Deftones
| Pat Metheny | Steely Dan |Deftones
| Pat Metheny | Steely Dan |
Imagine
yourself in a meadow on the side of a mountain. The scent of spring
flowers flls the air and the music of flute and guitar wafts across
the valley. Birds sing and an eag/e flies across the canyon. You
enter a meditative state where you experience a deep sense of
peace.
"Mountain Meadow Meditation" is a natural follow up to recently released Sound Yoga. This CD is the newest release in Soundings' best-selling, award-winning Nature Series and offers a sonic treat from Dean Evenson & Scott Huckabay.
For
people who are interested in enhancing their yoga or meditation
practice, this music will support the process. This sonic journey
draws the listener to a peaceful state through the artful combining
of creative music with nature's own symphony. It enables a "quiet
mind" sort of experience.
As with Sound Yoga, Evenson and Huckabay both have a personal meditation practice they draw from to create this musical experience. Evenson's sensitive flute melodies and Huckabay's harmonic guitar carry the listener on an innerJourney.
The collaborations
of Dean Evenson and Scott Huckabay have proven wildly successful
in the past (Sound Yoga, Sonic Tribe, Healing Dreams, Healing
Waters, Sound Healing, Tao of Healing). This latest release offers
a sonic treat in the unique instrumentation of this duo plus a
surprise guest appearance by Deobrat Mishra, a young sitar master
from Varanassi, India who brings the voice of the east to this
musical feast.
With a proven track record, Evenson and Huckabay live up to the high standard their fans expect of them. (A unique aspect of their collaborative work is their live performances which are extraordinary and full of energy, causing people to get up and dance. Keep an eye out for Sonic Tribe performances!)
Contains the Earth Resonance Frequency for deeper relaxation. Street date for Mountain Meadow Meditation is May 6, 2003 .
When you think of that certain style of classic jazz guitar that is smooth, soulful, melodic, flowing and immediately likeable, you think of names like Wes Montgomery, Barney Kessel, George Benson, Kenny Burrell, Earl Klugh and Larry Carlton.
Now Lloyd Gregory has taken his place on that list of illustrious jazz guitarists. On his fourth album, Free Fallin', Gregory tips his hat to those who influenced him while carving out his own distinctive style that also includes hints of his R&B roots.
"Music is comprised of traditions, even when mixed with innovations," Gregory says, "so, of course, every musician is building upon sounds that came before. I admire and respect those jazz guitarists and I learned a lot from them. But my influences also include early soul innovators like Curtis Mayfield, many of the guitarists in the various Motown artist's bands, and Ike Turner.
Going even further, I have been inspired by rock'n'rollers from Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley through Hendrix to Eddie Van Halen. And on the other end of the spectrum I have been influenced by acoustic players who bridged between jazz, Latin and classical like Django Reinhardt, Bola Sete, Andres Segovia and Manitas de Plata. Even so, I never sat down and simply learned other guitarists' solos off their albums. Instead, I studied and absorbed their styles in a more general sense."
Lloyd Gregory, a popular entertainer on the San Francisco/Bay Area music scene for several decades, has an instrumental sound that may be the epitomy of smooth, but it also contains subtle elements of classic soul music due to his early career as an R&B performer, especially the years he spent touring extensively while serving as the musical director for The Ballads, Natural Four and Jesse James, and performing on their albums.
Gregory also has recorded with Martha Reeves, MC Smoothe and Freddie Stewart (Sly & 1he Family Stone); and has performed onstage with Rodney Franklin, Stanley Clarke, George Duke, Gerald Albright, Lenny Williams (Tower of Power), Freda Payne, The Dells, and Lowell Fulsom.
Lloyd's albums show his versatility. His debut album Wonderful -- which received heavy airplay nationwide and climbed the jazz charts in the top music industry radio publications Radio & Records and The Gavin Report -- featured contemporary jazz with some R&B and funk elements.
Only For You continued in that vein with some tunes featuring his acoustic guitar playing and others showcasing Gregory on a solid-body electric. His third album was a change of pace as the title, Solo Guitar, indicates.
