This Week at CafeJazz.ca:
Stuart Wade
& Britain's premier jazz-funk unit Down to the Bone are in the spotlight
with The Main Ingredients - we're featuring a hip trio of tracks
as part of the showcase segment. In the second half, it's time to
re-visit and re-discover music from back in the day on another exciting
Vintage Collection - this installment includes David Lanz and Paul
Speer with a huge new age hit from the 80s. Also appearing are Larry
Coryell, the godfather of fusion, and synth specialist Wally Badarou
- then capping things are Lyle Mays from the Pat Metheny band, and
Atlanta-based saxman Ben Dye as Rhythm 'n' Jazz. So the stage is
set and for the curtain raising track it's Acoustic Alchemy with
the lead tune from the Roseland release!
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Showcase CD
The Main Ingredients - Down to the Bone:
It's
been well over a decade since Down to the Bone first appeared
on the music scene. The Manhattan to Staten debut set the direction
while in the intervening years, the band's musical compass has
steered the ensemble unerringly toward the sound of the good groove.
They've sold in excess of a half-million units and stage bands
have thrilled audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. 2011 saw
the UK combo on a new label with a new release called The Main
Ingredients. As always, Stuart Wade is the helmsman for this the
9th cd from Britain's premier jazz funk unit while lending their
creative talents to the project are long time main stays in Neil
Angilley on keys and Julian Crampton on bass. Just over a year
in the making, The Main Ingredients was a labour of love for Wade,
a non musician who communicates his ideas to the others verbally
and by whatever means necessary when writing the tracks - a unique
approach that has stood the band in good stead!
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latest effort sees the band traverse familiar territory with a funky
fusion of all the base bits that have been integral to their success
- yet there's plenty of spice for those who crave it. So it is that
the DTTB gang now find themselves in the heady glow of the Café
Jazz spotlight with The Main Ingredients. |
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Down to the Bone - The Live UK Band!
L to R: Ryan Jacob – trumpet, Chris Dodd (cap) – bass; Davide
Giovannini – drums;
Ben Barritt – guitar; Tim Smart (at back) – trombone;
Joe “Bongo” Becket – percussion; Alex Bennett – keys
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We have three of its tastiest tracks and right off the mark there's
the torque of South Side Overdrive featuring a horn section comprised
of Tim Smart on trombone, trumpeter Ryan Jacob, and Tom Richards
on sax. Together We Stand soulfully launches the second part of
the segment; whereas the collective talents of the crew deliver
Uptown Hustle as one of the band's finest tracks ever - a gritty
but sure-fire winner, it's the show closer! Sometimes edgy, frequently
funky, yet always fueled with a groove, 'there's plenty of meat
on the Bone' with The Main Ingredients!
CD: The Main Ingredients
(2011)
Label: Trippin 'n' Rhythm Records
Links: 
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| Vintage Collection: Part
One |
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Feet First - Lyle Mays:
Hailing
from Wausaukee, Wisconsin, Lyle Mays attended the U of W-Eau Claire before
graduating from the U of North Texas. He toured with Woody Herman's Orchestra
for a few months before becoming a founding member of Pat Metheny's group
in 1976, and for the most part his musical fortunes have been intertwined
with those of the acclaimed guitarist ever since. Mays has been a co-composer
and arranger of nearly all of the group's material and has won eleven
Grammy's. He's continued to tour and record with the Metheny right thru
to the present while also pursuing a variety of interests ranging from
children's records to composing a classical piece for harp, flute, viola
and synthesizer. Additionally, Mays has recorded on his own - from his
sophomore effort, the 1988 Street Dreams release, we've selected the melodic
Feet First!
