I haven’t posted an update in a while because I have been way too busy working on Michael Hardie’s new record, however many things have happened since I started recording that record back in December in good ol’ Texas.Most notably TWO (not one!) of the tracks from the Sony Classical CD ”We All Love Ennio Morricone” were nominated for a Grammy Award in the same “Best Rock Instrumental Performance” category (which might sound a little strange since the album came out on Sony Classical, but whatever).

Metallica and Bruce Springsteen were the two artists whose tribute to Ennio on this great CD were nominated and ultimately Springsteen’s song snatched the award from Rush, Satriani, Vai and Metallica themselves. The full list of nominees and winners can be seen here.

Unfortunately these two were not the tracks I was involved in (I recorded and mixed the track featuring Eumir Deodato and Daniela Mercury), nevertheless I feel honored to have participated in such a great tribute record and in paying tribute to such a grand composer and I want to wish Morricone all the best for an Award that is thoroughly deserved!

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I recently returned from a business trip to Texas where I was hired to produce and engineer the long-awaited new record of blues singer-songwriter Michael Hardie.

The recording took place in the outskirts of Houston, in a beautiful studio on a gorgeous ranch called Lucky Run. Lucky Run Studio was thoughtfully designed and built by LA-native engineer/producer Michael Mikulka and is equipped with a great collection of pre-amps and microphones. The Digidesign Icon-centered room has two large booths on the sides and a window in the front that provides natural light, beautiful sunsets and views of the green plains of Richmond/Fullshear with horses and cattle roaming around. Quite a change from the studios I have been to until now.

Michael Hardie’s band was comprised of himself on vocals and guitar, his NY-based talented daughter and singer/songwriter Myla Hardie on piano, her Brazilian percussionist husband and published book author Eduardo “Duda” Guedes on drums, the revered Texas bluesman Milton Hopkins on guitar (previously with B.B. King and related to the late and legendary Lighting Hopkins) and the accomplished hired gun Chuck Rainey on bass. In the picture from left to right you see Milton, myself, Michael, Myla, Duda and Chuck.

The sessions went smooth and in three days we recorded 12 songs at 24bit/88.2k with everyone playing at the same time (old school, baby!) and, except for the drums, pretty much in the same room too. We’ll be doing more production, overdubs and mixing in my studio EastSide Sound in NYC.

After this great experience Myla, Duda and I drove to Austin for a few days to research and soak in some of the blues/country/western/folk roots of the town and the surrounding areas. I stayed at the pretty and mexican-styled Austin Motel on South Congress, right across the street from the Continental Club, a staple of the local music scene since 1957, which pretty much became the last stop for me every single night before hitting the sack. During my time there I lived by the Austin Chronicle music listings (which coincidentally that week happened to feature my friend Steve Bilich on the front cover, who directed the award winning documentary “Native New Yorker” so we hit as many concerts as we could (up to 4 per night! the way I dig it!), including but not limited to Warren Hood (talented and young country/blues fiddle player and singer) @ Momo’s, Dale Watson (oh shit, wait, did I just see Elvis walk by?) @ Continental, Lou Ann Barton (blues singer) @ Antone’s (which is the other legendary joint in town), Chicken Strut (fusion/rock band) @ Antone’s, Alan Haynes (great blues guitar soloist) @ Momo’s, James McMurtry (awesome singer/songwriter with a powerhouse-band behind him) @ Continental, Michael Hardie himself @ Gene’s (just a few blocks east of the Texas Music Museum)… and the list goes on…

I had a great time in Austin, a beautiful little city and an oasis of individualism, weirdness and liberal thinking in an otherwise conservative cowboy-land neighboring territory. You can feel the love, people seem to know how to have fun and love to dance (there are a lot of great dancers there, somewhat of a lost art in NYC)… However after 4 nights there I realized that it seems to be a closed community and a closed circle of musicians… I kept seeing the same faces on the dance-floor and I saw some of the same musicians sitting in as guests in multiple places. Yes there is an unusually high concentration of venues for live music (which is awesome!) but what good does that do to the local musicians if it is an excuse for them never to venture outside of Austin? And if there are no great studios, not too many labels, no producers/publishers/music supervisors and industry personnel in general, how are all these great bands going to be discovered? Austin is great for live music and for people who love it and play, but that same greatness can become a self-restraining limitation for those musicians who get too comfortable and fail to realize that there are bigger ponds to swim (and hustle) in…

Xmas week might not have been the best time of the year to be there: not too many shows that weekend and a lot of places were closed, so I didn’t get to see some other clubs I wanted to check out (Emo’s, the Alamo Drafthouse, the Waterloo Ice House etc). However, with Xmas around the corner, all the cool stores were open for customers, so I got to check out the coolest record store in town (Waterloo Records) and the coolest music souvenir shop in town (Wild About Music), both on historic 6th Street. Also we missed some cool shows (Pinetop Perkin, to mention one) because everything starts so early and ends so early, at least when I compare it to my night-owl-ish life in NYC. But that’s Texas for you… people are relaxed, always late and go to bed early… drives me crazy but what can I do?

Either way, with all the music I ingurgitated and all the Mexican food I savored, I feel like I’ve had a pretty good Texas experience after all… I think the only things I wanted to do and didn’t get to were riding a horse, riding a bull (even a fake one at a Rodeo bar!) and shooting some beer bottles on a white fence with a rifle!

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I just got my copy of this beautiful record by the talented and gifted upcoming Harlem singer Teraesa Vinson (whose equally great debut CD I had mixed a few years ago). The album is simple and beautiful: just one voice and one guitar! It features the opening title-track, written by Dempsey, and 11 jazz arrangements of tunes by Jobim, Stevie Wonder, Ellington and others.

