UNPLUGGED SPRING CELEBRATION ARTIST SERIES: live music & poetry



ART OF SOUND ANNOUNCES SPRING CELEBRATION ARTIST SERIES

LAMBERTVILLE, NJ (2/6/18) – Becoming known as one of Lambertville’s leading, underground cultural supporters, The Art of Sound is pleased to announce their latest entertainment offering “The Art of Sound Unplugged”, a springtime performing artist celebration series. This unplugged series has been specifically designed to honor the live entertainment experience, amongst their 4,000-square foot, state-of-the-art, hi-fi studio, which additionally caters to the utmost presentation of premium, entertainment installation throughout the Northeast. Seating reservations for the Unplugged series are required by calling The Art of Sound at 609.483.5000.

The Art of Sound’s on-going cultural mission is to proudly curate a thoughtful variety of artistic experiences for clientele and the public. This latest series will launch Thursday, March 8th with international recording artist, FRANK BELL (FrankBell.net), SARAH VAUGHN LIVE JAZZ TRIBUTE EVENING in April and POETRY, POSE & POTIONS in May Starting at 7pm with a complimentary mix of refreshments and light fare, guests of the March 8th evening with Mr. Bell can expect an exchange of original artist stories and songs as well as select instruments, all creatively leading patrons through the artist’s journey and process. A limited number of seats are exclusively saved for clientele then approximately 20 seats are released to the general-public one-month prior, ensuring an intimate experience for both artist and patron. Reservations can be made by calling the Art of Sound studio at 609.483.5000 and is located at 201 South Main Street, Lambertville, NJ 08530.

Past programming includes the ever-popular and sold-out Lost Recording Vinyl Listening parties, Hammerstein fundraising screenings, as well as other exclusive, visual artist gallery shows. All Unplugged events include refreshments and light fare. More programming details regarding the remainder of the series TBA.

MARCH 8TH, 7PM
LIVE-ACOUSTIC, INDIE-MUSIC WITH FRANK BELL

ABOUT THE ARTIST FRANK BELL:

Originally a classically-trained cellist, Frank Bell later expanded his instrumental arsenal as a way to further express himself as an artist. As an outlet, Frank began posting videos of his songs on YouTube, which brought him international attention and 800,000 video views (in four days) after being featured on their homepage. Shortly after, he flew to Canada to record his debut EP ‘On Passion and Reason’, a folky, neo-soul acoustic rock album which would later be released independently worldwide with famed Producer Bill Bell (Tom Cochrane, Jason Mraz, and more).

In 2010 Frank was named the HATCH GROUNDBREAKING Musician (HATCHexperience.com), where he recorded a song with Matt Morris (Justin Timberlake, Kelly Clarkson, Christina Aguilera) on an original track aboard the John Lennon Tour Bus. Recent appearances on MTV, at the Sundance Film Festival, a Times Square NYE Concert, IdeaJam moderated by Ashton Kutcher, and Sold-out shows in Europe, continue to grow Frank’s awareness and fan base.

Frank is also in tune with global needs. March of 2010, Frank could be seen on CNN, ABC World News with Dianne Sawyer, and other international news outlets, for a “We are the World” collaboration he participated in to aid Haiti relief efforts. In March of 2011 Frank led multiple ventures for Japan Tsunami Relief. He continues to work closely with non-profits and other charitable organizations as his career progresses, believing fully in social responsibilities and helping to raise awareness of what’s going on in the world.

Since August of 2010, Frank found himself back and forth Bozeman, MT, where he teamed up with Producer, Deej Hofer to begin recording the highly anticipated full length LP “Everything Falls Into Place”, which was released October 11, 2011.
In March of 2014, Frank was announced as the official Music Brand Ambassador for Skype which since has led to his participation on a panel at TED 2014 with fellow artist Amanda Palmer, and Imogen Heap.
In the following years, Frank turned his focus inwards, stripping down his sound and rediscovering the foundation of his passion: connecting with people through song. Spending extended periods of time in NYC, Boston, and at sea, Frank has been hard at work listening, building relationships, and refining his voice to speak to an increasingly diverse and disparate community. Always a heartfelt, insightful lyricist, his next big challenge is finding the words to match the world we live in today.

