New Albums - Page 201

Backbeat Books has released The Funky Bass Book, compiled and edited by former Bass Player magazine editor Bill Leigh. The 256 page book offers a huge collection of “funked-up wisdom and inspiration”, tracing back to the pioneers of R&B, soul and funk, to the latest hop-hop, neo-soul and Gospel. The book’s forward is by Bootsy Collins. The Funky Bass Book‘s...

Toph-E and the Pussycats have released a new album, No Ordinary Day, featuring Will Lee on bass and vocals. The band’s sound has been described as “R n’ B-bop,” as they play a mix of originals and R&B classics while paying homage to jazz greats such as Art Blakey, Thelonius Monk and Herbie Hancock. The rest of the band includes...

Charlie Haden has just released latest album with Quartet West, entitled Sophisticated Ladies. The title is a play on the Duke Ellington tune, as the 12 tracks feature jazz standards sung by the genre’s best female vocalists, including Cassandra Wilson, Diana Krall, Melody Gardot, Norah Jones, Renée Fleming, and Haden’s wife, Ruth Cameron. Haden, who had a long standing association...

Twelve years after his last album, jazz bassist Michael Formanek has released his fifth CD as a leader, entitled The Rub and the Spare Change. The project started Formanek recruited a few musicians just to play with, and ended up being a recording of his quartet featuring saxophonist Tim Berne, pianist Craig Taborn and drummer Gerald Cleaver. “Beforehand, I just...

Nearly a year and a half after the passing of basketball star and jazz bassist Wayman Tisdale comes the release of his final album, The Fonk Record. The 11-song album was 12 years in the making, with three funk legends lending support, including George Clinton, George Duke and the late Ali Woodson. Tisdale collaborated over those 12 years with Derek...

Jack Bruce has a new DVD out, entitled City of Gold: Live Performances. The 22 minute long DVD is a snapshot of Bruce between two performances over 10 years in 1991 in Sevilla, Spain and 2001 in Donington, UK. Bruce is joined by musicians including Phil Manzanera, Michael Schenker, Uli Roth and others on the four tracks that include “City...

Free improv bassist Joelle Leandre has teamed up with violinist India Cooke for a new album entitled Journey on NoBusiness Records. The new CD contains a real-time improvised performance split into six tracks from a conference called “Improvisation and Identity: Discovering Self and Community in a Trans-Cultural Age,” which was held in Denver, Colorado. Drawing from free jazz, modern classical...

In April, 2010, Jeff Beck won his fifth Grammy award and celebrated with a concert for a small audience at The Grammy Museum in Los Angeles. Beck and his band, including bassist Rhonda Smith performed a mix of songs from Beck’s latest studio album Emotion and Commotion (an album featuring bassist Tal Wilkenfeld), as well as classic Beck tunes. A...

Phish, featuring the groovy Mike Gordon on bass, has released a new concert video, Coral Sky. The 2-DVD set contains over two and a half hours of footage taken from the masterful jam band’s November 2, 1996 performance at the Coral Sky Amphitheater in West Palm Beach, Florida. The show was their only outdoor shed show of the Fall Tour,...

Rock bass legend Lemmy Kilmister and Motörhead have just put out a new DVD, entitled Attack in Switzerland: Live in Concert. The release showcases a performance by the “world’s loudest band” made for Swiss TV at the Open Air Gampel Festival in Wallis, Switzerland in August 2002. Lemmy formed the Motörhead in 1975 after being kicked out of the band...

Electronica bassist Squarepusher, aka Tom Jenkinson, has released his latest project, Shobaleader One: d’Demonstrator. The album, which is a follow-up to last year’s Solo Electric Bass, is the bassist’s 14th to date. According to Squarepusher, Shobaleader One is his new band, which is a first for the bassist who thus far has only used drum machines and programs. In an...

Journalist Anil Prasad has a new book out, featuring contributions from 24 musicians from jazz, rock, world music, hip-hop and electronica. Innerviews: Music Without Borders features essays by each musician, who share their thoughts on the creative process, their careers and goals, conflicts, collaborations and the realities of the music business today. Musicians include Stanley Clarke, Jonas Hellborg, Victor Wooten,...