According to a recent news release, Burning Ghosts is a politically motivated quartet at the forefront of the jazz-metal underground featuring four of the most acclaimed musicians in the L.A. experimental music scene. Playing scorching instrumentals that touch on heavy metal and jazz, the music is uncompromising and intense, filled with precise rhythmic complexity and textural power. Their first release on Tzadik is an incendiary blockbuster and is destined to become an instant classic!
dick clark productions and Lovepop announced in a news release that Lovepop will create original 3D popup cards to reveal the “2017 Billboard Music Awards” winners during the awards ceremony. Each card will be one-of-a-kind paper art, designed exclusively for the winning artist and unveiled by the award presenter. This special card reveal will replace the traditional envelope opening.
Lovepop, a maker of hand-crafted, intricately designed cards, is best known for its 3D paper sculptures. After appearing on “Shark Tank” in late 2015, Creators Wombi Rose and John Wise — along with the guidance of businessman and Shark Tank’s Mr. Wonderful, Kevin O’Leary — went on to launch a thriving business providing customers with artistic greetings that create an emotional and personal connection between two people.
In advance of the awards show, Lovepop, the Billboard Music Awards and Lovepop investor Kevin O’Leary invited ABC’s “Shark Tank” cameras back into the design studio to get an insider’s look at the process of drafting, sketching and prototyping the “2017 Billboard Music Award” winner cards. “Shark Tank” will show a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the “2017 Billboard Music Awards” cards on at 9 p.m. Eastern time / 6 p.m. Pacific time Friday, May 5 on ABC. The finished designs will be revealed for the first time to artists and fans during the “2017 Billboard Music Awards,” broadcast live at 8 p.m. Eastern time / 5 p.m. Pacific time May 21 on ABC.
For more information, visit www.billboardmusicawards.com or the Billboard hub at www.billboard.com/bbma.
Pianist/composer Emily Bear, 15, has achieved the kinds of accolades and triumphs that take many artists a lifetime to accomplish. She’s performed at the most prestigious venues across the country and around the world, received numerous awards and honors, composed for film and television, made six appearances on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, garnered 30 million views on YouTube, played at the White House, Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, been mentored by the legendary Quincy Jones – and that’s only a partial list.
Now, with the release of Into the Blue, Bear brings us new original jazz compositions performed with her trio. The album comprises five of her original compositions plus a warm, graceful take on “My Favorite Things” that hints at the immortal John Coltrane version before veering off into dazzling variations. Exuding Bear’s own exuberant passion for music, Into the Blue is both accessible and appealing for listeners of any age.
Bear follows the chart topping success of her first album, Diversity–produced by her long time mentor, Quincy Jones–with this inspiring collection of new melodies. Her agility on the piano is matched by her skill in creating stylistic compositions – catchy, intelligent, and sophisticated.
Bear has composed and arranged for orchestra, written for film and commercials. And while she continues to expand her musical palette, jazz holds a special place in her heart. “What I love so much about jazz is that you have a lot more freedom than in classical music,” Bear says. “Jazz has a groove that doesn’t show up in any other kind of music and I enjoy using all my musical influences to create a unique sound, familiar yet new.”
Critically acclaimed pianist and composer Kris Davis has released her newest album, Duopoly, on Pyroclastic Records. The album consists of 16 tracks with eight different highly regarded improvisers. Each musician performs two pieces alongside Davis, one composed and the other completely improvised. For Duopoly, Davis chose to work with musicians whom she had never worked with in a recording studio. They are: guitarists Bill Frisell and Julian Lage, pianists Craig Taborn and Angelica Sanchez, drummers Billy Drummond and Marcus Gilmore, and reed players Tim Berne and Don Byron.
The CD comes with a DVD of live performances of each piece performed by Davis and collaborator. Davis explains in a news release, “We also chose to make a visual record, which we hoped would be as live and uncompromising as the music. Shot by Mimi Chakarova with one fixed camera and one handheld, the goal was for this film to have a kind of 1:1 or indexical relationship to the music itself.”
Davis continues her celebratory Duopoly tour tonight at Kennedy Center Millennium Stage in Washington DC, with pianist, and album collaborator, Craig Taborn. The tour will continue through mid-October.
Since his emergence onto the scene in 1989, composer/soprano saxophonist Rob Reddy has established himself as an adventurous and original leader in the contemporary jazz realm. Prolific, eclectic and versatile, Reddy is recognized by musicians, critics, and funding institutions. With his new recording Citizen Quintet, Reddy adds another powerful milestone to his reputation. Citizen Quintet is his eighth album where Reddy is again fully within his own territory and in the company of a superb group of musicians — trumpeter John Carlson, guitarist Brandon Ross, double bassist Dom Richards and drummer Pheeroan akLaff — all regular collaborators of his for more than 20 years.
“El Viaje (The Journey),” the title track of Cuban pianist and composer Harold López-Nussa’s debut release on Mack Avenue Records, seems to sway gently like a boat in the water – as if readying for a voyage or returning to port after arrival – trumpet and voices whispering memories. This scene aptly describes López-Nussa’s experiences of traveling throughout the world, yet always finding his way back to his hometown of Havana, Cuba. This journey of body and spirit has led simultaneously to a musical exploration where he visits various genres and ideas while staying true to his foundational roots.