We recorded the entire thing in one day and mixed it in another day. Pure and unadulterated signal path (great mic and pre-amp on her and two mics on the guitar) a little reverb, a little overall compression and virtually no editing (with musicians like these words like comping vocal tracks, auto-tuning etc luckily are never even uttered).

Vinson’s drummer Dion Parson produced the record and you can buy it at CD Baby.

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A few months ago I recorded a beautiful jazz album featuring some of NY’s top jazz musicians (saxophonist Vincent Herring, Saturday Night Live trombonist Steve Turre, pianist Anthony Wonsey, vocalist Paulette McWilliams and more) and incredibly charming and gorgeously performed music with lyrics written by Wyland, an amazing environmentally-driven American painter and visual artist whose humongous and larger than life art you probably saw at least once in your life somewhere in the US.

As a Hawaii resident and lover of the sea, Wyland has always been extremely dedicated to the conservation of the aquatic fauna (the subject of his art), so he decided to explore and reach out to different types of arts to promote global awareness. As an environmentally-conscious person myself (not to mention avid kitesurfer and lover of the sea), I felt absolutely honored and privileged to work on this magnificent album and I can’t wait to hear it and see it (I hear the artwork is amazing, which is pretty obvious and expected at this point, isn’t it?).

The album just was announced a few days ago and is available on the Home Shopping Network and in selected stores. You can preview some tracks excerpts here: http://www.wylandstudiostore.com/index.cfm?ProductID=2274&do=detail

Here is the official press release:

Debut Release From Wyland Records
New Jazz CD Gets in the Swing of Conservation

NEW YORK, NY — Renowned marine life artist Wyland has assembled the brightest jazz talents in New York City to create, “Rhythms of the Sea,” a new collection of “eco-conscious” music set to the artist’s
lyrics.
The 13-song CD album (Wyland Records — $15.95) is a unique extension of the artist’s mission to bring
awareness through art and is dedicated to inspiring conservation through music. Rhythms of the Sea, was
recorded in New York City with saxophonist Vincent Herring, Saturday Night Live trombonist Steve Turre, pianist Anthony Wonsey, vocalist Paulette McWilliams performing as the Earth Jazz Agents.

“With this debut music project, Wyland’s goal is clear as the turquoise water of a South Pacific island,” says said Laurence
Donohue-Greene, managing editor of AllAboutJazz-New York.

“We can only hope that future collaborations between marine life and earthbound musicians continue along these paths.”

“Rhythms of the Sea” was arranged and produced by Herring, who called upon other collaborators, including as trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, pianist/keyboardist Nat Adderley, Jr., cellist Akua Dixon, and two-time Grammy Award winning engineer Marc Urselli. Noted for his fine Cannonball Adderley-inspired alto work, Herring also performs on soprano sax and flute From “Flow”, “Sacred Seas”, and “Ocean Paradise” to “Turtle Time”, “Rhythms of the Sea”, “Ocean of Light” and “Endangered Species”, vocalist Paulette McWilliams connects Wyland’s environmentally-conscious thoughts and words into song. Wyland himself composed lyrics for six of the seven songs that McWilliams sings and even makes a brief cameo on “Endangered Species” by adding spoken word over the backing vocals of Andromeda Turre’s repeated refrain of “Protect our Planet.”

Turre bridges the worlds further with his musical mastery of the conch shell. His composition “Flying Fish” is a celebratory number, from Herring’s high-spirited alto lines leading to trumpeter Jeremy Pelt’s Hugh Masakela-influenced smears, blasts and bent notes, trombonist Turre and Wonsey’s soulful upbeat piano.

“Whale Song” pairs composer Turre’s overdubbed conches and Dixon’s arco-played cello with the as-credited “backing vocals” of a recording by the humpback whales of the Silver Bank.

“Rhythms of the Sea” is available at www.wyland.com

About the Artist
One of the world’s most recognizable artists, Wyland has developed an international reputation for his commitment to marine life conservation, most notably his monumental marine life murals, the Whaling Walls. He is considered one of the most successful working artists today, with galleries throughout the United States, and more than half a million collectors around the world. Each of his works speaks of our beautiful but fragile marine ecosystem. Dedicated to saving our water resources through art and education, his non-profit Wyland Foundation seeks to further that end.

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Ines is a very talented pop singer from Estonia whom I started working with recently.

Ines lives between New York and Estonia, where she is very popular and is among the country’s best selling artists.

We recently got together at EastSide Sound to record the vocals for her new track. Here are some pictures of Ines and myself hard at work:

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I’ve been wanting to write the first post for a long time now, but I’ve been so busy that I never got around it… I remember setting dates for myself: January 1st (new year, new blog), January 31st (new birthday, new blog) and other significant dates like that, but in my life time is such a commodity that you must prioritize, and rambling on about myself is certainly not one of my priorities… So today, on this unassuming April the 30th, 2007, I am finally (almost) ready to let this baby fly free… It still needs work but I don’t want to procrastinate any longer. I’ve read somewhere that a new blog is born in the world every 2 seconds, so couldn’t help it but to be part of that statistics.

My website has been in need of a new version for a long time, one that would allow me to add content more easily and quicker, so here it is, finally, at last… I’ve been working on this website for months now, maybe even a year, and I want to acknowledge my friend Davide and my partner Genevieve for their tremendous help putting it together… Without them it would have taken me a lot longer!

In the tradition of “less is more”, I am gonna keep it short and sweet as I am sure that I’ll be posting here a lot in the future anyway and I wouldn’t wanna bore you just yet!

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