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October 11, 2006
Hi Everyone,
Thanks so much for all your recent e-mails and to all of
you who were able to join me at the Blue Note on short notice
when I was called to fill in for Fourplay,
who had to cancel due to illness. It was a pleasure to be
back in one of our favorite venues and I’m happy to
report that all the Fourplay
guys are doing fine now.
I hope you are all having a great autumn so far. As much
as I wanted to keep the newsletter current over the summer,
it was such a busy summer that it just became impossible to
do.
When I last wrote this spring, I had just previewed some
music for my new CD at Trumpet’s in Montclair, NJ and
the Iridium in NYC and was about to head out on a special
tour of the Canary Islands with Jim Beard, Till Brönner,
Josh Dion, Anthony Jackson, Eric Marienthal, in what we dubbed
the Reunion Band. Also joining
us for some of the shows was an extraordinary young Canary
Island-ite bassist named Charlie Moreno (more on Charlie below).
Since then, I am happy to report that my new CD, Presence,
is done! And… I am very
proud to announce that I am now a Heads
Up International recording artist, joining such
incredible and varied talents as Philip Bailey, Michael Brecker,
Paquito D’Rivera, Hiroshima, Hugh Masekela, Marion Meadows,
Andy Narell, Spyro Gyra, Nestor Torres, Gerald Veasley and
the Yellowjackets, among others.
You may remember my saying a few months ago that I was exploring
a new creative path. Well…it’s funny, because
no matter what happens, it seems that I end up making a Chuck
Loeb CD! Not that I think that is a bad thing. One of my favorite
comments from fans and fellow musicians, is 'when your songs
come on the radio, I recognize you right away.' To me that
is a large factor in being a recording artist. That said,
there are a few songs on the new CD on which I tried to stretch
out a little bit, like Mr. Martino,
which is, of course, in homage to Pat Martino, with whom I
had the honor of playing in our Wes Montgomery Tribute at
the Berks Jazz Fest this past spring.
Maybe not everyone knows the incredible story of Pat Martino:
he has had to start over a couple of times—first after
an aneurysm that almost took his life and then sometime later
from a collapsed lung. Following surgery for his aneurysm,
he had to relearn everything—including who he was because
he lost his memory—and
he had to learn to play all over again. And the guy has just
come back in the most amazing way to be the person he was
and the powerhouse player that he is. If you’re interested
in learning more about his amazing story, you may want to
check out his website, www.patmartino.com,
where you can read an article about him from the August 2006
issue of Jazziz.
Another important aspect of this CD is the theme of Presence,
which is really my way of recognizing the significance of
the human element above all else. Nowadays, there's a lot
of music that gets created in a laboratory. We all have computers,
and we do things long distance. But it never ceases to amaze
me how, as soon as you put the live musicians into the equation,
it's their presence that brings the thing to life. This is
part of the idea behind the album title, although I actually
wrote the title track for Carmen's late father, Anastasio
Cuesta. We lost him about a year and a half ago, right before
I started producing this CD. I was actually in the room with
him when he died. When it was over, the thing that we missed
the most was his presence. There was something completely
different about seeing his body without his spirit. So I dedicated
this song to him. He was an important person for all of us.
It was a thrill for me to record Presence
because I was able to bring back a lot of great musicians
I’ve worked with before. In addition to my current band—Josh
Dion, Brian Killeen and Matt King—there are also a lot
of old friends from previous incarnations of my band, including
Mike Ricchiuti, Ron Jenkins, Bryan Dunn, Will Lee, David Mann,
Andy Snitzer, and Wolfgang Haffner, with whom I also play
in the band Metro.
In addition to new tunes like Mr.
Martino, we recorded two covers, one of the Steely
Dan tune Rikki Don’t Lose That
Number, and one of my favorite tunes by one of my favorite
artists, James Taylor’s Shed
A Little Light.
Also, in earlier notes, I mentioned that Carmen’s new
CD is finished; since then, the title has changed and is now
You Still Don’t Know Me.
It is a beautiful collection of her compositions, and will
be released in Europe in November. Also, we are incredibly
thrilled to announce that Michael Brecker joined her on one
song as a guest soloist—one of the first recordings
he has played on since beginning his battle with myelodysplasia.
For those of you who may not be aware of Michael’s
illness, (which you can read about on his website, www.michaelbrecker.com
- Michael’s Current Challenge), he was for some time
in dire need of a bone marrow transplant from a compatible
donor. As many of you may know, finding the kind of exact
match needed for a bone marrow transplant is extremely difficult
and one of the greatest things that Michael did as part of
his own battle was to encourage people to register with the
National Bone Marrow Registry – not just for him but
because it is so important to have as many people registered
as possible. Based just on what I know about a few of the
donor drives, his efforts had a huge impact and to help continue
this momentum, I have included in the liner of my new CD the
web address for the National Bone Marrow Donor Program (www.marrow.org)
in the hope that even more people will be inspired to register.