The release of López-Nussa’s music stateside is a significant postscript to President Obama’s recent trip to Havana. The conservatory-trained pianist is the first Cuba-based musician (he has dual citizenship in both Cuba and France) to release an album internationally since the lifting of many of the restrictions associated with the longstanding trade embargo. States Mack Avenue Records President Denny Stilwell in a recent news release, “Harold follows in the modern day tradition of exemplary Cuban pianists who have recorded and toured internationally. We feel he is an emerging artist with immense creative potential to breakthrough.”
El Viaje features The Harold López-Nussa Trio with younger brother Ruy Adrián López-Nussa on drums and percussion and from Senegal, Alune Wade on bass and vocals. This trio is augmented on certain tracks with guests including his father Ruy Francisco López-Nussa on drums, Mayquel González on trumpet and flugelhorn, and Dreiser Durruthy and Adel González on percussion.
López-Nussa, who collaborated with Wade on the 2015 album Havana-Paris-Dakar, said: “Having a non-Cuban musician on this recording speaks to our contact with other cultures. Especially with African culture, which is so far from ours geographically and yet so close. Every time we play, I believe we enter into a journey we are creating,” he says, speaking from his home in Havana.
“Ever since I was a kid, since I began to study piano, music, I have tried; I have searched for that journey of the mind, always traveling with music. I remember that I started playing ‘El Viaje’ while on tour as a way of feeling closer to home, and when I’m here, it’s also a way for my mind to travel.”
López-Nussa has moved with ease between the classical, popular and jazz music worlds. A quick look at his experiences reveal a recording of Heitor Villa-Lobos´ “Fourth Piano Concerto” with Cuba’s National Symphony Orchestra (2003) but also winning the First Prize and Audience Prize of the Jazz Solo Piano Competition at the Montreux Jazz Festival, Switzerland, in 2005. He was part of projects as diverse as Ninety Miles (a recording with David Sánchez, Christian Scott and Stefon Harris) and Esencial (an album of compositions by revered Cuban classical guitarist, composer and conductor Leo Brouwer), both in 2011.
As for his popular music and on-the-job training, he was part of projects such as the Cuba volume of Rhythms del Mundo, which paired him with veterans from Buena Vista Social Club and he spent three years in the touring band of singer Omara Portuondo, an opportunity he calls “a blessing.” He has distilled all those experiences not only into a rich, personal style, as a player and composer, but it infused López-Nussa with an engaging attitude about making and sharing music.
Billboard Magazine chart-topping recording artist Charles Jenkins is stepping out of his musical pulpit with his first solo album “Think About These Things” (Inspired People), an urban mainstream set that hits store shelves and digital platforms on Friday.
Jenkins is best know for some of the biggest gospel hits in the last five years – “Awesome” (22 weeks) and “War” (5 weeks) with Fellowship Chicago.
The 10-track “Think About These Things” was produced by Jenkins and Grammy Award winning producer Warryn Campbell (Kanye West, Alicia Keys, Mary Mary). The album is full of motivating messages Jenkins calls #positiveair.
“I wanted to lift people up with a different sound and spread some #positiveair on the radio airwaves,” says Jenkins in a recent news release. “There’s so much bad news, negativity, violence and hopelessness in the world right now that we just wanted to send out some encouragement and remind everyone that they can win and be upbeat in this thing called life.”
The first radio single is the hypnotically catchy “Winning.” The uplifting anthem of hope and determination was the second most added song on the Urban Adult Contemporary radio the week of its release. Jenkins’ other thought-provoking songs have inspired a casual wear clothing line that can be viewed at www.inspiredpeopleclothing.
Brandon Camphor & OneWay, has earned its third Billboard Top 30 Gospel AirPlay hit within two years with the new anthem “His Name.” The inspiring song of praise debuted at No. 30 two weeks ago and continues to build momentum at radio. “His Name,” a digital EP featuring a radio edit and a karaoke track, is available for pre-order on iTunes and will officially release to all major digital retailers on Dec. 4.
The group will perform “His Name “ live on the Word Network’s two-hour primetime cable television program “Rejoice in the Word” at 8:30 p.m. Eastern time Dec. 4 (Check local television listings for channel). Fans can also watch the show online at www.thewordnetwork.org
A Washington, D.C., area native, Camphor formed OneWay in 2007 with singers Angela Jones, Julia McMillan, and Fred Cleveland. Their debut album “Regeneration” was released in 2009. With Pop-flavored shades of rock and funk, the inspiring songs of faith and worship included fan favorites “It’s Possible (Gotta Have Faith)” and “Bless the Lord.”
The group won Music World Gospel and the Gospel Music Channel’s “The Most Powerful Voices Competition” in 2011 and in 2012, Camphor launched the “Jesus Rock: Live It Loud” college tour that found OneWay touring with Tye Tribbett, Kierra Sheard and Group1Crew. Camphor has also been a soloist on the Grammy Award winning Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir’s “Love Lead the Way” and “Pray” albums. In 2014, OneWay hit the Billboard Gospel Airplay chart for the first time with the track “You Are God.” OneWay is now putting the finishing touches on its sophomore album “Hope Is Alive,” tentatively scheduled for a spring 2016 release.
Contemporary smooth jazz guitarist Ken Navarro performs his No. 1 hit single “Juliet” from his 2015 album “Unbreakable Heart.” For more information about Ken, go to http://www.kennavarro.com/.