Mid-Hudson Valley Native Fiona Glenn worked with award-winning composer David Baron on the upcoming single “Don’t Give Up.” On February 26, this motivational piano ballad will release.
At just 16 years old, Fiona Glenn has sung with various artists such as Pete Seeger, Natalie Merchant , and Simi Stone. She even appears throughout David Baron’s Whisperers album, including the title track where she sings the lead vocals.
Watch the “Whisperers” Music Video Here
As a composer, arranger, engineer, and producer, David Baron has worked with some of the most notable musicians. His influential Woodstock sound has merged with Lenny Kravitz, The Lumineers, Shania Twain, Vance Joy, and many more.
With previous experience collaborating, Fiona Glenn and David Baron delved into their new single head-on. “Don’t Give Up” blends Glenn’s rich voice with Baron’s piano performance. Also, the composer integrates a 40-piece orchestra and a throwback rhythm section throughout. The duo’s talent produces a retro-modern production with high fidelity and antique recording gear. As if the single didn’t already have enough expertise featured, the song was even mastered by Chris Athens, whose credits include Drake and The Beastie Boys.
“Don’t Give Up” was written for Baron’s wife, who stood by him during his health issue. Baron wrote these lyrics as a testament to an isolating and hopeless experience. These feelings are probably familiar to many in the circumstances of today. “Don’t Give Up” serves as a light in these times of darkness. Keep a lookout for the new single later this week.
The Eddies Awards show was founded in 2019 by marketing and corporate development director, Jim Murphy and program coordinator, Salvatore Prizio, at Proctors Collaborative. It was created to empower, recognize and celebrate musical professionals in the Capital Region. The show includes performances and award winners from 34 categories.
This is the second rescheduling for the Eddies. It was originally supposed to be held in spring 2020 in front of a live audience at the Proctors MainStage. The pandemic interfered with the first plan and then came the plan to broadcast it from the UPH inDecember. An increase in COVID-19 infections at the end of the year led to the current rescheduling. Prizio believes that the third time is the charm and anticipates the upcoming award show.
The lineup of performers and panelists is to be announced in the coming weeks. They hope that those who were set to be apart of the show in December will be able to commit again. According to Murphy, two Eddies ceremonies are likely to take place this year. There are already organizers about to begin judging for the third awards. The adjudication process is going to be different due to the pandemic and its effect on the local music scene.
The second Eddies Awards is going to filmed by Chromoscope Pictures based in Troy. Collaborative Studios’ will broadcast from their Amazon Fire TV, Roku, Apple TV apps, public access channels in Albany and Schenectady and Youtube and Facebook. The show airs on May 2 at 7 p.m. and can be found for free on-demand after.
Each year, February 1st marks the beginning of Black History Month in the U.S., a time to celebrate African-American heritage and the legacy of extraordinary contributions that they have made to the fabric of our nation. On Wednesday, February 24 at 7pm, Albany’s Palace Theatre will host their annual Black History Month celebration.
Typically, the Palace would be gearing up to host events like the annual Step Show, and educational performances that highlight some of the remarkable African-Americans in our history. While COVID-19 won’t allow us the Albany venue to host these events in person this year, that doesn’t stop the Palace from shining a spotlight on some of the incredibly talented people in our own community.
Wednesday, February 24 will be feature a free virtual evening of art, music, dance and spoken word by some of the most talented Black artists in the Capital Region.
The event is hosted by Diana Perry & Rev William Lynn Hamilton and some of the performers joining The Palace include Move 2B Moved (Drum & Dance team), Poetyc Visionz (Spoken Word / Poetry), Restoration Voices, Tone Setters (Step Team), Barbara Howard, Hayes M. Fields II & Azzaam Hameed, Christian Mark Gibbs and others.
Tune in below on the Palace Theatre’s YouTube channel on Wednesday, February 24 at 7pm.
Brooklyn-based psychedelic rock bank, Acid Dad, are excited to announce their sophomore album – Take It From The Dead. The album is due out June 11, 2021 via Greenway Records / The Reverberation Appreciation Society.
In preparation for the new album, the band has released visuals for the albums first single – “RC Driver.” The video debuted on FLOOD Magazine. Singer-guitarist Vaughn Hunt comments on his inspiration behind the song:
RC Driver is about how I wish I raced cars for a living. All I wanna do is go fast and do stunts. I grew up near a lake, so jet skis are the next closest thing. Ain’t nothing like rippin’ a supercharged Sea-Doo going 90mph on pure glass, baby.
