Right Back in the Studio*

This time (originally the first time - see footnote), I'm recording a collection of sweet mellow ballads & Bossas, some of them standards and some originals. Almost all of the instrumental tracks are done, and a few of the vocals. It sounds really great already. So much sweetness and nuance, different from the first CD, though this is the core trio of about half the songs on Under A Spell.

T. Xiques on drums & Jim Curtin on bass 

Nine of eleven tunes on the new record feature Steve Raleigh on guitar, Jim Curtin on bass, and T. Xiques on drums. If there was ever a music where you would most want to hear Steve's guitar playing, I like to think this is it. It's so musical, so subtle and lacking in artifice or irrelevant muscle. It's just exquisite. Jim Curtin brings his buoyant vibe to even the sleepiest numbers lending them a humor and warmth that makes them irresistible, and T. Xiques' sticks and brushes are sometimes whispering, sometimes tempering time, soulful always.

The last two songs are going to be recorded with piano - a late-40's standard and an original tone poem. Art Labriola is stepping in for this pair and despite their marked differences he works equal magic with them. Art composes and plays with lots of people but lately has been doing a regular set on  Hammond organ Wednesday nights at Quinn's in Beacon, NY, with Andy Stack. I'm planning to get to the next one, June 10th. Maybe I'll see you there....

Getting ready to make tracks with Art Labriola.* 

The Footnote

* A couple of years ago I went to make a jazz record and wound up writing the one I made, Under A Spell, which isn't jazz but something like it, and at the same time I was still recording some of the one I thought I would record, and was already halfway through that when the unintentional first one (Under A Spell) was finished. So I'm finishing up the one that was supposed to be first.