The CD features Lloyd alone on acoustic playing standards like "Sophisticated Lady" and "Ain't Misbehavin" for audiences that have come to know that side of him from his solo concerts. But Gregory most often performs live with an ensemble, and many of those musicians make appearances on his new Free Fallin' disc (on the Integy Entertainment label).
However, on the album Lloyd primarily plays his Ovation Custom Legend round-back acoustic guitar while at concerts with his band he likes to rock a bit harder and usually he plays a Yamaha electric.
Free Fallin' is available in stores and at www.integyentertainment.com. More information on Lloyd is available at his website (www.lloydgregorymusic.com).
Free Fallin' features a dozen tunes, mostly originals, plus covers of Thelonious Monk's jazz standard "'Round Midnight" and George Gershwin's "I Love You Porgy." The material ranges from the rapid percussive sound of "Kermudgen" (which also includes a flute solo) to the beautiful ballad "Snow Bear." "Steve's House," one of the few tracks with Lloyd playing both acoustic and electric guitar, was written in Stevie Wonder's living room.
Musicians on the album include bassist Eric Smith (Destiny's Child), bassist Gary Calvin (Jean-Luc Ponty, Jeff Lorber), drummer Billy Johnson (Santana, Frankie Beverly & Maze), drummer Ritchie Aguan (The Whispers), multi-instrumentalist Felton Pilate (MC Hammer, Con Funk Shun), pianist Glenn Pearson (Boys Choir of Harlem), keyboardist Percy Scott (The Whispers), flutist Roger Glenn (Mongo Santamaria) and other top Bay Area players.
Gregory grew up in Cleveland with music a major part of his life -- at home (his mother played piano and Lloyd started at age five), at church (his grandfather was a minister) and at school (Lloyd played trombone, drums and cello -- the latter from elementary school through high school).
Gregory began learning guitar at age 10, and through high school played guitar and piano in a R&B band covering James Brown, Curtis Mayfield and The Temptations. Lloyd's senior year he moved to Berkeley, California, and put together a band called The Aztecs (Sly Stone joined them onstage one time).
The band won a talent contest where Gregory was spotted by the manager of The Ballads, who got Lloyd in the musician's union and made him the vocal group's musical director for several national tours playing on the same bills with Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, The Four Tops, Stevie Wonder, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight & The Pips and many others.
This early experience taught Gregory how to be a band leader and it led to tours with other R&B acts. At one point he paid the rent by playing in San Francisco strip clubs with former members of Santana.
He also did a USO tour of Japan, and toured with Mary McCrary (Edwin Hawkins Singers, New Generation), Maxine Howard, Shirley Jones (Diana Ross) and jazz-poet Oscar Brown, Jr. Over the years Gregory and his band have been joined on-stage by artists such as Bernard Purdie (James Brown, Aretha Franklin, George Benson) and Gaylord Birch (Graham Central Station, Pointer Sisters).
As a studio musician in Los Angeles, Gregory worked with producer Richard Perry and played sessions with top musicians such as IClaus Voorman (The Beatles), Arthur Adams (B.B. King, Quincy Jones), Harvey Mason (Herbie Hancock, George Benson) and Joe Sample (The Crusaders). Also as a session player Lloyd played on a Latin-jazz album by The Funky Aztecs.
Gregory has played on several albums by upcoming blues artists including Zakiya Hooker (John Lee's daughter), Sugarpie Desanto and Maxine Howard. In addition, Gregory studied under Warren Nunes and took Masters Class Seminars from Barney Kessel and Howard Roberts on Gregory's first two albums he had musical guests that included Felton Pilate, Rodney Franklin, harmonica player Norton Buffalo (Steve Miller) and top session percussionist Ken Nash.
When Lloyd tackled his acoustic Solo Guitar album, he found inspiration in the music of Bola Sete, Christopher Parkening and Juan Sereno. Other influences through the years have included Al Dimeola, John McLaughlin, Mel Brown, Oscar Peterson, Lester Young, Chet Atkins and Stanley Clarke .