Vaughn Hunt, Singer-guitarist
Acid Dad consists of Trevor Mustoe on drums, Vaughn Hunt and Sean Fahey on vocals and guitar. The band was started in Hunt’s basement in Bushwick, NY – releasing their first single “Brain Body” and EP Let’s Plan a Robbery. Acid Dad quickly rose up through the ranks in the New York rock scene, releasing their debut album to widespread acclaim.
The band spent much of 2020 creating a new studio space in Queens, while building their own guitars and continuing to independently produce their new music. With a new space and vision, the band produced their second LP, Take It From The Dead, set to be co-released in June 2021 by Brooklyn’s Greenway Records and psych powerhouse LEVITATION’s label, The Reverberation Appreciation Society.
Take It From The Dead’s influences range from the likes of 90’s neo-psych, modern post-punk and 70’s rock-n-roll. Acid Dad’s album is innovation, but still shows love for its roots. In contrast to their earlier work, they make use of slower tempos and expand their sound to include songs that are both more intricate and more hypnotic. To accompany the new record, the band spent the last year collaborating with video artist Webb Hunt, producing psych and glitch art videos that form a visual counterpart to the dreamy distortions of their sound.
Addressing past-heartbreaks during the midst of post-Valentine’s Day gloom, Sulene dropped a new indie-pop single off of her upcoming EP, he·don·ic, set to release on March 5.
Photo Credit: Spencer Kohn
I wrote it after I got a text from an ex that he was getting married. I guess I hadn’t thought about this relationship for a long time and it brought up all sorts of things. Sometimes the gift of time and growing up is being able to look back and sorta see things differently, more clearly. I found myself feeling angry. My friend group is really close with this person so I constantly hear about him, and I’d always act like it doesn’t bother me even though I felt hurt by the things that had happened surrounding our breakup. I wrote this song after that text and I guess I stopped pretending that I feel the same way all my friends feel and just said my truth.
Sulene, on “i still think you’re so fake”
The definition behind the EP’s title, he·don·ic, implies that the album as a whole relates to pleasant or unpleasant sensations, a theme that is present in the newest single. The topic of past heartbreak is never easy for an artist to revisit, and even harder to express through song. Sulene cites a painful and difficult process behind he·don·ic, but also a liberating aspect to exploring new music styles and providing closure. You can stream her newest single, “I still think you’re so fake” here on platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music.
CBGB wasn’t the only club/scene to birth a new musical genre in the low-rent, dirty and deliciously dangerous Downtown NYC of the mid- to late-1970s. Alongside the wannabe punks, there were a slew of fiercely talented young jazz immigrants from St. Louis, Chicago and beyond who worked to make free jazz even freer than Coleman and Coltrane. They plied their exploratory path not at traditional clubs but a series of short-lived, musician-led NYC loft scene like Coltrane drummer Rashid Ali’s Studio 77, Studio We, The Ladies’ Fort and, most notably, Studio RivBea, founded by saxman Sam Rivers and his wife Bea.
New York’s so-called Loft Jazz scene would launch the careers of many luminaries who would define jazz’s more creative edge in the post-Coltrane era. These included Muhal Richard Abrams, Anthony Braxton, Henry Threadgill, David Murray, Arthur Blythe, Butch Morris, Lester Bowie, Oliver Lake and Julius Hemphill to name but a few.
Their music was technically accomplished, exploratory, impulsive, spiritual and often politically-minded. It could flow from angry and dissonant to heavenly melodic, all in the space of a few bars. It had elements of jazz, modern classical, folk, world music and more. It also utilized instruments not often associated with jazz, like the oboe and cello. The intimacy of the scene led to much cross pollination among the players. This is something reflected in a bold new release from the archives of Michael Gregory Jackson, a versatile innovator and guitarists’ guitarist who first came to light in the scene.
One look at the list of progressive jazz guitar all-stars who have named Michael Gregory Jackson as an influence demonstrates the continued resonance and relevance of his four-decades of exceptionally creative music-making.
“Michael Gregory Jackson has long been one of my favorite musicians,” said Pat Metheny. “I always considered him one of the most significantly original guitars of our generation, with his own distinctive sound and point of view.”
Bill Frisell adds: “I first heard Michael Gregory Jackson in 1975 when I moved to Boston. He blew my mind and influenced me a lot. I believe he’s one of the unsung innovators.”
Frequency Equilibrium Koanis an authentic document of the without-a-net creativity and exhuberance of no-hold-barred this era. It is a performance of four lengthy compositions recorded by Jackson on his trusty Sony cassette machine in 1977 at The Ladies’ Fort. It finds the then 23-year-old guitarist leading a quartet featuring saxophonist Julius Hemphill, drummer Pheeroan akLaff and cellist Abdul Wadud.
Hemphill was one of the true giants of the era, perhaps best known for his work with the World Saxophone Quartet alongside Oliver Lake, who helped launch Jackson’s career in a quartet which also included akLaff.
