Jazz saxophonist Nick Gomez makes his gritty Hollywood movie debut #jazz #music

The 8-time Emmy nominee composed the jazzy score for “Hollywood Grit,” cowriting, producing, and arranging ten songs for the noir mystery opening in theaters on August 22.

 

Composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Nick Gomez’s jazz-themed music score is so prominent in his first feature film, “Hollywood Grit,” that it serves as an additional character in the noir mystery opening in AMC Theatres on August 22. Not only did the 8-time Emmy Awards nominee compose sixty minutes of music for director Ryan Curtis’s film starring Max Martini, Tyrese Gibson, Linda Purl, and Patrick Duffy, but Gomez co-wrote, produced, and arranged ten songs featured in the dark detective story centered around a Hollywood jazz club.

 

Gomez has been collaborating with Curtis since 2014 on various commercials, docuseries, and television shows. When the script Curtis wrote with Kristina Denton got greenlit, the director knew that Gomez was the perfect artist to craft the music vital to bring his vision for the film to life.

 

“There was only one choice for me musically. Nick not only set the tone for the film, but he also surpassed all expectations and delivers a score that is absolutely magical. At Nick’s core, he’s a jazz musician and one of the most talented musicians - period - on this planet. I knew early in the writing stage, the moment we centered the film around a jazz club, that Nick was the only person to do it. Having the film centered around a jazz club, the music - and jazz - was an essential part of the story. Music is such a huge part of my storytelling. The music, the jazz, and the songs Nick created are the life blood and the driving force in this film,” said Curtis.

 

Gomez’s imagination ran wild after reading the script a few times. He felt that various hues of jazz would fill the score and that the songs – eight original compositions that he wrote with Jon Gus and Sarah Cardenas and two reimagined covers - for the film would be jazz rooted and incorporate R&B, pop, and funk.

 

“Jazz was going to be the focus, but I was given the space to decide what that would be like, which was just an incredible amount of trust from Ryan. He gave me an extreme amount of latitude to mold the music into whatever I thought would make it shine the most. Ryan and I have worked together for so long now and have built a good amount of trust that he knows my capabilities and I know how he wants me to push the envelope as much I want to push it. I’m a better musician and a better composer because Ryan is great at getting me out of my comfort zone. I’m a huge fan of his work! He makes every project exciting, just outright fun, and visually stunning,” said Gomez who played tenor saxophone, clarinet, flute, piano, and guitar on the score that serves up big band, straight-ahead, contemporary, orchestral, and Avant guard, free-style jazz.

 

The opening scene of the film and the music that illuminates it not only establishes the tone and timbre of the film, but the instrumentation also reflects the uniqueness of Gomez being a saxophonist and what his horn brought to Curtis’s film.

 

“One conversation we had was instead of doing the typical solo trumpet thing that is signature to the film noir sound, I put my individual stamp on it by using the tenor sax instead. I wrote this two-minute piece of music for the opening of the film that starts with a solo tenor sax, and it evolves into a little jazz quartet thing. It was one of those magical music moments where a little experiment turned into something cool and then became the launchpad for the rest of the score,” Gomez explained.

 

The initial approach to the original songs written for “Hollywood Grit” took on a different tact although jazz remains at the essence.

 

“As for the general approach of jazz used for the songs, I felt we could go with a wide variety here. I guided the production of the songs to reflect similar instrumentation to the jazz orchestra I put together for the score so it would all relate. A great example of this is the song ‘Get Me Down,’ which started as more of a pop/R&B vibe. It lent itself to be transformed into the world we are in, but the melodic rhythm of the melody and harmony of the song gives the audience a hint of freshness against the jazz backdrop,” said Gomez, who will release his own contemporary jazz-funk single, “Stimulus,’ from his “the blue one” EP on the same day the movie opens.    

 

Born in Los Angeles, Gomez grew up on Hollywood film and television sets with his family who work in the industry. Initially a clarinet player, Gomez attended Berklee College of Music as a saxophonist. He has released six albums and placed multiple singles on the national charts. Beyond the radio airplay he’s received, Gomez’s recordings have appeared in films, television shows, commercials, and comedy specials, including in “Katt Williams: Live.” Gomez composed music for a romantic comedy television pilot that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival that was shot in Argentina titled “Yanqui.”

 

“‘Yanqui’ was an extraordinary opportunity to create some tango-inspired quirky, funky ‘White Lotus’-esc sounding tracks,” said Gomez who has toured extensively performing with 80s new wave bands Naked Eyes and Haircut 100, and has written and produced music for punk rocker Billy Bones (Skulls) among others.