APRIL 11TH, 7PM
SARAH VAUGHN LIVE JAZZ TRIBUTE EVENING with Guest Singer Joanna Pascale

ABOUT THE ARTIST SARAH VAUGHN:

Possessor of one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century, Sarah Vaughan ranked with Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday in the very top echelon of female jazz singers. She often gave the impression that with her wide range, perfectly controlled vibrato, and wide expressive abilities, she could do anything she wanted with her voice. Although not all of her many recordings are essential (give Vaughan a weak song and she might strangle it to death), Sarah Vaughan’s legacy as a performer and a recording artist will be very difficult to match in the future.

Vaughan sang in church as a child and had extensive piano lessons from 1931-39; she developed into a capable keyboardist. After she won an amateur contest at the Apollo Theater, she was hired for the Earl Hines big band as a singer and second vocalist. Unfortunately, the musicians’ recording strike kept her off record during this period (1943-44). When lifelong friend Billy Eckstine broke away to form his own orchestra, Vaughan joined him, making her recording debut. She loved being with Eckstine’s orchestra, where she became influenced by a couple of his sidemen, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, both of whom had also been with Hines during her stint. Vaughan was one of the first singers to fully incorporate bop phrasing in her singing, and to have the vocal chops to pull it off on the level of a Parker and Gillespie.

Other than a few months with John Kirby from 1945-46, Sarah Vaughan spent the remainder of her career as a solo star. Although she looked a bit awkward in 1945 (her first husband George Treadwell would greatly assist her with her appearance), there was no denying her incredible voice. She made several early sessions for Continental: a December 31, 1944 date highlighted by her vocal version of “A Night in Tunisia,” which was called “Interlude,” and a May 25, 1945 session for that label that had Gillespie and Parker as sidemen. However, it was her 1946-48 selections for Musicraft (which included “If You Could See Me Now,” “Tenderly” and “It’s Magic”) that found her rapidly gaining maturity and adding bop-oriented phrasing to popular songs. Signed to Columbia where she recorded during 1949-53, “Sassy” continued to build on her popularity. Although some of those sessions were quite commercial, eight classic selections cut with Jimmy Jones’ band during May 18-19, 1950 (an octet including Miles Davis) showed that she could sing jazz with the best.

During the 1950s, Vaughan recorded middle-of-the-road pop material with orchestras for Mercury, and jazz dates (including Sarah Vaughan, a memorable collaboration with Clifford Brown) for the label’s subsidiary, EmArcy. Later record label associations included Roulette (1960-64), back with Mercury (1963-67), and after a surprising four years off records, Mainstream (1971-74). Through the years, Vaughan’s voice deepened a bit, but never lost its power, flexibility or range. She was a masterful scat singer and was able to out-swing nearly everyone (except for Ella). Vaughan was with Norman Granz’s Pablo label from 1977-82, and only during her last few years did her recording career falter a bit, with only two forgettable efforts after 1982. However, up until near the end, Vaughan remained a world traveler, singing and partying into all hours of the night with her miraculous voice staying in prime form. The majority of her recordings are currently available, including complete sets of the Mercury/Emarcy years, and Sarah Vaughan is as famous today as she was during her most active years.

ABOUT THE ARTIST JOANNA PASCALE:

Whether referring to the lesser-known repertoire to which she’s drawn or to the singer herself, nurtured in the concrete jungle of her native Philadelphia, Wildflower is the ideal title for Pascale’s captivating new album. Supported by an excellent band led by the session’s producer, pianist Orrin Evans, and a host of special guests including Christian McBride, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Gregoire Maret, Bilal, and Cyrus Chestnut, Pascale finally comes into full bloom, a wildflower whose beauty is emerging into the sunlight.

The recording of Wildflower coincided with the end of Pascale’s decade-long engagement at the Loews Philadelphia Hotel, which allowed her to hone her voice, style, and vast repertoire. But leaving that long-running gig also provided a newfound freedom to follow a more personal path, which she embraces on her fourth album. Each song on Wildflower is one with which Pascale feels a deep emotional connection, which shines through in the passionate feeling she conveys to the listener. “If I don’t connect with a lyric, I can’t sing the song,” she says. “I love to dig into the words and find all the different shades, the stories within the story, and then try to interpret that.”

