paced by Dave Weckl’s insistent backbeat.)

“Nu Som” — “That’s one I wrote a while ago but hadn’t ever recorded,” said Stern. “It’s named for Will Lee’s wife, Sandrine Lee. She’s a wonderful photographer and she’s got a book out called “Nudescapes.” That’s her artist name. It’s short for “Nous sommes,” which is “We are” in French. On this song I’m trying to capture the vibe when Sandrine and my wife Leni get together. It’s a fun, very positive vibe when they’re talking, and I thought that tune would really fit that vibe.” Added Lorber, “This tune, to me, is fantastic. I think it’s the one that we’re going to put out as our single to radio. It’s got a beautiful melody, it’s got great changes and Mike plays so great on it. And we also got his wife Leni to play African N’goni on this track.”

“Jones Street”— “When I was working on this album I went back and checked out a lot of Mike’s records,” said Lorber. “And of course, Michael Brecker is featured on a lot of them. That’s like having Babe Ruth batting cleanup in your lineup. I mean, Mike Brecker’s soloing in the middle of your song? You can’t lose. Of course, it’s kind of hard to live up to that but we did our thing. And I think the big difference here is it’s just a little more produced. We were just trying to add a modern touch. And that’s a real tour de force for Mike. He gets to wail with his blues and jazz vibe on that, and I’m just trying to hang on.” Added Stern, “It’s definitely got that live vibe with Weckl on drums. And it was a little more uptempo than the original (from 1997’s Give And Take). I wanted to do some different things with this version and when we started playing with Jeff, he got the vibe right away. And he’s some really good organ on that. His main thing is piano and Fender Rhodes, but he plays the shit out of the organ here. So that’s going to be fun playing this tune live.” (Catch Weckl unleashing on an ostinato at the end of this piece).

“Motor City” — “That’s one I had around for a long time and always really liked,” said Lorber. “I think I wrote the first little sketches out for it almost 15 years ago. The original demo that I did back then had these old Yamaha DX7 synthesizer sounds on it, and a couple of them made it through on the final mix. You can hear a couple of them popping through here and there. It’s a fun song with that upbeat vibe that people can enjoy, like ‘Righteous.’ I take an acoustic piano solo here. I just love playing acoustic piano these days. I think as time goes on, I find myself playing more and more acoustic piano and really loving it. I love the Fender Rhodes too, of course, and I have a real Fender Rhodes that I’ve used for years. Those are my two main instruments — piano and Rhodes. And I definitely use the Mini-Moog in some of the fabric of pieces on this record too.”

“Big Town” — “That was one that I wrote with Jimmy Haslip,” said Lorber. “Jimmy had a little sketch that he put together — the main groove in the song — and I just took it and kind of developed it. I love playing cool changes to lift the song and take it somewhere. I’m always looking for an opportunity to do that.”

“Slow Change”— “That’s another of Mike’s bluesy workouts…a little darker blues with a slower vibe,” said Lorber. “I’m sure that one will be very fun to play live. I’m looking forward to getting a chance to really explore some of this stuff, like this tune.” Added Stern, “That one was on my 2001 album Voicesand it originally had vocals by Elisabeth Kontomanou. I decided to just do it instrumentally here and it worked out well. For some of this stuff, like on this tune, we just went on the fly in the studio. We sent the music around before the date but we really had no rehearsal. We kind of rehearsed a little bit in the studio before recording and then we just went for it.”

“Tell Me”— “That was one of the hardest songs to do,” said Lorber. “Mike was very particular about how he wanted it, and we just ended up having to go back and forth on it to get it right. At the end of the day, he opted towards making it quite a bit less produced than most of the other things on the record. There’s not a whole lot getting in the way of the melody and basic chords on this one. It’s just build around the strong guitar part.” Added Stern, “Originally (on 1996’s Between the Lines), I had Bob Malach by saxophone on this. It’s hard for me to pick my own tunes. I tend to get self-critical, but Leni really liked this one and said we should do it. And when we were running it down in the studio, I asked Jeff to play kind of like Bruce Hornsby, and he totally got it. He knows that world and he’s really such a good musician. So that kind of came out cool. That’s the only ballad on the record, so I was happy with that.”

“Ha Ha Hotel”— “The bluesy vibe that Mike has on that tune inspired me to play organ on this tune,” said Lorber. “The organ is a natural complement to what he’s playing there. It’s got a little bit of insanity with the distortion and the way that melody moves. And it’s quite difficult to play, by the way. So before we went in to record, I worked quite a bit for a couple of weeks before that to get that thing going the best I could. But I know Mike loves playing it live. If you go on YouTube, there’s tons of versions of him playing that tune. So I think it’s one of his favorites.”

Added Stern, “Jeff played a cool organ solo on that when we recorded this live, but then he wanted to make the tune shorter by taking the organ solo out. And I said, ‘No, baby! You can’t do that. It’s just smoking!” And I put a little wah-wah rhythm guitar thing on there behind his organ solo and he really liked it. That song is 25 years old (originally appearing on 1994’s Is What It Is) and we’re reviving it here. And we had Bob Franceschini play with this octave effect his saxophone on that tune. It’s kind of cool and edgy that way, which I like.”

“Rhumba Pagan”— “In preparation for this recording, I got a chance to go see Mike’s show a couple of nights when he was here in Los Angeles,” said Lorber. “He's got some terrific ballads and he likes to sing on them too. And when I found out that Mike was looking for something that he could sing on, I thought of ‘Rhumba Pagan,’ which is a song Jimmy and I worked on with a friend of his, Edgar Pagan, a bassist out of Rochester, New York. So we worked on this tune together and I just love the way it turned out. It’s a cool number, different than anything on the record. And it’s one that when we play it live it’ll be a nice change of pace in the set.” Added Stern, “Jimmy and I both sing on that one. I’ve been doing more vocals lately and I’ll probably do more singing live with this band. Maybe we’ll do some Hendrix tunes and I’ll sing on ‘Little Wing’ and ‘Foxey Lady.’ That’ll be fun.”

“Runner”— “I love to do stuff in 6/8,” said Lorber. “I love odd time signatures. And once again, it’s another way to change things up and make things interesting for the audience when you play concerts. So that’ll be a fun one to do live. Mike wails on this tune. He is just so natural with the way he flies over changes and comes up with his very unique and very identifiable sound of how he interprets things. It’s occasionally a little outside, but in a nice way. His style of soloing is very unpredictable. And I think that’s one thing that people really love about him.”



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