 

There’s another, more personal reason August 22 will be an important milestone for Gomez. “Hollywood Grit” opens, “Stimulus” drops as a single, and Gomez will mark the sixth anniversary of his sobriety.

 

“This really is an exciting time for me for multiple reasons. I’m grateful to have turned my life around and none of these amazing things I get to do with music would have been possible without my sobriety. Doing more movies and TV projects is exactly what I want to do in addition to performing at jazz festivals. I love how writing music for film allows me to connect all my creative impulses into an area where there are almost no rules governing the music. It’s a place where emotion and feelings drive everything and for me, it can be like attempting to solve a large emotional puzzle. The feeling that I get when the music lands the scene and it all just locks in…it’s just immeasurable joy.”

 

For more information about Gomez, visit https://www.nickgomez.net.

 

For additional information about “Hollywood Grit,” go to https://hollywoodgrit.com.

 

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Cleo Laine, British jazz singer who performed with Ray Charles and Frank Sinatra, dies at 97 #jazz #Music

British jazz singer Cleo Laine, who performed with musical greats including Frank Sinatra and starred as an actor in London's West End and on Broadway, has died aged 97, the Guardian newspaper reported on Friday, citing a statement from her children Jacqui and Alec.

Born to an English mother and a Jamaican father in a suburb of London in 1927, she initially worked as a hair-dresser, a hat-trimmer and a librarian. She married in 1946 and had a son while still a teenager.

Driven on by her dream of becoming a singer, she divorced and got her big break in 1951, when she joined the band of English saxophonist and clarinettist John Dankworth at 24.

Dankworth's band decided her name was too long - at the time she thought she had been born Clementine Campbell, though a passport application later revealed her mother had used her own surname Hitching on the birth certificate.

The men of the Dankworth Seven band thought her name was too cumbersome for a poster, and that her nickname Clem was too cowboy-like. They settled on a new stage persona for her by drawing "Cleo" and "Laine" from hats.

In 1958, she and Dankworth married. Their home became a magnet for London's jazz set: friends included stars from across the Atlantic such as Oscar Peterson and Ella Fitzgerald, Lester Young and Dizzy Gillespie.

After acting as well as singing in Britain through the 1960s, Laine toured Australia in 1972 and performed at New York's Lincoln Centre. The recording of a further show, at Carnegie Hall, won her a Grammy.

Recordings included "Porgy and Bess" with Ray Charles. In 1992 she appeared with Frank Sinatra for a series of shows at the Royal Albert Hall in London, but she was best known for her work with Dankworth's bands. He later became her musical director.

The couple built their own auditorium in the grounds of their home near London and were friends with the late Princess Margaret, the sister of the late Queen Elizabeth II. Their two children went on to become musicians.

Dankworth - who Laine described as being "joined at the hip" with her - died in 2010. Hours after his death, Laine performed a scheduled show in their auditorium, announcing the news about her husband only at the end of the concert.

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Chuck Mangione, Jazz Musician, Dies at 84 #jazz #music

Jazz musician Chuck Mangione, who had one of the biggest pop-jazz instrumental crossover hits of all time with “Feels So Good” in the 1970s, died Tuesday at age 84.

The death was reported by multiple news outlets out of his native Rochester, NY. The city’s WROC-TV reported that the Bartolomeo & Perreto Funeral Home said the musician died in his sleep at home on Tuesday.

The flugelhorn and trumpet player won two Grammys, out of 14 nominations, in a career that spanned 30 albums. Beyond his musical success, the musician was also familiar to millions for his recurring role playing himself on the animated series “King of the Hill.”

A ubiquitous hit in 1978, “Feels So Good” reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was nominated for Record of the Year at the Grammys.

Mangione felt the success of the tune was partly due to counterprogramming. “I think ‘Feels So Good’ was such a hit because of the Bee Gees,” he said in an interview with the Celebrity Cafe. “‘Saturday Night Fever’ had saturated radio; I think the top 6 out of l0 hits were from that album. Radio programmers couldn’t figure out what to put on instead and when somebody edited ‘Feels So Good’ from nine minutes down to three, they instantly started playing it as an alternative to what were the current top songs.”

He noted, “I do not mind having written the song at all. I just wish that I had written it in a different key, as the high D is hard to play. I am glad that I wrote something that brought joy to millions of people.”

That success led to Mangione being commissioned to write and perform “Give it All You Got,” the theme song for the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid.

