DreamWeaver

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共13首歌曲

艺人: George Duke
语种: 英语
厂牌: Heads Up
发行时间: 2013年07月16日
专辑类别: 录音室专辑

专辑介绍

We take tangible and intangible elements from the known world and combine them with elements from the spiritual world in order to reach deeper levels of understanding between the two. We spin undeveloped yarn of ideas into reality - it is the ultimate act of creating something from nothing in this world. In short, we are the storytellers and conduits of possibilities. The best of us are those that weave deeper levels of yarn thus giving the fabric more depth. That doesn't necessarily mean that more complexity is better for many times the simplest fabric conveys the strongest meaning. The important thing is intent, message, execution and honesty of design and in that I have always tried to hold my stead. Thus my musical fabric is diverse with multiple levels. That is the way of life and definitely the way I roll, so enjoy the ride … as Cannon used to say - "”Ahoom”:

1. DreamWeaver - I wanted to begin the album with almost nothing – a sound – a timbre and begin weaving the fabric of the album from that.

2. Stones Of Orion – features Stanley Clarke on upright bass and allows me to create a “tone poem” if you will. I know some musical scholars hate that term but for me it works. The horns take the lead until the piano in the bridge. From there the tune is led by piano and bass with horn accompaniment. I might also mention that Gorden Campbell lays it down on the drums – yes sir!

3. Trippin’ – is the first vocal tune on the album. It features Michael Stewart on muted trumpet and Kamasi Washington on tenor sax. The lyrics reflect the real life story of how I was influenced by the jazz music I heard through the walls of my moms apartment from the guy next door. I was around eight years old and quite impressionable not realizing at the time that the guy most of the time was having sex and the music was merely providing ambience and background music for his escapades (smile).

4. Ashtray – kind of a fonky instrumental tune featuring the horn section and a lot of synth playing. It features me playing lead synth bass, rhodes and various other thangs. The background rapping is basically carried by Stanley Clarke’s son, Chris Clarke. I chime in from time to time and my good friend Rose Geddes is the “lady with a question”

5. Missing You – set very much like “No Rhyme No Reason” and featuring Rachelle Ferrell towards the end of the song, I approach the melody intimately and play the piano like you know I can and sing the melody like you know I do..hello!

6. Transition 1 – exactly what it says…

7. Change The World – one of those “imagine what we could be if we joined forces to fight the various injustices in this world” type song. I know it's a pipe dream but it doesn’t mean that positive energy and messages shouldn’t be brought to the surface in song and verbalized by people of good will who want the best for humanity and not necessarily for personal gain. On board to help me deliver the message is Lalah Hathaway, Jeffrey Osborne, Lori Perry, BeBe Winans, Dira Sugandi, Freddie Jackson, Terry Dexter and the young Kennedy Fuselier. Money, power, lies and greed hypnotize and deceive, but we don’t have to accept it, there must be a way to fix it – we must find a way to fix it.

8. Jazzmatazz – a jazz dance track that features Chill, the son of Walter Booker who was Cannonball Adderley’s bassist for many years while I was a member of the band. The tune features solos by me on piano and rhodes, Ramon Flores on trumpet, Kamasi Washington on tenor sax and Michael Landau on guitar.

9. Round The Way Girl – a light hearted look at running into an old friend and reflecting on the very cool things about a real “round the way girl”

10.Transition 2 – what it is..

11.Brown Sneakers – an instrumental tune originally written for outstanding guitarist Peter Tiehaus. I decided to record the tune, flip it and make it a synth feature. I mainly play Arp Odyssey, Mini Moog and Prophet 5. Bassist Michael Manson, percussionist Lenny Castro and drummer Gorden Campbell help propel this tune down the street..

12. You Never Know – a respectful look at what we know and what we don’t know about this life. With the loss of my wife last year many of these thoughts came to the surface of my mind and so I decided to write a song about it.

13. Ball & Chain – written and sung by Teena Marie, this was to be the first song produced for a Teena Marie jazz album. I was really looking forward to working with her on this project but unfortunately she passed before we had the chance to do more recording. Except for the horns I played all the instruments.

14. Burnt Sausage Jam – the continuation of a jam started on my Face The Music CD called “Ten Mile Jog”. It features bassist Christian McBride, guitarist Jef Lee Johnson and drummer Lil John Roberts. From the original jam session recordings I orchestrated the track and added what I thought it needed.

15. Happy Trails – yep that’s the one, written by Dale Evans and recorded with Roy Rogers – except you know I did a little something different with the tune – check it out.

– George Duke

Out of devastating pain comes DreamWeaver, which the late GRAMMY® Award winning keyboardist/composer/arranger/producer George Duke considered his “most honest album in several years.” The making of DreamWeaver occurred after his wife, Corine, passed away. Struck with grief, he found it difficult to work during that period. “I didn’t feel like creating any music, which was odd, because normally that’s the easiest thing for me to do,” he said, “Sometimes, I would walk into the studio and say, ‘Nah. It’s not going to happen.’”