Gregory has studied and taught martial arts (Tae Kwon Do -- the Korean system of Karate) for more than 20 years. He has studied under master Byong Yu and attained a Second Degree Black Belt.
"Through martial arts I learned to first start with the physical training, then the mental training and finally the spiritual training. This led me to an on-going period of spiritual exploration and meditation.
At the same time I have studied certain aspects of music including harmonic structure, rhythms, arranging and especially the vibrations of sound, and how all of this is linked to the body and to the spirit."
Most of the arrangements on Free Fallin were created in the studio as a result of the input and interplay of the musicians on each tune.
"I only give the band the basic structure of the piece, just enough of a roadmap to get started, because I want them to each be creative themselves. We take the seed, water it and allow it to grow. We nurture the music with love.
Hopefully each listener feels what went into the music and can take some of that away with them."
Kenny Garrett: "Standard of Language"
As the jazz world settles into the third year of the new millennium, it has become eminently apparent that Kenny Garrett is the most consistently scintillating and inspiring alto/soprano saxophone force in the genre.
The multi-Grammy tm) nominee brings a muscular yet Iyrical eloquence to everything he lends his artistry - from collaborating with the New Jersey symphony on Adagio For Strings to mixing it up with hip-hop legend GURU on his Jazzmatazz projects; be it swinging hard with legends Miles Davis and Art Blakey, or rockin' out with Sting and Peter Gabriel.
On Standard of Language, his eighth album for Warner Bros., Kenny Garrett delivers some of his most galvanizing and forceful work to date, digging deeper into his composing while bringing a crackling vibrancy to his studio work.
This music is roll up your sleeves, in your face, hard bop blowing at its best. The result is Garrett's rippling melodic songs captured in an especially resonant recording.
In Japan, gendai is a term meaning present tense. Fittingly, Garrett chose that word for the title of one of the new compositions on Standard of Language - because keeping jazz fresh and vital in the present tense has been his mission since he arrived on the scene in the early 80s.
"I'm working on setting what that standard
should be for my music," he states. "On this album,
we stretched-- without going too far-- to capture the energy we
have live on stage. The best time to record is right after you've
been on the road. When you tour a lot, the band gels and you start
to understand how another player will
react to what you do."
For Standard of Language, Garrett again works with the primary quartet that recorded and subsequently toured behind his previous album, Happy People. At the core is drummer Chris Dave--a player from the hip-hop school but with a strong jazz sensibility.
"Chris is very energetic like Tony Williams," Garrett states. "That's why I chose Charnett Moffett (a veteran of Williams' band) to handle the bass. He's played with everyone from Ornette Coleman to McCoy Tyner and I've known him since he was 17. On piano, I wanted someone who was a stylistic contrast to me. Vernell Brown is more from the free school of jazz. That keeps things fresh and interesting."
Of the 9 songs, 5 were recorded during the Happy People sessions, which fatefully began on September 11, 2001.
Where the songs that were released on Happy People often had more meditative passages, the remaining material was telegraphing a more free blowing future for Garrett.
"The tunes that I chose for Happy People were the songs I envisioned for that CD. We did a few more but I didn't think they fit at the time. To complete Standard Of Language, I went back in the studio with the band in December (2001 ) to record 4 new songs that would be stylistically consistent with the five songs recorded on September 11."
Those four additions are "Native Tongue," "Standard of Language," "Chief Blackwater" and '\IVhat Is This Thing Called Love."
The first part of the epic, three-part title track, "Standard of Language," has been in Kenny's live repertoire for several years. This piece marks his first time writing a suite. It reflects the style of writing from his album, Songbook, and is the one song to feature a different drummer, Eric Harland, who was the first person to play the entire suite during a rehearsal at Sweet Basil. Asked why he's just now recording the song, Kenny replies, "I needed the other tunes (of similar power) to go with it."
The late Kenny Kirkland was the pianist in the trio of Garrett's Songbook album. By Garrett's next album, Simply Said, Kirkland had sadly passed away. Kenny dedicated the entire 1999 album, to him, whom he called his "musical brother."
Now, on Standard of Language, he respectfully introduces a song that was inspired by Kirkland, titled "Doc Tone's Short Speech."
