Jan 21, 2025 7:54 PM
Southern California Fires Hit the Jazz Community
Roy McCurdy and his wife had just finished eating dinner and were relaxing over coffee in their Altadena home, when he…
On October 14, Sanctuary Records released The Illustrated Band, the second studio album from Phish keyboardist Page McConnell’s organ trio, Vida Blue. The Spam Allstars joins the group on the album.
McConnell befriended the Afro-Cuban sextet in Miami last March, sitting in with them at a few local shows. The collaborations sounded good enough to record.
McConnell, with bassist Oteil Burbridge and drummer Russell Batiste, went into the studio last April with the Latin Grammy-nominated Allstars—turntablist DJ Le Spam, timbalist Tomas Diaz, saxophonist AJ Hill, flutist Mercedes Abal, trombonist John Speck and percussionist Lazaro Alfonso.
The sessions went well according to McConnell. “Russell really got off on the Cuban rhythms, and Oteil’s playing some great stuff on this album as well,” he said. “We’d just finished our tour when we went into record, and Russell and Oteil were playing really well together. It was storming.”
The Illustrated Band has four tracks, two of which are more than 20 minutes, combining improvised Afro-Cuban rhythms with turntables and samples. A U.S. tour with both groups is currently in the works.
For more information, visit www.vidablue.net
Gerald and John Clayton at the family home in Altadena during a photo shoot for the June 2022 cover of DownBeat. The house was lost during the Los Angeles fires.
Jan 21, 2025 7:54 PM
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