News - Page 278

Mark Egan (Pat Metheny Group, Sting, Arcadia, Roger Daltry and Joan Osborne) is showing off his stellar fretless bass chops on About Now, his seventh album. Egan, a contemporary jazz composer, recorded the instrumental album as part of a trio featuring Danny Gottlieb on drums and Mitchel Forman on keyboards, both musicians with whom he has recorded before — Gottlieb...

Linley Marthe, the bass virtuoso from Mauritius, has teamed up with vocalist Monika Njava in the new world music/jazz hybrid group, Island Jazz, which has released its . Njava sings in English and several dialects of Malagasy, the language of her home country, Madagascar, which lies west of the island of Maruitius — the birthplace of the now Paris-based Marthe,...

R.E.M. was the only band to ever headline MTV’s acoustic “Unplugged” series twice, and now both those performances — from 1991 and 2001 – are available in a . The 1991 performances features the entire original band — vocalist Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry, while the 2001 performance occurred after Berry left the...

Down has followed up the 2012 EP Down IV, Part One, fittingly enough with the 6-song set, . The group, which includes pedigrees from Pantera and Corrosion of Conformity, features a new guitarist, Bobby Landgraf. And the new EP, recorded at bandleader Philip Anselmo’s New Orleans home studio, also known as “Nodferatu’s Lair,” is full of the heavy riff the...

Legendary jazz funk band Incognito is back with its 16th studio album, , and as the records have since 2005, the lineup features phenomenal bassist Francis Hylton (Chaka Khan, Lulu, Miki Imai.) Although Incognito is 16 albums into their long career, the band’s sound remains as vibrant as ever, as the single “Hats (Make Me Wanna Holler)” – featuring Tony...

Judith Owen’s latest album, , evokes the sounds of 1970’s singer-songwriter troubadours, so it’s just fitting that bass legend Leland Sklar, who played on James Taylor’s “You’ve Got a Friend,” Jackson Browne’s “The Pretender” and countless other hits, is providing the low end on the record. Owen, a jazz-rock singer and her band, which also includes superstar sidemen Russ Kunkel...

Snarky Puppy lovers, a cool thing is about to happen for you — the group’s bassist, Michael League, has produced, arranged, played on, and even released the debut album of the band’s UK-based keyboardist Bill Laurance. The album, Flint, on League’s GroundUP label, is available in a CD/DVD combo set, which is not only filled with great music, but also...

WAMI (White Appice Mendoza Iggy) – the new supergroup featuring Doogie White (Rainbow, Yngwie Malmsteen), Vinnie Appice (Black Sabbath, Heaven & Hell, Dio), Marco Mendoza (Thin Lizzy, Whitesnake) and 16-year-old Polish newcomer Iggy Gwadera (Anti Tank Nun) on guitar – has released its debut album, . Mendoza, who was the first to connect with the young guitarist, calls the album...

Paul McCartney’s “Out There” Tour is set to hit the U.S. this summer. The U.S. leg opens June 14 with McCartney’s first-ever performance in Lubbock, Texas, hometown of rock and roll icon Buddy Holly. McCartney, who requested to play the city, is a well-known fan of Holly’s work and owns Holly’s music publishing catalog. The Lubbock show and dates in...

Together with Bob Marley, The Wailers changed the face of popular music by fusing reggae with rock, pop, and soul elements. Marley’s death in 1981 rocked the music community, but the band kept playing under the leadership of bassist Aston “Family Man” Barrett. The group is now on tour in celebration of the 30th anniversary of Legend, a greatest hits...

Big Sir, the avant-pop experimental group anchored by bassist Juan Alderete (The Mars Volta, Racer X) and vocalist Lisa Papineau, is back with with its first album in two years, , which is primarily a digital hardcore take on 2012’s Before Gardens After Gardens. The only completely new song on the album is the track “Foucault’s Gold.” Alderete says on...

“There’s a reason why a singular artistic vision has a value to it,” says Randall Wyn Fullmer of Wyn Guitars, in the trailer for Restrung, a documentary about Fullmer, whose hand-crafted electric basses are beloved by some of music’s top players. The film by Mike Enns (who also plays bass) tells the story of Fullmer, who walked away from an...