“The album BANDZILLA RISES!!! is an unparalleled music event, music that defies description. The 25-piece jazz-fusion orchestra is the brainchild of Richard Niles, a true original. When you listen to the album, you’re overwhelmed with lots of testosterone– it’s got a lot of MIGHT – a lot of power! Very unusual and very different! Hip, entertaining and a very cool new way of treating the big band genre. Bravo!” Multi-Grammy nominee Dave Koz
Purchase the music:
Panoramic, polemical, political, personal..
BANDZILLA RISES!!! was recorded 2015-2016 thanks to the talent and commitment of co-producer John Thirkell.
Pictured here in Niles’ California studio, trumpet master John has played on hits consistently since the 1980s for Level 42, Jamiroquai, George Michael, Swing Out Sister, Tina Turner, Phil Collins, Kylie Minogue, ABC, Eric Clapton, Lionel Richie, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Pet Shop Boys, Grace Jones, The Who. Jeff Beck and, most recently, “Uptown Funk” for Bruno Mars. John has always been the heart and soul of BANDZILLA playing on the 1st album, “Blue Movies” and all its appearances through the years.
Randy Brecker: As a trumpet player and composer, Randy has been a major influence on jazz since the 1960s. He has recorded with a wide range of artists from James Taylor, Bruce Springsteen and Parliament/Funkadelic to Frank Sinatra, Clark Terry, Steely Dan, the Thad Jones Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra, Jaco Pastorius and Frank Zappa. In 1967, Randy ventured into jazz-rock with the band Blood, Sweat and Tears, but left to join the Horace Silver Quintet. His first solo album, Score, in 1968, featured his 19-year old brother Michael. After a stint with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers he formed the seminal fusion group Dreams. Later he worked with Larry Coryell’s Eleventh House, Stevie Wonder and Billy Cobham. In 1975 he formed Brecker Brothers Band, a band of immeasurable impact garnering seven Grammy nominations between 1975 and 1981. He released a number of acclaimed solo albums that have brought more acclaim and more Grammys. In 2001, Randy released Hangin’ in the City, a solo project which introduced his alter-ego Randroid, a skirt chasing, cab driving ne’er do well, with lyrics and vocals by Randroid himself. I asked Randy to bring Randroid out of retirement and, lucky for me, The Randroid accepted the challenge by singing “You Can’t Get There From Here” for Bandzilla. The Zilla is grateful. www.randybrecker.com
Leo Sayer: With 16 worldwide Top Ten singles (the first 7 in a row in the UK) the best word for Leo Sayer is ‘popstar’. Hits such as When I Need You, You Make Me Feel Like Dancing, How Much Love and Thunder In My Heart helped define the sound of the 1970s. He is still touring constantly around the world. His voice can soar with rock passion and float gently on sensitive love songs. But more importantly, Leo is a dynamic performer who knows how to connect emotionally with an audience. Niles says, “I had a great time as his Musical Director for his British TV series back in the 70s and am very happy that he agreed to join the Zilla for my rocky rant for individualism, This World Is Mine.” www.leosayer.com
Mark Nightingale: Trombone. Mark is considered one of the world’s finest jazz trombonists, having played with John Dankworth, Cleo Laine, Clark Terry, Slide Hampton, Jiggs Whigham, Bill Holman and many pop sessions for artists such as the Pet Shop Boys. A great composer and arranger, his solo albums are a musical treat.
Nigel Hitchcock: Saxophone. Nigel is regarded (by anyone with ears) as the world’s premier jazz virtuoso. Before he was 16, Nigel had toured with Vic Damone, Buddy Greco and Al Martino. He has since recorded on many movie soundtracks, TV themes and jingles and played solos on many hits by artists such as Tom Jones, Pet Shop Boys, Lisa Stansfield, Chris Botti, Robbie Williams and Take That. In 1996 he played with Bandzilla and recorded with Ray Charles who declared him to be his favorite sax player. He has toured with Mark Knopfler and Incognito and plays with Tini Thomsen’s MAX SAX.
Ed Barker: Alto & Tenor Saxophone, Clarinet. Ed was the featured soloist for George Michael on his 2014 world tour. His highly acclaimed first solo album “Simple Truth” (co-produced & written with Niles) established him as a dynamic player, achieving #1 on the US Independent Mainstream Network and the Indie Adult Contemporary Chart.