On “King of the Hill,” he played himself, as a celebrity pitchman for the fictional Mega Lo Mart, and was portrayed wearing an outfit that was familiar to many from the cover for the hit album “Feels So Good.”

Of his unexpected success as an animated figure, Mangione explained to the Celebrity Cafe, “Eight months before ‘King of the Hill’ was on television, I received the script from them, describing my role as the spokesman for ‘Megalo-mart’ … My character would do things like play ‘Taps’ and switch right into ‘Feels So Good.’ I figured that since they were playing my music and to such a large audience, why not? So I jumped into the studio in New York; they would call from L.A., and then I’d see a thing that looked like me on the television screen. Many people watch that show, so it is great exposure.”

Mangione was born in Rochester on Nov. 29, 1940. He starting music lessons at age 8, starting out on piano but switching instruments after seeing the film “Young Man With a Horn.” He formed his first jazz band while he was in high school, along with his pianist brother, Gap. He graduated in 1963 from the Eastman School of Music, where he later came back as a teacher and the director of the Eastman Jazz Ensemble.

Mangione’s parents were jazz buffs who would often invite the stars of the genre over to dinner in their home, including Dizzy Gillespie, Carmen McRae and Art Blakey — whose Jazz Messengers group he would later join, establishing his serious chops.

“Art was looking around for a horn player and he called Dizzy Gillespie. Dizzy said, ‘Do you remember that kid from Rochester, NY?’ and he recommended me to play with him. That was a great time because in that group was Keith Garrett and Chick Corea.”

His stint with Blakey came after he and his brother Gap formed the Jazz Brothers, who released three albums in 1960-61, while he was still studying at Eastman.

Mangione’s solo career took off with the 1970 album “Friends & Love… A Chuck Mangione Concert,” which was nominated for a 1971. The first of his releases on the Mercury label, it was recorded at the Eastman Theatre in Rochester. A single from the album, “Hill Where the Lord Hides,” marked his first appearance on the Billboard Hot 100.

He moved to A&M with the “Chase the Clouds Away” album in 1975. The title song was used at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. 

He won his first Grammy for “Bellavia,” a 1976 album, and his second for the “Children of Sanchez” soundtrack, which also earned him a 1978 Golden Globe nomination. 

“Feels So Good” was released as a single in December 1977, soon topping Billboard’s adult contemporary chart and making it to No. 4 on the Hot 100. The album version clocked in at 9 minutes and 42 seconds and required what he called “major surgery” to be cut down to 3:31 for radio and single release purposes.

The “Feels So Good” album was a smash in its own right, peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, held back only by the “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack.

He released nine albums for A&M between 1975-82, thereafter switching to Columbia for his next five releases before forming his own Feels So Good imprint in the late 1980s.

Of his signature look, he said, “As a young kid I used to wear a baseball cap, but in 1969, a hat like one I have now was given to me as a present from some good friends. Pictures were taken for the album cover with me in that hat and out on tour and after seeing the photos, before I went on tour, the record company asked, ‘Where’s the hat?’ Since then, I started wearing it all the time. No, it is not attached to my head, and no, I do not wear it in the shower. And no, I do not have gangrene from wearing it all the time!”

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Healthy contemporary jazz saxophonist Matt Willard unlocks his joyous new single #jazz #music

“Oh Baby Baby” is the first release after being unable to play his horn for a year due to TMJ.

 

 

The pain in Matt Willard’s jaw, neck, and shoulders was so severe that he had to stop playing his saxophone for a full year. That’s a difficult ask of an emerging 26-year-old contemporary jazz recording artist, but the TMJ or lockjaw diagnosis explained why the muscles in his jaw locked up and prevented movement. The joy Willard experienced when he had healed and was able to pick up his sax and return to the studio permeates his celebratory new single, “Oh Baby Baby,” which he wrote and produced with Martin Blockson. The track is now available digitally.

 

Listening to “Oh Baby Baby,” there are no traces of the difficult journey Willard endured over the last year marked by hurt, discomfort, and frustration. His lead and backing tenor sax play pours forth harmonious hooks, elated melodies, and impassioned technical prowess in lock step with the beats and groove skillfully constructed by bassist Donnell Smith and drummer Chris Jernigan.

 

"The pain from TMJ was difficult to deal with, but the hardest part was my inability to play saxophone. I had to stop playing saxophone for about a year to heal enough to play my horn again. Given my intense lifelong passion for music and desire to keep playing, this forced year-long hiatus was extremely challenging,” Willard admitted.

