Adam’s 2011 Jazz Mafia Recap
including Favorite albums of 2011 picked by Jazz Mafia members, favorite youtube picks and a full listing of albums and related releases featuring Jazz Mafia that have come out in 2011.
Posted on 12/16/2011
Happy Holidays music lovers! As 2011 winds down, Jazz Mafia is celebrating our 11 Year Anniversary. I’ll do my best to fill you in for this week:
*As we celebrate Jazz Mafia’s 11 Year Anniversary, we’ll look back at the some of our favorite Album releases of 2011 and also some of our top Youtube/video pics.
*There’s lots of Collabs and new releases happening that we’ll fill you in on.
*Extensive shows listing as always.
First off, we’re super excited to have 2 more important shows before the end of the year – The Shotgun Wedding Quintet returns to my and Dublin’s hometown of Sebastopol this weekend to play Hopmonk, one of the best clubs in the Bay Area! We’ll be joined by a opening set from our homies ACTIV808 (Radioactive w/ 808 Band). They are really good! Then, on Dec 23rd a large part of our crew will come together to celebrate our 11 Year Anniversary at Brick and Mortar Music Hall in the Mission. See the details below for all the info but we’re very excited to have so many of our bands under one roof plus some surprise special guests! Whoo Hoo!
Tis the season for collaborating, recording and cozying up in a warm studio to create new music for y’all. In addition to some new releases, we’ve got a lot going on that will be coming out in early 2012:
The Shotgun Wedding Quintet is working on numerous live and music videos over the next few weeks including a session of unreleased Cab Calloway Remixes from our Tribute earlier this year. We’re going into Bird and Egg Studio (one of our faves) and recording audio/video LIVE. We’ll have some of that for you in the first few weeks of January.
I’ve been having fun working as usual, with dozens of my favorite artists and getting to experiment, trying all sorts of new things on recordings. Many times a week I’ve been getting hit up with talented folks asking me for horns for an album or for a few songs; many folks are looking for strings too, which I really enjoy writing and even recording here at JM Headquarters (ie: The Velvet Teen “Elysium”, Headnodic “Red Line Radio” and Amplive/Jazz Mafia “Goblin Remixes” are a few that came out really nice.)
Anyway, recent tracks I’ve been doing include 2 HOT ones for a new release from Raashan Ahmad (vocalist from Crown City Rockers); I got to do a really fun track for Blackalicious virtuoso vocalist Gift of Gab called “So So” which is actually my trumpet debut (ahaha, no auto-tune tho!)…that one’s produced by Headnodic and should be out in early 2012. Some other artists I’ve been working on horn stuff for include: Rupa & The April Fishes, Martin Luther, James Harries, Mykah Nyne, Peter Bagale, Amp Live& Eligh, Get Dead, Baby James… I’m looking forward to the record I did with Ledesi and Chief Excel from Blackalicious which has been done for most of the last year but is still unreleased. The project is called LOUDSPEAKER. I have a feeling they’re waiting to release it since she just dropped another solo album thats doing really well. Can’t wait! This is some seriously great music. You can see us recording a little of it HERE.
Joe Bagale has finished his long awaited 2nd album. It’s currently being mastered and is sounding incredible. I had the pleasure of recording on numerous tracks, some of which alongside Mike Olmos, and some doing lots of trombone multi-tracking that I like to do so much. We’ll keep you posted as to the exact release date but I’d imagine it will be in early 2012.
Jazz Mafia Symphony has been working hard on finishing recording the epic 75 minutes of music that we wrote in collaboration for the Emperoro Norton Suite. It’s about 2/3 done now and the rest will be recorded in the next few weeks with a release in early 2012. Lookout!
There’s a few great RELATED PROJECTS to tell you about:
Jazz Mafia Reedman Evan Francis has a killer new record called “Crazy Skeleton”. The record has create a good buzz and you can read a well-written review of it in the East Bay Express HERE.
Longtime Jazz Mafia Bass Trombonist Jamie Dubberly has released his solo album and it’s super good. It’s a latin jazz album entitled ”Road Warrior”, with his band “Orquesta Dharma”.
JM violinist and bandleader Anthony Blea is featured on a really unique new project led by Bassist/Composer Sacha Jacobsen called “Musical Art Quintet”. They just released their first album “Nuevo Chamber” . The project also features our homies Charith Premarwardhana and Jory Fankuchen. I’ve seen these guys live and it’s some of my favorite acoustic music I’ve heard this year. Highly recommended. You can get the album at HERE.
If you haven’t heard “Redline Radio” by Headnodic (form Crown City Rockers) DO IT. You can stream the whole album HERE. Many tracks feature Jazz Mafia Horns and even some spots by Aima The Dreamer and Anthony Blea as well as a who’s who of Bay Area Legends. I love this record and I’m really proud of what we were able to do together.
Other important releases featuring the Jazz Mafia from 2011 include:
Eric Lindell “West County Drifter”
Thomas Dolby “A Map of a Floating City” Eligh & Amplive “Therapy at 3″ Looking back at 2011: I asked the members of Jazz Mafia to send me some of their favorite album and youtube pics for 2011. Here’s a few:
Albums Evan Francis- Crazy Skeleton
Alan Ferber- Music for nonet and strings
Shotgun Wedding Quintet- Tales from the Barbary Coast
David Murray Cuban Ensemble- Plays Nat King Cole
Papo Vazquez- Pirates Troubadors from the badlands
Stevie Wonder “Live at the Rainbow 74″ Bootleg
Headnodic “Redline Radio”
Jeremy Kittel “Chasing Sparks
Marvin Diz “Habla El Tambor”
Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band “Legacy”
Joy Kills Sorrow “This Unknown Science”
Shabazz Palaces “Black Up”
Dimlite “My Human Wears Acedia Shreds”
TAKE “Only Mountain”
Mophono “Cut Form Crush”
Meshell Ndegeocello “Weather”
Del McCoury Band & Preservation Hall “American Legacies”
Tune- Yards WhoKill
Adele- 21
Coldplay- Mylo Xyloto
Mumford & Sons- Sigh No More
Maroon 5- Hands All Over
Youtube picks
Headnodic feat. Latyrx: Move on Up
Congrats to Jm violinist Shaina Evoniuk who will be heading out on a 4 month World Tour with the popular violin group Barrage. Barrage is an intense showcase of 5 incredibly talented young, versatile violin players who are backed by an equally versatile rock band. Shaina got the call for the gig less than a month ago, she rearranged her life and BAM! Now she’s learning 30 songs, 2 hours of the most intense music out there, for the first show that is only a few weeks away, which is a live televised show in China for over 250,000 people. Oh and all 30 songs need to be memorized! Whoo! Unfortunately they won’t be playing the Bay Area, or California for that matter but check her website www.shainaevoniuk.com for updates, blogs and where she will be hitting on the tour which starts Jan 6th in China.
Thanks for reading – We hope you have a wonderful holiday season!
Adam Theis and the Jazz Mafia
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