Tini Thomsen: Bass Clarinet and Baritone Saxophone. Tini has played baritone since the age of 15. In 2005 she studied bass clarinet with Erik van Deuren from 2005-2011. An award winning composer and performer, she has played with many top orchestras as well as Incognito, The Temptations and Dr John at the North Sea Jazz Festival and the Montreux Jazz Festival. Her current band with Nigel Hitchcock is essential listening. We are grateful for her low notes and her high artistry.
Ian Palmer: Drums. Nephew of Rock icon Carl Palmer (of ELP), Ian led his own jazz quintet of British jazz stars at Ronnie Scott’s Club when he was only 16. He has since performed with jazz greats Michael Brecker, Martin Taylor, Nigel Kennedy and Don Grolnick. He founded the acclaimed World’s Greatest Drummer Concert, a yearly event featuring the most acclaimed drummers in concert with a swinging big band. Featured drummers have included Steve Smith, Gary Husband and Steve Gadd. As well as being the driving, rhythmic force behind BANDZILLA, Ian works with British jazz/rock guitar legend Ray Russell and bassist Mo Foster. Ian is also a pilot for Virgin Airways. (If you’re lucky enough to fly with him, he will get you there not only ON time, but IN time!)
Kurt Hamernik: Percussion. Kurt has travelled the world extensively on drums and percussion and has been teaching for over 20 years. Kurt met Richard Niles through a mutual friend in Orange County and offered to add his colorful sounds to the album.
Steve Hamilton: Piano, keys. Steve is a supremely talented pianist and synthesist. He had played on both of Niles’ albums Santa Rita and Club Deranged. He is very respected on the Scottish jazz scene, playing with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, Tommy Smith and touring with Billy Cobham. His technique is always at the service of his unique awareness of what makes music beautiful. An important, passionate voice in modern music.
Adam Kaplan, Richard Niles and Garrett Wolfe
Garrett Wolfe: Electric and Acoustic Bass. A long professional career playing in a wide variety of styles makes Garrett the ideal bassist for such an eclectic project. His impressive credits include work with Art Blakey, Barbra Streisand, Billy Preston, Cal Tjader, Dave Grusin, Diane “Deedles” Schuur, Laurindo Almeida, Lee Ritenour, Michael Feinstein, Michael Hedges, Ravi Shankar, as well as the Tucson Symphony Orchestra.
Adam Kaplan: Flute and Alto Flute. Multi-instrumentalist Adam also plays keyboards and percussion, hand-crafting his own percussion instruments.
Goatious Foot AKA Dr. Goat Foot AKA Geoffrey Oat AKA The Goat: This Renaissance phenomenon is an utterly original bass player, composer and performance artist. He is also a visionary photographer and video maker. www.goatnoisephotography.com He has worked with artists such as Steve Hackett, Right Said Fred, Lance Ellington and Nigel Hitchcock. His work has been published in newspapers, online magazines and websites. He programmed and invented the many baffling synthetic sounds you hear on BANDZILLA RISES!!!
Daisy Chute: Lead vocals – “Tip For a Toreador”. Young Daisy is a composer, arranger and vocalist. She plays guitar, piano, ukulele & banjo. She released her first solo jazz album “Simply Jazz” in 2009. As a founder member and musical director of vocal quartet All Angels – three platinum-selling albums with Universal, two nominated for Classical Brit Album of the Year – she arranged and orchestrated several of their songs. She has sung on numerous film and television soundtracks. She has arranged for many films including Shaun The Sheep for which she sang the title song.
Kim Chandler: Lead and backing vocals. Kim has been a successful studio singer and vocal coach for 25 years. Her credits include work with The Bee Gees, Brian May, Björk, Michael McDonald, Puff Daddy, Neal Diamond, Michael Bolton, Westlife, Susan Boyle and Barry Manilow. She was lead vocalist in Richard Niles & Friends and managed to survive!
Clarice Assad: vocal solo – “Tip For a Toreador”. Brazilian-American composer, pianist, arranger and singer Clarice is one of the most widely performed composers and concert music composers of her generation. She comes from the respected musical Assad family – her father, guitarist Sergio, her uncle, guitarist Odair and her aunt, singer Badi.
Baskerville Jones (AKA: Baskerville Valentine): Have you met Miss Jones? A rose by any name, she’s an explosively dynamic performer. The Nashville-born soul powerhouse has performed all over the world with artists in gospel & soul including Sly Stone, and with her group, The Rebirth. She was the perfect voice for a song I wrote with R&B legend, Deniece Williams, Stone Jungle.
