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…
BMG’s adult music division, The RCA Victor Group, has signed the contemporary instrumental supergroup Fourplay to the Bluebird label. Fourplay—Bob James (keyboards), Nathan East (bass), Harvey Mason (drums) and Larry Carlton (guitar)—are currently recording a new album to be released in summer 2002 and followed by a world tour.
Together and individually, Fourplay have been at the top of the pop, rock and jazz charts for the past three decades, earning an international reputation as “America’s Contemporary Jazz Supergroup.” The group’s members have collaborated with such artists as John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Phil Collins, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Barbra Streisand, Joni Mitchell, Elton John, James Taylor, Stevie Wonder, Seal, Babyface and Steely Dan, among many others.
“Bob, Harvey, Nathan and Larry are four of the most dazzling musicians we’ve ever had the privilege of working with,” commented David Weyner, Executive Vice President, General Manager of The RCA Victor Group. “Fourplay are a musical franchise and global market leaders who we are delighted to welcome to the Bluebird family. Everyone at BMG and RCA Victor Group look forward to a long creative and commercial future with our friends in Fourplay.”
For e-mail updates and information regarding Bluebird artists, promotions, tours, and repertoire, visit www.bluebirdjazz.com.
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
Roy McCurdy and his wife had just finished eating dinner and were relaxing over coffee in their Altadena home, when he…
“She said, ‘A lot of people are going to try and stop you,’” Sheryl Bailey recalls of the advice she received from jazz guitarist Emily Remler (1957–’90). “‘They’re going to say you slept with somebody, you’re a dyke, you’re this and that and the other. Don’t listen to them, and just keep playing.’”
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In the April 1982 issue of People magazine, under the heading “Lookout: A Guide To The Up and Coming,” jazz…
The Old Country: More From The Deer Head Inn arrives 30 years after ECM issued the Keith Jarret Trio live album At The Deer Head Inn.
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Last November, Keith Jarrett, who has not played publicly since suffering two strokes in 2018, greenlighted ECM to drop…
“With jazz I thought it must be OK to be Black, for the first time,” says singer Sofia Jernberg.
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On Musho (Intakt), her recent duo album with pianist Alexander Hawkins, singer Sofia Jernberg interprets traditional…
“The first recording I owned with Brazilian music on it was Wayne Shorter’s Native Dancer,” says Renee Rosnes. “And then I just started to go down the rabbit hole.”
Jan 16, 2025 2:02 PM
In her four-decade career, Renee Rosnes has been recognized as a singular voice, both as a jazz composer and a…