CD: Street Dreams (1988)
Label: Geffen Records
Links:
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Chief Inspector - Wally Badarou:
He
was born in Paris in 1955 and spent most of the 60s in Africa. He had
plans to become an airline pilot but shelved those while receiving an
eclectic musical education as a session player at studios in England and
the Bahamas. Wally Badarou's early career included work on the hit Pop
Music with M, as well as with Level 42 - he was often referred to as the
band's unofficial fifth member. As part of an in-house recording team
for Island Records, Badarou appeared a long list of projects from those
of Grace Jones and Joe Cocker to Herbie Hancock and Talking Heads. Badarou
also scored a few films and developed into a producer of considerable
repute, before he embraced stage acting in the early 2000s. Nonetheless,
released in 1984, Echoes was his second offering. According to Badarou,
the project wasn't experimental but rather it reflected what technology
allowed him to do at the time - to express his multicultural roots "as
an African born Parisian who happened to get educated with Brahms, James
Brown, Joao Gilberto, The Beatles, Myriam Makeba, Jacques Brel and Celia
Cruz all at the same time." From that album, we present the innovative
and upbeat Chief Inspector!
CD: Echoes (1984)
Label: Island Records
Links: 
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| Vintage Collection: Part Two |
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Redwing
- Larry Coryell:
As a
teen Larry Coryell played the rock music of the day but not considering
himself good enough to pursue a music career, he studied journalism. Even
so, he continued with private lessons and by 1965 things had changed.
Shortly after moving to NYC in 1965, he debuted on a record by Chico Hamilton
and in 1966, he formed the psychedelic band The Free Spirits on which
he sang, played sitar and did most of the composing. Three years later,
after apprenticing with vibist Gary Burton and flautist Herbie Mann and
after gigging with the likes of Jack Bruce, Coryell arrived. His '69 album
Spaces mixed jazz, classical and rock ingredients and included John McLaughlin.
The result "formed what many aficionados consider to be the embryo from
which the fusion jazz movement of the 1970s emerged." The project was
a fiery affair - nonetheless Coryell could move effortlessly between styles
as witnessed on The Eleventh House releases and on the 1974 Restful Mind
cd. From a true and somewhat unsung pioneer of the fusion movement, we
present the sweet and reflective Redwing, and a track that co-features
the sax of Donald Harrison!
CD: I'll Be Over You (1995)
Label: CTI Records
Links:
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Behind the Waterfall - David Lanz & Paul Speer:
Hailing
from Lewiston, Idaho, Paul Speer released a pair of solo instrumental
albums before he met up with David Lanz in Seattle in the early 80s. The
pair worked together from 1981 until 1998. During that time they recorded
three albums as Lanz and Speer, with Speer producing several of Lanz's
subsequent solo efforts including the gold album, Cristofori's Dream.
The 1983 Natural States was their first project as a duo and was the cornerstone
of what was to become Miramar Productions. From that effort, the single
Behind the Waterfall proved one of the biggest new age hits of the 80s
and we have that for you today!
CD: Natural States (1985)
Label: Narada
Links: 
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Slide
- Rhythm 'n' Jazz:
The
man behind Rhythm 'n' Jazz and Ben's House of Music is Ben Dye III. After
studying economics at Boston College, Dye relocated to Atlanta and in
the year 2000 he founded his musical house. A label dedicated to promoting
smooth jazzy grooves with funky takes on R&B classics there have been
a series of about 10 or so projects under the Rhythm 'n' Jazz banner.
Enlisting a few of the finest players on the local scene, they're billed
as the smoothest jazz band on the planet and from the 2009 Dance the Night
Away release, there's a great read on Slide, the hit recorded by Slave
back in 1977!
CD: Dance the Night Away (2009)
Label: Ben's House of Music, LLC
Links: 
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| After Hours ~ Exclusive to our
Site and Select Affiliates : |
A one hour feature wherein all the selections
share the word 'park' as part of the title or band name - in keeping with
this we're calling the segment A Walk in the Park and that's after a 1996
Denny Jiosa tune. There are 13 selections with Palmetto Park by The Benoit-Freeman
Project, Dancin' in the Park from Mike Gealer, and Thru D Nite from the
band Park Lane. But breaking the bottle on the bow of this show it's St.
Pete's Florida native TFOXX with his ode to that city's Vinoy Park - as
we go for a stroll on A Walk in the Park edition!  |
