PROJECTS


PERFORMANCE

Two CD projects are currently in planning. The first, a jazz crossover surprise, is scheduled for release in 2003-4. The second recording is an album of original songs interlaced with some classic jazz gems. . Watch for the release dates, to be posted on this page.

Presently, "One More Rhyme" is available in fine record stores, at www.albanyrecords.com on Amazon.com, and via mail order through Gray Bear Productions 917-338-6057. See the Recordings main page for sound bites and song listings.

This CD is a crossover adventure- a musical cocktail of classic jazz standards with a dash of continental, a Latin twist and a splash of the pinks. This eclectic atmosphere has always been my home.

"Autumn Leaves" or "Les Feuilles Mortes", the first song on the CD, was a natural crossover, a standard written in French and English. It set the stage for a trip to Paris in 'Padam, Padam,', the frenetic confession about a string of meaningless love affairs. 'Blue By the River', a song I wrote with Galt Mac Dermot, tells the story in a pinksy fashion, of love in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Billy Strayhorn's "Lush Life", evoking an American demi-monde, inspired the title track, "One More Rhyme", which I wrote with James Weidman. "All of Nothing At All', and "But Beautiful", are here rendered with a Latin beat. The very same dilemma of perilous love that they portray, overpowers Joana Francesa in a Brazilian waltz, who pours out her heart in French, in Portuguese and back. When the work was done and the tracks had been assembled and sequenced from the red leaves of autumn to "Red Sails in the Sunset", I realized I had been on a voyage, a road that I always travel when I sing the songs I love. I hope you will enjoy the passage as well. The songs on this CD are gathered to celebrate the journey of the human heart in an international spirit.

"When Lights Are Low" is scheduled for an October 2002 release, on Albany Records and will also be available in stores, at www.albanyrecords.com, and via mail order through Gray Bear Productions. See the Recordings main page for sound bites and song listings.

This album began with the choice of each song for it's imagery and beauty of melody. With evolving performances and the musicians' gorgeous and "edgy" harmonic and rhythmic illuminations, the interior worlds of the songs opened up. "Mana de Carnival" from the beautiful film "Black Orpheus" has always been a favorite as has "You've Changed," which could not be done without musical deference to Billie Holiday whose vocal nuances remain emblazoned on my memory. I was attracted to the undercurrent of longing expressed in "I Concentrate on You", the sense of the outsider as an alienated player in a dark drama of unrequited love epitomized in "Angel Eyes", the shadow world of second chance lovers healed of broken hearts peopling the "Street of Dreams," and the combination of cruel misfortune and touching tenderness in the haunting folk classic, "All the Pretty Little Horses". "You Don't Know What Love Is", I adore for it's chilling lyrics detailing the pain of love while the melody wanders harmonically in search of resolution. "Out of This World" welcomed me in via the route of the syncopated Latin groove, which became a wind current upon which the voice could glide evoking the theme of flying. Each song I offer as a gem, a theatre of complex emotion, a magical set illuminated by harmony and rhythm, a world into which one enters to reflect for a matter of minutes on universal themes.