 

“So, when I was able to get back in the studio to write more songs, I decided to write something that was driven towards finding that distraction from everyday life, whether it be driving your car down the highway or chilling on a beach with a margarita or pina colada in hand. ‘Oh Baby Baby’ was written to take your mind to your own version of paradise. Even though you may not physically be in paradise, you can still get a glimpse of serenity, peace, and relaxation by just closing your eyes and listening to some good music.”

 

Willard debuted with the tropical, Latin-tinged single “Por la Orrilla del Mar” in 2021, which he recorded and produced in Nashville with Eric Copeland. A year later, he dropped his debut album, "Soul Assassin.” The project’s lead single, "Electric Shock," was added out of the box to national broadcaster SiriusXM’s Watercolors playlist and charged into the top five on the Groove Jazz/Radiowave chart.

 

Willard’s reemergence includes returning to the concert stage. He has a handful of concert dates lined up in July and August near his Hampton Roads, Virginia home. And he’s inspired to write and record new music for his next album.

 

For more information, please visit https://www.mattwillardsax.com.

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Jazz-Blues saxophonist Michael Cates's new single is flying high #jazz #music

He wrote and produced “77 Hours,” the latest release from the “Always Together” EP.

 

Athletes talk about being in the zone, when thought ceases and the voice within goes silent, and their entire being enters a flow state. A football player who wore the number 77 on his jersey, jazz-blues saxophonist Michael Cates achieved that flow state when writing and recording his new Sonic Redoubt Entertainment single, “77 Hours.” Revealing that his creative process typically takes 77 hours to compose and record one song, Cates channeled the effervescent single presently climbing the national singles charts in “nearly no time.”

 

When he entered his recording studio that evening to work on tracks for his “Always Together” EP that was released last year, Cates was frustrated, and he wanted to blow off steam. His intention was to write “something they’ll never play on the radio.” 

 

“I write a ton of tunes. It’s a ritual, that I lock out the distractions and create. That’s who I am and that’s what’s always on my mind, writing music. The music that I write is the amalgamation of everything that I’ve taken in. I’m a fusion and rock guy possessed with a funky delivery. That’s how I play. The blues and gospel were my steppingstones and have integrated nicely into all of it. As an artist, you are always that which created you. Blues and gospel created my performance gene. While my music gets played on smooth jazz outlets, it’s also been rejected for not fitting that format. That’s not why or how I create music anyway. So, I went into the studio purposely to create a blues tune, thinking that it is not something that will ever get airplay. Naturally, radio has quickly embraced ’77 Hours’ and the single is taking off fast,” said Cates, an admitted perfectionist who believes that “seven is a perfect number so having two sevens on the single cover is even more perfect.”

 

After conceiving the initial solo and “the head of the tune,” Cates brought in GRAMMY® nominated pianist-keyboardist Rob Mullins, guitarist Randy Jacobs, bassist Larry Antonino, and drummer Sergio Gonzalez to flesh out the melodies and amp up the rhythmic grooves. Cates’s tenor saxophone wails robustly on “77 Hours,” piloting the soulful flight with power, command, and passion.

 

“There have been 77 take offs and landings in the Piper (airplane) on the single cover,” said Cates, who has been a pilot since 1985.

 

The New Jersey native’s career took off when he moved to Los Angeles and was cast as, wait for it…the saxophonist, who had a recurring role for five seasons on the Emmy Award-winning David E. Kelly television series, “Ally McBeal.” As a recording artist, Cates has released three albums, two EPs, and his singles consistently hit the major charts. He played with or shared the stage with Jennifer Lopez, Elton John, Barry White, Joe Sample, Tina Turner, Mariah Carey, and many more. Playing gigs in the US and Europe, Cates’s resume boasts performances at prominent venues including BB King Blues Club, The Stone Pony, Spaghettini, Catalina Jazz Club, and the Rose Bowl along with such festivals as the Newport Beach Jazz Festival, San Francisco Jazz Festival, and Little Rock Jazz Festival. He’ll next lead his band on August 9 for a show at The Bank of America Performing Arts Center Thousand Oaks.

For more information, please visit https://michaelcates.com. 

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GRAMMY nominated urban-jazz saxophonist Darren Rahn gets experimental and electronic on his new single #jazz #music

“Light Of The World” is a transcendental trek from the architect of 29 Billboard No. 1 hits.

