Herbie Hancock official site

Herbie Hancock
James Genus, Bass
Trevor Lawrence Jr., Drums
Lionel Loueke, Guitar
Terrace Martin, Keyboards and Saxophone
In addition to being recognized as a legendary pianist and composer, Herbie Hancock has been an integral part of every jazz movement since the 1960s. As a member of the Miles Davis Quintet, he became one of the pioneers of the avant garde sound. His recordings during the ’70s combined electric jazz with funk and rock sounds in an innovative style that continues to influence contemporary music. “Rockit” and “Future Shock” marked Hancock’s foray into electronic dance music and included several chart-topping hits; during the same period he continued to work in an acoustic setting with V.S.O.P., which included ex-Miles Davis bandmates Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams. Hancock has received an Academy Award for his Round Midnight film score and 14 Grammy Awards, including Album Of The Year for “River: The Joni Letters” and two 2011 Grammy Awards for his recently released globally collaborative CD, “The Imagine Project.” Many of his compositions, including “Canteloupe Island,” “Maiden Voyage,” “Watermelon Man,” and “Chameleon,” are modern standards that have had a profound effect on all styles of modern music.

photo credit: Douglas Kirkland

Robert Glasper official site | Robert Glasper on Facebook | Robert Glasper on Twitter
 
Breakthrough success can often be a tough act to follow. But with a little help from some notable friends, Robert Glasper Experiment is set to up the ante with the follow-up to his successful GRAMMY-winning album Black Radio. Flaunting a diverse array of featured guests including Common, Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy, Brandy, Jill Scott, Dwele, Marsha Ambrosius, Anthony Hamilton, Faith Evans, Norah Jones, Snoop Dogg, Lupe Fiasco, Luke James, Emeli Sandé, Lalah Hathaway, and Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Black Radio 2 is certain to surprise and delight critics and fans alike. With a unique fusion of R&B, jazz, and hip-hop that brazenly traverses the boundaries of all three genres, Black Radio 2 finds Glasper and his musical cohorts creating in a vibrant new chasm, brilliantly contrasting its predecessor in the process.
 
Black Radio was heralded by media outlets such as Rolling Stone, who wrote “Glasper heads down the fraught path of hip-hop jazz and gets it right,” adding “with music this smart and inviting, the implied diss of mainstream doesn’t feel like sour grapes; it feels like a blueprint forward.” The lead single “Ah Yeah” with Chrisette Michele and Musiq Soulchild landed on radio playlists nationwide, and TV appearances on Late Show With David Letterman, Tonight Show With Jay Leno and Late Night With Jimmy Fallon followed. But when Black Radio took home the award for Best R&B Album at the 2013 GRAMMY Awards, there was no doubt that all eyes were on Glasper and his band of musical brothers.
 
In the wake of the GRAMMY win, offers to collaborate were abundant and bountiful. This withstanding, Glasper chose to curate his next aural exhibit more keenly to achieve a specifically desired effect. “Black Radio got so much love from the R&B world, so I made a conscious decision to concentrate a bit more on songs for this record,” he says of the anomalous coup. With that, Glasper set out to focus on R&B song structure that complimented his jazz pianist chops as well as that of the rest of Robert Glasper Experiment – Casey Benjamin (saxophone/vocoder), Derrick Hodge (bass), and Mark Colenburg (drums).

Jamie Lidell official site | Jamie Lidell on Facebook | Jamie Lidell on Twitter | Jamie Lidell on Instagram

Over the last 15 years, Jamie Lidell has cemented his reputation as an artist refusing easy categorization—and that restless spirit follows the British poly-genre wizard into Building a Beginning, his sixth studio album and follow-up to 2013’s wild-eyed self-titled effort. Whereas Jamie Lidell was a full-body immersion into strident electro and pop sounds, Building a Beginning is Lidell purifying himself in the waters of smooth, earthy psychedelic soul—think the subtle low end on Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, the swirling loveliness of Temptations’ Cloud Nine, and the beatific radiance of Stevie Wonder, all imbued with Lidell’s distinctive songwriting touch and impossibly gorgeous vocals.

This album is Lidell’s most personal work to date, a meditation on love and family brought on by the birth of Lidell’s first child, Julian—not coincidentally, the subject of Building a Beginning’s ebullient shaker “Julian.” “I wanted to write something that he wants to jump around to,” Lidell says while addressing the song’s breezy brightness, explaining that the song came from a desire to express “the energy and joy that’s now in our life.”

Working with some of the best players in the game such as Pino Palladino (bass, Gary Numan, Elton John, Peter Gabriel, Eric Clapton), DaRu Jones (drums, Jack White), Pat Sansone (multi-instrumentalist, Wilco), Kudisan Kai, Traci Brown Bailey, and Tiffany Smith (backup-vocals, Chaka Khan), production from Justin Stanley (Beck, Prince, Leonard Cohen, Paul McCartney) and Ben Ash (Two Inch Punch), mixing from Jake Aron (Le1f, Fort Lean) and most importantly from Jamie’s wife, Lindsey Rome who was deeply involved co-writing all the albums incredibly personal lyrics (and taking all the new photos), Lidell’s raw talent is brought to the fxorefront.

Recent years have seen Jamie collaborating with some new friends and artists, resulting in a Grammy nod for his work with Lianne La Havas and a hit single for his featured vocal’s on A-Trak‘s “We All Fall Down”. “Walk Right Back”, the first single to be shared from the new project on Lidell’s new label home and own imprint, Jajulin Records, is available today on all digital platforms and as an instant grat with album pre-order. Listen and read Jamie’s first interview on The FADER here. Lidell is known for putting on an amazing live show and will bring a bevy of some of the best players on the road this fall – European dates below and North American dates to be announced soon.

Building A Beginning will be released worldwide on October 14th on Jajulin Records.

PRE-ORDER BUILDING A BEGINNING on iTunes