Chart-topping
trumpeter returns July 8 with his first contemporary
jazz album in five years; “Get Up and Dance” starts the party at radio
Sherman Oaks, Calif. (29 May 2014): It’s been five years since trumpeter-flugelhorn player Rick Braun
released an album full of the funky R&B contemporary jazz grooves
that made him one of the genre’s most consistent hitmakers over the past
twenty years, but the award-winning musician, producer and songwriter
returns to his signature sound July 8 with the release of his sixteenth album, “Can You Feel It,” which will be issued by Artistry Music/Mack Avenue Records.
A bona fide contender as the feel good anthem for the summer of 2014,
Braun’s “Get Up And Dance,” a collaboration with tenor sax sensation Dave Koz, is already collecting radio playlist adds.
After scratching a creative itch to croon jazz standards on his two most recent releases, “Sings with Strings” and the holiday-themed “Swingin’ in the Snow,”
Braun had a very specific direction he wanted to pursue for “Can You
Feel It” for which he wrote or co-wrote nine tunes along with helming
the production.
“When
I started working on this album, which was about a year in the making,
there were two goals that I had in mind. I wanted it to be really
organic and have a lot of my friends playing on it. Young players
melding together with the old faithful,” explained Braun.
So
he reached out to a bunch of his friends, colleagues and collaborators
and dialed back the time machine twenty years ago to the era of his
breakthrough disc, “Beat Street,” to help chart the course for “Can You Feel It.”
“It’s a return to the sound and style of “Beat Street,” which essentially was a tribute to my years playing in War.
I took out all of the sequencing with one exception and made the record
like a garage band using great live players. It was a lot of fun making
the record. It’s energetic and earthy. We hit it hard—kind of like Tower of Power—capturing the energetic, funky horn band sound. I wanted lots of horn section parts on the album.”
Braun
added a new weapon to his arsenal: valve trombone. And he stacked the
tracks with layers of horns section parts adding power, punch and
potency. His friends were eager to join the festivities enabling Braun
to toss the ball around the horn with Koz, Brian Culbertson, Philippe Saisse, Jeff Lorber, Euge Groove, Elliott Yamin and a retinue of ace players such as Frank “Third” Richardson, Nathaniel Kearney Jr., Randy Jacobs, Nate Phillips, Adam Hawley, Sergio Gonzalez, Brandon Fields, Tony Moore, Phil Davis, Ramon Islas and more. Bud Harner, who co-wrote the first single with Braun, helped shepherd the album as associate producer.
A
popular and dynamic performer who draws material for his set lists from
his vast catalogue of No. 1 chart hits, radio playlist staples and fan
favorites, Braun is touring nationally in support of “Can You Feel It”
as a member of Jazz Attack with fellow contemporary jazz titans Peter White and Groove. Sprinkled in his concert calendar are dates with BWB, the all-star trio made up of Braun and Grammy winners Kirk Whalum and Norman Brown. The Allentown, Pennsylvania native entered the professional ranks by co-writing a Top 20 pop hit for REO Speedwagon (“Here With Me”) before becoming a first-call sideman touring and recording with Rod Stewart, Sade, Tina Turner, Natalie Cole and Tom Petty. Braun released his solo debut, “Intimate Secrets,”
in 1992, but it was the success of “Beat Street” that forced the horn
man to choose between continuing as a sideman and taking center stage as
an artist. The decision came easily and Braun has never looked back on
the path to stardom.
The songs featured on “Can You Feel It” include:
“Can You Feel It”
“Back To Back”
“Take Me To The River”
“Mallorca”
“Get Up And Dance”
“Another Kind Of Blue”
“Delta”
“Silk”
“Radar”
“The Dream”
“Dr. Funkenstein”
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