"'Doc Tone' was Kenny Kirkland's nickname," he said. "Whenever I called Kenny, I'd play something on the piano and leave it on his voice mail so he would know it was from me. Back in 98 when I was writing this song, I felt this strong urge to call and let him hear it, but I thought, 'I'll see him soon.' Four days later, I got a message from his sister that he had passed away (November 1998). I already had the song written and titled it. The irony of it all is just so bizarre."
"Another song is definitely Kenny's vibe with the whole Latin thing," Garrett continues. "He liked rich chords and the montuno progressions that Latin jazz bassists play. I titled it 'Short Speech' because he never got to pursue the entire legacy he could have left for the music.
He had written so many songs, but only recorded one album as a leader. Instead, he played with people like Sting, Wynton, Branford and myself, giving more to others than he gave to himself. Maybe The Creator had another plan for him...."
Another pianist, McCoy Tyner, sparked the creation of Kenny's "Chief Blackwater." "That was inspired by McCoy Tyner's 'Passion Dance' (a classic recording featuring Joe Henderson, Elvin Jones and Ron Carter). I wrote the tune with him in mind and hope to record it with him at some point. I actually played with him at the beginning of 2002 at Yoshi's. We were going to try it then, but never got around to it."
"Kurita Sensei" is a cool 6/8 groove with a melody inspired by Wayne Shorter's "Footprints." Garrett has a passion for all things Japanese and has taken many trips there for business and pleasure.
"I've been studying the standard language of Japan (Hyoojungo) for several years. During January 2000, I had the opportunity to study in Japan for two weeks with my teacher Kurita at EC, a Japanese language school.
Many of the other students who had been studying with Kurita for months knew more grammar than I knew, but I was able to articulate the language more eloquently so I was like her pet! Kurita really inspired me to study hard, so I wrote this song. I gave her the sheet music while I was there, but she didn't really understand what that was. I'm anxious for her to hear it "
Garrett describes the propulsive and protean swing of "XYZ" as esoteric yet melodic. It features solos from Kenny and Vernell with 20 bowed bars back into the head from Charnett on upright bass.
"Since it wasn't a simple ABC kind of tune, I decided to call it XYZ," Garrett says.
Equally burning is the album's one cover, Cole Porter's timeless "What Is This Thing Called Love," which Kenny previously recorded with the piano-less threesome of Brian Blade on drums and Kiyoshi Kitagawa on bass for his album, Trilogy (1995).
Now with piano in the mix for a quartet rendering, the song takes on a whole new life. "I wrote a new set of chord changes, so harmonically, it's totally different. The approach is like Coltrane's 'Giant Steps,' more challenging. The band was like, 'Now that we've learned to play it-hard as it is--we need to document it!"'
The album's one ballad is "Just A Second To Catch My Breath." Ult reminds me of a movie theme," he says. "My first song like that was 'Before It's Time To Say Goodbye' from Songbook. I love movies, and one day, I hope to score a film." Equally beautiful is "Native Tongue", arguably this album's melodic highpoint with its ebb and flow rhythm and lovely melodic lines.
Born in Detroit, Kenny Garrett was introduced to the saxophone at an early age by his father, who played tenor. Jazz was all around the house, but Detroit also offered ample opportunity to explore soul, gospel and classical firsthand. College was placed on the backburner when, in 1978, Garrett was offered a slot in the Duke Ellington Orchestra (then under the direction of Duke's son, Mercer).
Three years later, Kenny moved to New York and played with The Mel Lewis Orchestra (absorbing the charts of Thad Jones) and the Dannie Richmond Quintet (playing the music of Charles Mingus).
He released his first album as a leader, Introducing Kenny Garrett, in 1984 on the Criss Cross label during the years he was also recording with Art Blakey, Freddie Hubbard, and Woody Shaw.
Then Miles Davis called in 1986 and the ensuing five-year/four-album association left an indelible imprint on both Kenny's life and career. Of the many pearls he gleaned, Kenny says, "Miles' genius was getting the best out of musicians but not controlling them - letting them be free, but also getting what he wanted from them."