Well It Took Five and a Half Years...

Scoredog

But goal accomplished...As a successful composer and Groove Jazz guitarist it has been a enlightening journey entering a genre where none of that really mattered. You can be a world class player but if you don't have proper technique and tone production in Gypsy Jazz everyone who is involved with this wonderful music will know. My eventual goal was to learn to play Gypsy Jazz well enough that I could hang with really good players in this genre and then add what I came into this with to form my own sound and vision. I have met many of you along the way and we have become friends and hanging buddies and my life has been enriched by many of you, here on the forum and in person, Bones and Michael H first, then Michael Bauer who taught me about guitars, history and players whom I was not aware of. ****, Buco, Richter, Wim, Christiaan and Denis whom I have learned a lot from...etc. (sorry if i am leaving anyone out). I really enjoy picking up the guitar and playing it now, way more than I used to even at my advancing age. My technique is way better than when I started, as Denis would say Gypsy Jazz is "The Way".

I have after 6 yrs decided to put out my next and possibly last solo album. It features some of the top players from The Groove Jazz World like Rayford Griffin (Jean Luc Ponty, Stanley Clarke etc) Greg Manning (Dave Koz, Mindy Abair etc) and others, and players from the GJ world like Christiaan Van Hemert and Nick Coventry on violin and Ludovic Beier on accordina. I also include my GJ brothers The Idiomatiques on a number of cuts.

Here is a teaser...hope you like!

Best

Craig

https://www.dropbox.com/s/brdk6d8nlgf4wiy/Nouveau Teaser.aif?dl=0

richter4208

Craig, really great post and happy you are sharing a teaser with the world. Thanks so much for taking the time out to share your work with us. Also really appreciate you taking the time to help me out along the way and share you musical insights, slow as I might be to add them in to my playing. Hope to get to jam with you again down the line!

Ps.....love the sunny clip

Jim Kaznosky

Congrats!

Buco

The file won't open on my phone so I'll have to wait to have a listen.
Watching and hearing you get better was inspirational for me (though you were already very advanced guitar player and musician when you picked up GJ), gives me hope that maybe I too still have time to get where I wanna be...as long as I stay in the woodshed.

richter4208

Let us know when you decide on the format for release Score. All the kids are listening to vinyl these days

swiessler

I am looking forward to the album! it really sounds beautiful, and from the teaser a real synthesis of your various musical worlds!

Bones

Can't wait to get it Craig! See you soon...

Buco

Could be that it's by association since I never listened to groove jazz but I like it. Extremely well produced. And man, is that bass fat, so awesome!

Scoredog

Thanks Buco!

When SJazz is done right the production levels are similar to pop records in terms of sound. They are basically instrumental pop hits and the production values are far different than putting up great mics and a great board and lets record a few takes and call it a day. Almost every detail is scrutinized. It is actually somewhat unnatural because that is nowhere how you preform it. Sometimes I like live performances better but the point is to put out the best record possible. I can certainly see why a GJ pursist would have issues with this type of production.

That's Hussain Jiffiry playing Bass on the first 2 segments who mixes, produces and plays bass for Herb Alpert. Kim Collins (Idiomatiques) is the the bassist on the last segment.

Bones

Wow Craig, really enjoyed the (almost) full listen yesterday of the nearly finished product. Super fun album. So much variety. It's definitely going to live in the car (and boat) which is a good thing since that is where I mostly play albums these days. You gotta have it ready for my next road trip, get to work! :-)

Buco

I listened to the few whole tunes. There are so many layers, at the same time every instrument has it's own space and is clearly there in the mix, nothing competes for presence and nothing is too loud but yet it's all there. It's remarkable really.