A little like Hendrix before him, cellist Wadud literally reinvented his instrument for a new musical genre. With furious plucking, bowing and percussives, it became a tool of jazz that would skirt the territory between groove-keeping acoustic bass, a soaring solo instrument and drum. Wadud and Hemphill were frequent collaborators. One of their best performances together is on “Hard Blues,” from Hemphill’s 1975 album Coon Bid’ness.
Jackson’s new/old album kicks off with the nine-plus minute title track. After a fragmentary head, the piece moves into improvisation, with Hemphill coming to the fore with a long forceful tenor solo. At times, the improvisation becomes collective, a kind of outré New Orleans ragtime. Jackson’s bag of tricks is on full display here – volume swells, detuned swooshery, bleeps, slides and long tricky melodic lines, a blend of Cubist post-bebop and twelve-tone classical. Wadud plucks and bows away, creating both rhythmic pulse and solo lines that dance off his partners’ musical conversation.
The next track, “Heart and Center,” is a radical extension of what would become the title offering for Jackson’s wonderfully diversified 1979 album of the same name. This is as straight-ahead as this album gets, with Hemphill again out of the gate on a solo charge. Jackson leads the way with choppy irregular chording that provides a rich harmonic backdrop for Hemphill and his own soloing. Again, the flavor here is improvisation that is collective, with lots of call-and-response. As usual, akLaff keeps it all moving, with jungle like tom tom heavy percussion.
“Clarity 3” is the most challenging listening experience in the set. It begins with akLaff’s circular swirl of percussion, which leads to a solo spotlight for Wadud. With Hemphill and Jackson’s entry, the music comes to a fast boil then overflows. It’s jazz roller coaster, with the instruments almost seeming to merge into one howl at times. In the last minute, Jackson finds and rides a broad chord that sounds like a car horn, together with Wadud’s cello groans. The album ends on a mellow tone with “A Meditation.” Hemphill sits this one out and Jackson forsakes his trusty 1961 Gibson SG for a bamboo flute. It’s a wind down of chill temple bells and malleted cymbals, bowed cello and modal flute melody, an East Asian-flavored sunset brought to the dark and dirty Downtown NYC of the 1970s.
In the liner notes to the album, guitar master Bill Frisell observes:
These guys are all heroes of mine. I’ve learned so much and am still learning from all of them. To hear them all together like this is a real gift. What a combo! I can’t believe this happened more than 40 years ago. It sounds like the future. I’m so thankful the tape was running to document this extraordinary moment.
Like many good things in New York City, the loft jazz scene was killed by the rising rents that came with gentrification. For more detail on this vibrant scene, read Michael Heller’s Loft Jazz: Improvising New York in the 1970s. For a great sampling of the musicians and the scene, check out Wildflowers: The New York Loft Jazz Sessions. This five album/three CD set captures edge-pushing performances by many of loft jazz’s leading lights over nine days at Studio RivBea in May 1976. For more about Jackson, see our review of his jazz suite for Nelson Mandela, Change or purchase the album on Bandcamp
Key Tracks: Heart and Center, Frequency Equilibrium Koan
D’Angelo will hold a Verzuz DJ battle against unnamed “friends,” taking place on February 27 at 8 pm EST, at the historical Apollo Theater in Harlem.
(Photo by Cheryl Gerber/Invision/AP, File)
He announced another episode of Verzuz, an online DJ-battle series, in which artists face off their contemporaries. The competition is fun, friendly, and fans cheer on artists as they DJ hit songs against each other. Previous sets have included Alicia Keys vs. John Legend. Beginning during lockdown, Verzuz has become a staple respite for music fans everywhere. The notoriously reclusive artist, D’Angelo, who champions quality over quantity will take the stage at the Apollo Theater for the first time since 2014.
D’Angelo will be challenging several guests at his performance, which expands the online show to a larger spectacle. Due to his sparse public performances, rumors have arisen of new music, although the artist has released one album in 21 years.
In the early 1990s, D’Angelo exploded onto the “new retro soul” scene with artists such as Erykah Badu. His 2000 hit album, Voodoo, catapulted him into the spotlight, and he retracted, rarely playing shows. The next D’Angelo album did not come to fruition until 2014, and he vanished from the public eye quickly after a supporting tour. On that tour, it was the last time D’Angelo played the Apollo Theater. This return is long anticipated, and you can stream it on February 27 at 8pm EST through Verzuz.
Electronica pioneers Daft Punk, who are responsible for some of the most well known dance and pop songs of the past two decades, announced their break up. Their retirement was announced to the world in a video titled “Epilogue,” posted on the morning of February 22.