Duke’s mojo returned while on a Capital Cruise. During the first couple of days, he didn’t play any music, but did check out some of the other bands. “By the third day, something happened,” he remembered. After returning to his cabin around 4 a.m. from listening to music, inspiration ignited. “I went back on the deck and watched the sun come up. A couple of songs started coming to me; I got out my pen and paper, and started writing.”

With the assistance of an illustrious cast of musicians that includes bassists Christian McBride and Stanley Clarke; singers Teena Marie, Lalah Hathaway, Rachelle Ferrell, and Jeffrey Osborne; guitarist Paul Jackson, Jr. and the late Jef Lee Johnson; among others, DreamWeaver, set for release July 16, 2013 on Heads Up International, a division of Concord Music Group, finds Duke emphasizing more instrumentals than in the past as well as concentrating more on his mastery on various synthesizers. The album debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Contemporary Jazz Chart.

Like the bulk of Duke’s discography, DreamWeaver accentuates eclecticism with 15 tracks that range from swinging jazz and sweat funk to gospel-inflected pop and sensual R&B ballads. As the title implies, Duke likened mixing all of the idioms to weaving a sonic fabric. He also compared that stylistic dynamism to life. “Everything is in transition – from hot to cold, from life to death,” he philosophized, “I wanted to incorporate that kind of thing and include a lot of things that are a part of my life.”

The disc begins and ends with allusions of nothingness, starting with the title track, a sparse etude, and finishes with “Happy Trails,” a misty ballad that was at first just dedicated to Duke’s wife, but later gained more emotional poignancy because of the sudden passing of Johnson, whose distinctive guitar work fades out the conclusion. In between, the disc unfolds with the evocative, mid-tempo modern jazz composition, “Stones of Orion,” showcasing Duke’s crystalline piano improvisations along with longtime collaborator Clarke on upright bass; the feisty 15-minute workout, “Burnt Sausage Jam,” a track that Duke refurbished from his 2002 Facing the Music sessions with Johnson, McBride, and drummer Lil’ John Roberts; the frisky gangster-leaning groover, “Round the Way Girl”; the feet-friendly burner, “Jazzmatazz”; and the heartfelt ballad, “Missing You,” another direct tribute to Duke’s wife.

The whimsical “Trippin’” is Duke at his most autobiographical as the lyrics go down memory lane and touch upon his formative years in California’s Bay Area, where as a kid, he heard legendary musicians such as Les McCann and Ray Charles, and eventually becoming a jazz musician, particularly due to his work with the iconic Julian “Cannonball” Adderley. In fact, the song’s recurring “Ahoom!” is a discreet shout out to Cannonball, because it was a phrase that the alto saxophonist would often use.

The simmering ballad, “Ball and Chain,” features some of the last recorded vocal works from R&B songstress, Teena Marie, who died in 2010. Duke worked with Marie on her 2009 Stax Records disc, Congo Square. Afterward, she wanted Duke to produce a full-length jazz album. “Ball and Chain” is one of the tunes that came from those sessions before Marie’s untimely passing. Duke offered the song to Beautiful, Marie’s 2013 posthumous disc, but the producers declined. With the blessings of Marie’s daughter, Alia Rose and Marie’s estate, Duke added horns and releases it here.

Another standout is “Change the World,” an all-star vocal tour de force featuring Hathaway, Osborne, Freddie Jackson, BeBe Winans, and Howard Hewett. In the tradition of Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror,” and U.S.A. for Africa’s “We Are the World,” it’s a gospel-inflected message song, pleading for global unity. “Musicians need to talk about the issues of the day, realizing that the probability of making any kind of change in the world is more than likely a pipe dream anyway. But that doesn’t mean you can’t say it or act on it. Music should tell the truth,” Duke said.

With almost a half a century career, Duke was one of the world’s most prolific jazz legends. From leading a jazz trio with a young Al Jarreau during his formative years to working with Jean-Luc Ponty, which afforded Duke’s first recording contract with MPS Records and his first exposure to Europe, to his incredible work with Adderley, drummer Billy Cobham, and Frank Zappa, to his cherished stream of jazz-funk records in the ’70s, Duke found his mark not only in his eclecticism, but also his signature approach to the synthesizer, which often prized less pyrotechnics in favor of blues elements.

“I didn’t hear anybody playing the blues on the synthesizer,” Duke said. “When I was with Billy Cobham, I said, ‘We need to bring some R&B into fusion,’ because at that time, it just seemed like people were just playing a lot of notes really fast, especially on the synthesizer. I thought it would work if we put an R&B vibe into the fusion element to reach the people.”

He kept that quality intact as evidenced on DreamWeaver. “For me, I need the blues in there; that Ancient Source that really emanated from Africa,” he said when asked about his approach to jazz, “Jazz formed from the merging of European and African elements in a spontaneous context, so if you take away either element from the music, it ceases to be living, growing and ever changing real jazz, for me.”

On August 5, 2013, George Duke died in Los Angeles at age 67. He was battling and being treated for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).

DreamWeaver

专辑介绍

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