The CD is finally out!

Whew! SPIRITS PASSING THROUGH is finally out in the world. A lotta work, and a crash course in the workings of the music biz (singers, do not EVER write new lyrics for someone else's jazz tune and then record it without getting permission first, unless you have a taste for endless phone calls, e-mails, and frustration). But now, having emerged from the other end of the tunnel, I have to say it's been worth it. I’ve always wanted a band, and with the Co-Conspirators I’ve finally got one. I’m not a traditional singer-songwriter; I’m a jazz vocalist and composer, so I wanted to hear my songs in the context of a real, live, improvising jazz ensemble, with all the resources that that implies. I wanted us to play ON the songs, the way jazz musicians do, so that they’d open up in performance and really fly. And I wanted to use vibraphone, in place of the usual piano. There’s more air in the ensemble that way and more clarity. Everyone has his own frequency range to operate in, and you can hear the individual lines better. I wanted the feeling of a real ensemble, not just a singer backed by a rhythm section. So the recording sessions for SPIRITS PASSING THROUGH, and the rehearsals and gigs before them, were big steps on the journey that transforms a few guys playing one guy's songs into a band, something way bigger than the sum of its parts. We can go from spare lyricism to a big hollering galumphing band improv and back again in the space of one song ("Time/Space") or nail a funky New Orleans second-line groove in a song that's really about, well, death ("Beads"). We're playing my songs and my arrangements of other jazz songs I admire, but as the vocalist in the band I have to hold up my end of things. John, Rich, and Gary are great players--much in demand--and leaders of their own bands. They keep me on my toes. Which is how it should be. The songs and my arrangements draw on all the kinds of music I‘m attracted to, not just jazz. But that’s what jazz musicians always do. Besides the Brazilian and New Orleans influences, there's a nod to old-school Muscle Shoals soul (“By the Factory Wall”). And “So Cold” recasts a Wayne Shorter tune with a funk bass/drum rhythm and a lyric that comes right out of an Appalachian death ballad. But when we PLAY these songs, we still operate like a jazz band. Improvising, ensemble flow, building up a head of steam, swing: those are the things that are important to us as musicians and as a band.

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