Last summer (2011) I joined my partner in NYC who was working on Broadway at The Palace Theatre, a very interesting adventure in itself. We were staying up in Harlem on Lennox Avenue in an apt complex on the very site of the old Savoy Ballroom where so many luminaries of the big band era had performed for the wild jitterbug dancers, (Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington and Count Basie among them).
The Savoy apartment complex was also a stone's through from the location of the legendary Cotton Club where the likes of Fats Waller, Billie Holiday, Ethel Waters and Lena Horne, (still a chorus girl), entertained mixed black and white audiences alike in the 30's and 40's.
Not far away down on 125th street was the famous Apollo Theatre, still an in important home to touring African American artists and yes thats where James Brown was interned. (Talk about yer Black President!)
Harlem has such a rich musical history and it certainly seemed as if the ghosts and vibrations of the past were with me as I wrote sketches of the songs that will become my next disc. I used to ride the subway down to rent little piano studio's off of Time Square. The little rooms gave me a private space in the middle of the madness of manhattan to sketch new material and it seemed that the melodies and lyrics were deeply influenced by the atmosphere of my environment. The smart and sophisticated blues and jazz of the 30's and 40's New York.
To hear an early demo for the disc please log onto The Official Micah Barnes Website and hear my version of the Jazz standard "Body and Soul"....Hope you like it folks!
PS! The Face Book Fan Page is still the place to stay in the loop on developments with the new disc.. sneak preview Winnipeg at West End Cultural Centre Sept 8th and Toronto at Hughes Room Dec 11th! to join click "like" here http://www.facebook.com/micahbarnesmusic
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