Count Basie Orchestra presents “Swinging, Singing, Playing: The Count Basie Orchestra Salutes the Jazz Masters,” a 11-track CD that salutes jazz titans as Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Freddie Hubbard and John Coltrane, in addition to such living legends as Bennett, Quincy Jones, Hank Jones, Frank Wess, Jon Hendricks, Curtis Fuller, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock and others.
Produced by Mack Avenue’s executive vice president of A&R Al Pryor and CBO producer / conductor of special projects Dennis Wilson, Count Basie Orchestra achieves just what the CD title boasts: a swinging good time of extraordinary blues-fueled performances that hail various jazz legends. There are top-drawer performances by the big band and its all-star guest list that includes Jones, Wess, Hendricks, Fuller, Geri Allen, Nnenna Freelon, Janis Siegel, Butch Miles, Rufus Reid and, in a nod to the younger generation that embraces Basie music, sparkplug singer/pianist Jamie Cullum. The project will be released on Aug. 25 on Mack Records.
Category: national
Gospel artist VaShawn Mitchell is gearing up for a summertime live CD/DVD recording in Atlanta for his fourth project “Triumphant.”
The project is the Chicago native’s first live recording in his newly adopted home town of Atlanta, Ga. Mitchell describes “Triumphant” as “about victorious living whether it’s in your finances, your personal life, your spiritual life or your overall being. It is imperative to understand that you are more than a conqueror.”
Singers making cameo appearances include: Lowell Pye of Men of Standard, Lisa Page Brooks of the group Witness, and singer Lecresia Campbell.
“Triumphant” recording will take place at 6:00 p.m. August 8 at Higher Living Christian Church (formally New Birth South) at 2455 Mount Carmel Road. Doors will open at 5:00 p.m. For more information, call (678) 479-4990.
Legendary Detroit blues guitarist and singer Johnnie Bassett is set to release “The Gentleman Is Back” June 30 on Sly Dog Records.
Bassett returns to the spotlight after a nine-year hiatus. “The Gentleman Is Back,” is an 11-song set that finds Johnnie, at 72, in prime form as a player and singer. Recorded in Detroit and co-produced by longtime Bassett collaborators Chris Codish and Keith Kaminski, the CD includes a richly rendered cover of the Hoagy Carmichael and Gorrell Stuart standard “Georgia” and a batch of originals penned mostly by Codish and his father, Bob, another regular in the Bassett camp.
According to his bio, Bassett was born in Florida, where his father was a bootlegger during prohibition. Bassett was surrounded by music. His mother, sisters and aunts took him to church and surrounded him with gospel spirituals. But in the summer he’d head out to his grandmother’s famous fish fries, where the likes of Tampa Red, Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Crudup, Lonnie Johnson and others would set up and play while folks ate and danced. He has been on the music scene for more than five decades, amassing a career that’s crossed paths with some of the greatest artists in the field, including John Lee Hooker, Smokey Robinson and Jimi Hendrix.
Johnnie didn’t have to think twice about what “The Gentleman Is Back” would sound like. “I like doing fun music – fun jump music and fun blues music and stuff like that.”