But equally important for her approach to breathing life into this material is Pascale’s interaction with her musicians. “For me,” she says, “it’s the space between the words that tells the story. I love that these musicians allowed so much space for me to paint these pictures. It allowed me to get very intimate with the phrasing of the lyrics. The fun in storytelling is finding a way of phrasing so that the listener connects to your intention and all the ways you feel the subtle shades of the emotions in the story.”

Propelled by the deep, sinuous groove laid down by Evans, McBride, and drummer Donald Edwards, “Forget Me” immediately establishes that connection via Pascale’s intimate, impassioned delivery. It’s followed by the tender J.J. Johnson ballad “Lament,” featuring an original lyric penned for Pascale by Tony Haywood, which features Edwards and bassist Luques Curtis. Most of the album features bassist Vicente Archer and drummer Obed Calvaire, who luxuriate in creating space while maintaining momentum on tracks like “I Remember You” and “Stay With Me.”

To find the ideal musicians to realize her vision for the album, Pascale worked closely with producer Orrin Evans. The two go back almost twenty years together, to her near-disastrous first experience on stage when she was 14 at an Evans-led jam session. When the pianist finally called her to the stage, he waved off her offer of a songbook with the music for Billie Holiday’s “Good Morning Heartache.”“This was honestly the first time I’d ever sang when I wasn’t singing along to a record,” Pascale recalls. “Orrin starts playing and something wasn’t right. I start singing and he’s in a different key, and I’m horrified. So I turn around and the bassist and drummer are laughing hysterically to the point where tears were rolling down their faces and their shoulders were shaking trying to hold it in. Next thing I know, somebody grabs the songbook and puts it in front of Orrin. I still have a little bit of fear whenever I sit in on a jam session.”

Despite that shaky start, Pascale and Evans forged an ongoing friendship, to the point where they consider themselves virtually family. “Joanna’s like a little sister to me,” Evans has said. “I think we really feel time and space and rhythm in the same way. So whatever we do, there’s going to be space for us to grow and make something happen.”

As a producer, Pascale says, Evans “knew exactly what I wanted to get to and I really trusted that. There were times where it was hard for me to give up control, because I had total control of all the other records that I’ve done. But he really had the wider vision than I did at the moment, which helped to shape everything. We have a lot of mutual respect.” Gregoire Maret’s expressive harmonica highlights two rare excursions into the pop songbook for Pascale, Stevie Wonder’s “Overjoyed” and the Gerry Goffin/Carole King favorite “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?” Maret also appears, along with Cyrus Chestnut’s spirited organ, on Pascale’s achingly slow rendition of Henry Glover’s “Drown in My Own Tears,” best known from Ray Charles’ recording. The title song, meanwhile, features two of Philadelphia’s favorite six-string sons, Kurt Rosenwinkel and Tim Motzer, and vocals by neo-soul singer Bilal, Pascale’s friend from Philly’s renowned High School for the Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA), which also boasts Rosenwinkel, McBride, Joey DeFrancesco, and member of The Roots as graduates. “We started discovering music together,” Pascale recalls of Bilal. “We would make each other jazz vocal mixtapes and trade them. So it was a very special, very magical moment for me to have him share his gift on the recording twenty years later.”

After graduating from CAPA, Pascale attended Temple University, where she is now a member of the faculty and has been featured on two of the university’s CD releases, including the Temple University Jazz Band’s Thad Jones tribute album To Thad With Love. She is featured on Warfield’s Jazzy Christmas CD; Orrin Evans’ Liberation Blues, recorded live at Smoke; on Philly sax legend Larry McKenna’s From All Sides; Jeremy Pelt’s Soul and on That Music Always Round Me, a setting of Walt Whitman’s poetry by Garry Dial and Dick Oatts. She made her leader debut with 2004’s When Lights Are Low, followed by the 2008 CD Through My Eyes and a 2010 duo recording with pianist Anthony Wonsey that focused on Songbook standards.


MAY 10TH, 7PM
POETRY

ABOUT THE ARTIST HAYDEN SAUNIER:
Hayden Saunier is a poet, actor and teaching artist living in the Philadelphia area.

Her acting resume includes film and television appearances in The Sixth Sense, Philadelphia Diary, House of Cards, Hack and Do No Harm and numerous roles at regional theatres such as the Guthrie, Walnut Street Theatre, Arden Theatre, George Street Playhouse, Interact Theatre and People’s Light and Theatre Company.