Mostly, we wish Michael and his family continued strength
and pray for his success in overcoming this illness.
Canary Islands
I mentioned above our series of shows at the Canary
Islands jazz festival. I just want to say that it was an amazing
experience to be in that part of the world, playing for that
audience. This was the greatest number of shows I’ve
ever done at one time and the experience of performing together
with these musicians was so great that we’re now thinking
of putting together a CD and touring again next year. It was
an incredible experience musically but was also fantastic
because of the incredible audiences. Alberto and Miguel of
Colorado Productions have proven once again that they really
know how to put together a festival and make artists feel
welcome.
As part of our series of performances, we did two shows where
we also had guest artists—on one night, legendary guitarist
Hiram Bullock and on the other, the wonderful Brazilian singer/songwriter
and guitarist Rosa Passos, whose bass player Paolo Paulillo
also joined us. I also got to sit in with Rosa Passos on her
set and play, which was great. And the show with Hiram Bullock
was just incredible. He just goes for it in every moment and
lifts of the energy of the band when he comes on stage. We’ve
been friends for years, but this was the first time we had
played together and it was quite an experience. In fact, I
was the emcee on the show, and at one point I got so carried
away by the energy, I forgot my language (“Holy S---!
"That's not JUST
a man, that's an event!" Oops.)
After that I came back to the US and did some gigs and then
went back to Europe to do some really great trio gigs with
Wolfgang Haffner, Christian Diener (who is a freelance guy
over there, used to do trio gigs many years ago). Till Brönner
also sat in with us during one of our nights there. We had
great crowds every night.
I also just played a special concert with Gerald Veasley
and Kim Waters at the Lyman Center at Yale University. It
was the first concert of the academic year and actually, it
was also the first time all three of us had played together.
The second and third time were not far off – we just
did another performance together Gerald Veasley's Jazz Base
Club in Reading, PA and at the Rehoboth Beach Autumn Jazz
Festival, only this time it was Kim Waters, me, Gerald Veasley,
and Rick Braun! What a great crew and amazing crowds! It was
a blast.
With these shows done, I am now going to focus on some studio
projects for a little and will start touring again once Presence
has been released.
And In the Studio…
I am currently producing a CD for a young bassist from the
Canary Islands named Charlie Moreno
who I first met at the Canary Islands Jazz Fest and who joined
us onstage this year as part of the Reunion Band. Charlie
is considered one of Spain’s most promising young bassists
and is already teaching and performing professionally in Barcelona.
He recorded his first CD, So Lonely,
in 2005 and I was proud to contribute to that. This time,
I am producing as well as playing and we have cut the basic
tracks for the CD with myself, Joel Rosenblatt, Mike Ricchiuti
and David Charles, with Phil Magnotti at the Carriage House
Studio, and they are stellar! The project should be completed
by 12/1 and out sometime next year. If you’d like to
know more about Charlie, visit his website at www.charliemoreno.com.
I am also just back from Germany, where I had the honor of
playing on a jazz CD by bass/baritone opera phenom Thomas
Quasthoff. Although Thomas has physical limitations
due to thalidomide, you would never know it to hear him sing—the
guy is amazing. On this CD he is taking a temporary break
from his beautiful operatic sound and slipping into something
reminiscent of Johnny Hartman mixed with a little Stevie Wonder.
With the additional contributions of Peter Erskine on drums
and Alan Broadbent as pianist and arranger, this CD, which
is being produced by Till Brönner, promises to be a real
gem. The sessions for this recording coincided with the preparation
for my Presence CD, and the
photographer in the studio, Michael Harder, did some impromptu
photos of me on the spur of the moment, and I liked them so
much that they became photos for the cover of my CD as well
the new pix that you see here on the website. Just like jazz
- we improvised it! It turns out that Michael is not only
a photographer, but also a film maker and he has been following
Mr. Quasthoff's career for many years, and has produced a
fantastic inspirational film, "The Dreamer" which
depicts Thomas' life and career. I highly recommend the film
which is available on the following website:
www.thedreamer.de
A portion of the proceeds go to a charity, the International
Yehudi Menuhin Foundation's (IYMF) "Il canto del
Mondo", also the RightLivelihood award against atomic
war. For more about Thomas Quasthoff’s career, check
out this 1997 article: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/1997/int/970630/amusi.triumph_of_th.html
The Road Ahead: Coming to Carnegie
Hall!
One other piece of big news related to the above effort, is
that as a result of my work with him, Thomas has invited me
to tour with him in support of the CD next spring. This will
include a show at Carnegie Hall March 7th, one at Musikverein
in Vienna on March 12th, another at the Philharmonie in Cologne,
Germany on March 17th and one at Admiral’s Palast in
Berlin on March 19th.
Stay tuned to the website (and newsletter) for more on all
these exciting developments in the months ahead and for news
of upcoming concerts in support of Presence.
Till next time, stay well everyone!
Love, Chuck
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