Daft Punk is an electronic due that started back in Paris in 1993. The duo consists of Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter; they are known for being influential members of the electronic dance genre helping create the French touch style of house music. Their sound combines elements of house music with funk, techno, disco, rock and synth pop. They are known for wearing their ornate helmets and gloves to assume robot personas for most of their public appearances. Some of their most known songs include “One More Time,” “Harder, Faster, Better, Stronger,” “Get Lucky,” and “Around the World.”
https://youtu.be/udvYSd2TIkg
Their announcement video “Epilogue,” was an excerpt from their 2006 film Electroma and was posted to their website and social media accounts. The video is eight minutes long and features the two in full costume silently walking away from each other in a vast sandy landscape with one of them blowing up and then sliding into music with the caption saying 1993-2021 with a setting sun on the horizon.
Kathryn Frazier, who was the duo’s long time publicist, has officially confirmed the split to Variety. Frazier declined to provide further details behind the duo’s disbandment and retirement at this time.
https://youtu.be/LYuD9ydQr3w
It is still unknown if the duo will be working together under different names or whether other new projects are in the works. Considering the group’s history of popping back out of the woodworks, fans hope they will continue to release music, videos and whatever other projects strike their fancy. We hope the era isn’t truly over. Some wonder if this announcement is in fact the beginning of a new project.
For the time being, Daft Punk has called it quits. For more information on it visit the duo’s website.
In episode 112, the community answers a simple question: “Favorite Moments At Flour City Station andddd Go!” Ben Albert, Host of Rochester Groovecast, posed this question on Facebook, reached to many people, and brought together a large collection of Flour City Station memories. Ben shares some of his insights, shares recordings of guest-submitted memories, and reads off the rest of the amazing collection.
Flour City Station is located at 170 East Avenue in Rochester, a town steeped in music tradition, from the Eastman School of Music just down the street, to the longstanding music festivals such as the Jazz Festival, East End Fest, Fringe Fest and Party in the Park.
Aqueous, April 4, 2018 at FCS – photo by Jake Silco
Flour City Station (FCS) provides patrons with a unique and friendly environment for enjoying the best live music Rochester has to offer. With a state-of-the-art sound system, FCS caters to a wide base of genres of music featuring both local performers and nationally touring acts. The safe environment and friendly staff keep customers coming back for the friendly social atmosphere where they can catch up with old friends, meet new ones, and enjoy premium live music. At FCS, they’re simply all about the bands, the fans and the experience.
At Rochester Groovecast, the mantra “We’re Fans First!” harnesses the belief that the best businesses are built by fans. The podcast is deeply dedicated to playing an active role in the culture of its local scene.
The brainchild of Rochester native, Ben Albert, was created in 2016 to serve as a portfolio of the city, and nowadays, the entire region.
The podcast believes in the artistic brilliance abundant in Rochester, NY, and the surrounding regions. Ben seeks to play a pivotal role in our community by helping give Rochester a well-earned voice. He has seen first hand the abundance of talent, character, creativity, innovation, and beauty the Flour City has continuously offered.
1 year ago today on February 21st 2020, America played a sold out show at The Tilles Center on the LIU Post campus in Brookville, Long Island. This was the first show of the bands 50th Anniversary tour celebrating the release of their 1971 self titled album.
“A Horse With No Name,” originally titled “Desert Song” was released in the US a few weeks before the album came out and sold over a million copies being awarded a gold disc by the RIAA. The album went platinum shortly after. The band was opening for acts like The Who, Elton John, Pink Floyd and worked with Beatles producer George Martin from 1974-1979.
The show was filled with hit after hit spanning through their 50 year and counting career. Gerry and Dewey sounded just as good today as they did when they started harmonizing 50 years ago. Songs from the setlist included “Tin Man,” “Ventura Highway,” “Sister Golden Hair” as well as a covers of The Beatles “Eleanor Rigby” and The Mamas & Papas “California Dreamin’.” The 18 song set concluded with “A Horse With No Name.”
The band’s current lineup includes original founding members Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell, as well as Ryland Steen on drums, Steve Fekete on guitar and Richard Campbell on bass. The tour continues across United States and Canada until July when they head to Europe for shows in France, the U.K. and Germany. You can see all the tour dates here.
There is also a biography about the band written by Jude Warne, titled America The Band: An Authorized Biography that is available now.
Setlist: Tin Man, You Can Do Magic, Don’t Cross The River, Daisy Jane, Riverside, I Need You, Here, Ventura Highway, Eleanor Rigby, Cornwall Blank, Hollywood, The Border, Woman Tonight, Only In Your Heart, California Dreamin, Lonely People, Sandman, Sister Golden Hair, A Horse With No Name