 

 

Having crafted 29 Billboard No. 1 singles and garnering multiple GRAMMY® nominations, saxophonist-producer-songwriter Darren Rahn wants to push instrumental music forward. His groundbreaking new Side 2 Music single, “Light Of The World,” is an experimental alchemy of contemporary jazz and pulsating electronic dance music created on a modular synthesizer that he built over the last few years. The single is available now digitally and was one of the most added new releases on radio playlists.  

 

Opening with a throbbing beat and gurgling synths, the brazen path Rahn paves on “Light Of The World” deftly balances the comfort of familiarity with the unknown excitement inherent in the future. His robust tenor saxophone lead adds perfect human touches as expressed in the form of warm, passionate, and comforting harmonies while the foundation of the electronic sonicscape is imperfect, unpredictable, and robotic. The two sides knit together seamlessly, becoming a mercurial expression of driving rhythm, intoxicating melody, and relentless groove.        

 

“My desire to move forward musically and contribute to our genre in a way that hopefully moves things into the future, that’s especially important to me. Growing and evolving musically is extremely important to me as I continue to make music,” said the British Columbia, Canada-born, Denver-based Rahn.

 

Creating “Light Of The World” from scratch on a synthesizer yielded something new and unexpected for Rahn. Originally, his intent was to start creating the track on the synthesizer and then augment it with traditional instruments utilized in the urban-jazz space. However, as the unpredictable and unimagined sounds emerged from the technology, it became clear to Rahn that this song was best expressed as it was emerging from the synthesizers.

 

“The sounds you hear in the song were created intentionally, but there’s a great amount of randomness in exploring those sounds and finding sounds that will work in the given musical context. Every time a sound is generated it can inspire other ideas. And unlike digital sampled music on computers, the randomness in a modular synthesizer creates a variance in the sound. Even when a sound repeats, it is being triggered, electrically, through voltage, and so it can vary each time it is triggered. Even if ever so slightly, it’s not completely identical,” Rahn explained.

 

Rahn began his journey into modular synthesis several years ago with a few different modules and ended up building a custom designed modular synth through many iterations.

 

“The one-of-a-kind modular synthesizer was built through trial and error, creating new sounds for a new song. It was extremely time-consuming in a really wonderful way. Taking a lot of time to just manipulate sound as the song unveiled itself beneath the electrical currents and patching of cables. It was very therapeutic and cathartic,” said Rahn.

 

The faith-based Rahn’s catalogue is a mix of secular and nonsecular releases. About “Light Of The World,” he revealed, “The song title is a combination of my desire to share love with the world through music. The light of the world is love, God’s love. And the title is also a bit of a play on words as the single was created with literal electricity - voltage moving through the cables and synthesizer - energy used to create the sounds. In this lifetime, I’ve been given the unique opportunity to share my heart with the world via music. ‘Light Of The World’ was created at this current stage in my lifelong journey to share a continuing message of hope and love with the world. In an age where our world has become increasingly difficult, I wanted to capture a moment of purity and beauty using two of my greatest musical passions – synthesizers and saxophone. A lot of love went into the creation of this song and it’s my hope that the listener experiences that, that the single will ease the weary soul and uplift all who listen.”

 

Rahn’s breakthrough as a solo artist came twenty years ago with the release of his “Once in a Lifetime” album. His latest set, 2022’s “Rock The World,” was a massive production featuring a stellar collective of musicians, including Brian Culbertson, Brian Bromberg, Dave Koz, Najee, Everette Harp, Adam Hawley, Paul Jackson Jr., and Mel Brown. In addition to his own recordings, Rahn emerged as a first-call producer and songwriter, becoming a hitmaker who plied his chart-topping touch to records by Koz, Bromberg, Najee, Eric Darius, Tim Bowman, Toby Keith, Jonathan Butler, Bob James, Melissa Manchester, Rick Braun, Jeffrey Osborne, Phil Perry, Jeff Lorber, Michael Lington, Kirk Franklin, Marcus Anderson, Jonathan Fritzen, Julian Vaughn, Blake Aaron, Nick Colionne, Wayman Tisdale, and many others. 

 

For more information, please visit https://www.darrenrahn.com.

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Have A Happy And Safe 4th Of July [Video] #jazz #music

Barbecues and fireworks, flags and parades, Independence Day evokes so many images of the American summer. Its original purpose to celebrate the birth of the American nation on July 4th, 1776 has given way to festivities that celebrate both America and the lives and freedoms that the accomplishments of American Independence have allowed. The commemoration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence is a time not only to reflect on what happened at America's founding but also to look again at the nation's values and recommit oneself again to those ideals.

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