She has published four collections of poetry and her work has been awarded the 2013 Gell Poetry Prize, 2011 Pablo Neruda Poetry Prize, the 2011 Rattle Poetry Prize, the Robert Fraser Award and has been nominated several times for a Pushcart Prize. Hayden is a Bucks County, Pennsylvania Poet Laureate.

ABOUT GRANT CLAUSER:
I live in southeast PA between Philadelphia and the Pocono Mountains with my wife, daughters and a foxhound. I earned an MFA in poetry from Bowling Green State University (Ohio) in 1993 where I was a Richard Devine Fellow. I’ve been editor and/or reader for a few literary journals including the Mid-American Review, Janus, Toad Highway, and currently am a contributing editor to Cleaver. In 2010 I was selected as the Montgomery County Poet Laureate by Robert Bly. My poems have appeared in a variety of journals including The American Poetry Review, Cincinnati Poetry Review, The Literary Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, The Heartland Review, The Journal, Mason’s Road, Cortland Review, The Good Men Project, Wisconsin Review, The Southern Poetry Review, Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Superstition Review,The Seattle Review, Schuylkill Valley Journal , Tar River Poetry, Painted Bride Quarterly and others. In 2010 I started the Montco Wordshop, a monthly workshop for area poets. I taught workshops at Philadelphia’s Musehouse Writing Center, have been a guest teacher at several writers’ conferences, and currently teach workshops in Rosemont College’s Writers’ Studio. My first collection The Trouble with Rivers was published in 2012 by Foothills Publishing and can be ordered here. In 2013 I won the Dogfish Head Poetry prize for the book Necessary Myths, published by Broadkill River Press. My most recent books are The Magician’s Handbook by PS Books, and Reckless Constellations, winner of the Cider Press Review Editor’s Award. In 2014 I was a guest poet of the Sharjah International Book Fair in the United Arab Emirates. My favorite dry fly is the Parachute Adams. My favorite nymph is a basic Hare’s Ear with a brass bead. For bass I stick mostly to a Clouser Minnow (no relation) and sometimes a Murry Hellgrammite. In addition to the creative writing work, I’m an editor for the New York Time’s Wirecutter.


JUNE 7TH, 7PM
ERIC MINTEL QUARTET

ABOUT THE ARTIST ERIC MINTEL QUARTET

Two performances at the White House by invitation of President’s Bill Clinton (1998) and Barack
Obama (2011), several concerts at the Kennedy Center, a special concert at the United Nations and
countless accolades, the Eric Mintel Quartet have been thrilling audiences of all ages with their
electrifying jazz for over 25 years. Featuring pianist and composer Eric Mintel, Nelson Hill sax/flute,
Jack Hegyi bass and Dave Mohn drums. The EMQ is best known for their tribute to Dave Brubeck and
performance of many Eric Mintel originals. The EMQ also has become a staple of the holidays with
their highly successful “Charlie Brown Jazz” concerts delighting families across the country.
Eric was a featured guest on Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz on NPR, The Eric Mintel Quartet has
opened for Dave Brubeck at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, appeared on the QVC television
network and has been featured in many jazz and newspaper publications including Down Beat, Jazz
Times, Hot House Jazz and Jazziz Magazines as well as New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer,
Savannah Times, Baltimore Sun and others. Eric Mintel Quartet is also spreading their “Jazz
Education” and “Entrepreneurship in Jazz” to colleges and Universities. Eric Mintel and Nelson Hill
are Yamaha endorsed performing artists. Dave Mohn is endorsed by Sabian Cymbals, Vic Firth and
Bucks County Drum Co.


ABOUT THE ART OF SOUND:

Proud supporters and advancers of the arts and professionally considered designers of sound, The Art of Sound, LLC offers expert technology, utmost personal, customer service and a state-of-the-art showroom located in Lambertville, NJ. The Art of Sound caters to serious music lovers, both residential and commercial, proudly curating the ultimate, in-concert experience for music aficionados. The Art of Sound specializes in Audio-Visual Design, creating Whole House Audio, Two-Channel Audio, & Multi-Channel Home Theater Environments, as well as Wi-Fi Solutions. Never-before has sound been more advanced and stylish. To find out more, visit theartofsoundLLC.com