Lamont Dozier Jr.: The son of legendary Motown songwriter/producer Lamont Dozier (Holland-Dozier-Holland) grew up in the Motown studios with Uncle Marvin and Uncle Smokey. Lamont is not a soul singer. He IS soul. Based in Los Angeles, he has performed all over the world to critical acclaim. He has shared the stage with such performers as The Temptations, The Four Tops, Aretha Franklin and Rick Braun. He has also worked on shows featuring Jennifer Hudson, and Jay Leno. Working with Lamont brings a wealth of tradition and passion to the song Love Don’t Mean A Thing. His beautiful voice is a reflection of the man inside!
Paola Vera: Paola is a phenomenally talented singer, songwriter & pianist. She has won many awards including the Elton John Scholarship and the Yamaha Jazz Award. Niles says, “Her performance on my song Welcome To My World captures the sophisticated tragi-comedy and louche cynicism of the song so well, I could almost believe she wrote it!”
Julia Suzanna Sokolowska: She may have a long name but she also has a long list of talents including singing, arranging, composing and piano playing. Born in Poland, Julia is making a name for herself on the LA scene writing music for film and TV and runs an organization known as Hollywood Arrangers. Influenced by Jazz and R&B, Julia performs with style on Talkin’ In Whispers and The Alligator From West 15th.
Alexander Niles; I have nothing against nepotism, as long as you keep it in the family. My son Alex is an accomplished actor who has worked with Francis Ford Coppola. He is a singer and keyboard player who performs jazz, rock and soul classics regularly with QUARTET 5 in LA and Orange County.
Michael Parlett: British-born Mike did a superb mix of the complex BANDZILLA RISES!!! album. He also played a few baritone notes and a few percussion things we added in the mix. He plays all the saxes, woodwinds and the Yamaha Wind Synth. He has worked with artists including Jeff Lorber, Jeffrey Osbourne, Lulu, Roy Ayers, Simply Red and Joey Negro. From Los Angeles, he broadcasts his Mike Parlett Radio Show on Solar Radio from his state-of-the-art facility Talented Studio and directs the acclaimed Psych Big Band. www.parlett.net
“Monster charts performed by monster players & singers!” CHRIS WALDEN
https://www.amazon.com/Bandzilla-Songbook-Dr-Richard-Niles/dp/1541083229/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1536082695&sr=8-1&keywords=bandzillaI am deeply grateful to all the musicians, singers and engineers who have offered their services because of their love of music. Without their generosity, this album would still be merely a gleam in this bearded composer’s eye!
Watch this page for new additions, musical previews, videos and other fun stuff!QUOTES
“richard, bandzilla rises!!! sounds great – you are the one and only you and you’ve done it again here!” Pat Metheny – 20x Grammy winning guitarist/composer
“Every musician on the planet is going to want a copy of this!” Don Was – Grammy winning Producer, President BLUE NOTE RECORDS
“Cool track, it was fun to do! BANDZILLA RISES!!! is a really well crafted work.” Multi Grammy winner Randy Brecker
“Very nice! Super fonky! Loved hearing Randroid sing. Holds a place dear to my heart.Congrats on a very cool project.” Bob Mintzer – Composer, saxophonist, educator
“Very hip, entertaining and a very cool new way of treating the big band genre. Bravo! Dave Koz – 9x Grammy nominated Saxophonist, composer, broadcaster
“It’s a masterpiece of contemporary music… the music world needs this recording now more than ever!” Danny Gottlieb – Grammy winning drummer, (Pat Metheny, Stan Getz, John McLaughlin, Blues Bros., Gil Evans)
“Richard Niles is one of the most innovative, creative and musical composer/arrangers of our time. With incredibly deep horn arrangements and rich vocal harmonies for days, BANDZILLA RISES!!! takes a fresh, inspiring and very funky look at combining the best of the iconic bands of our time. Elements of The Brecker Brothers, Steely Dan, and Manhattan Transfer are mixed in the very unique way only Richard can do. This ain’t no background music! You’ll be sucked in from the first listen and it will be well worth it! Experience the Rise!!!” Blake Aaron – Guitarist and radio host
“Richard Niles’ Bandzilla delivers three knockout punches: great writing, great playing and great production. No one else is doing things at this level of creativity and craft. Everyone needs to hear this record.” Matthew Nicholl – Berklee College of Music, Chair, Contemporary Writing & Production
“Richard Niles and his orchestra is quite stunning in concept and execution.” Drownedinsound.com “With the incredible production and arranging skills of Richard Niles, every song is crafted to perfection.” Mix Mag (British music magazine)The Making of “BANDZILLA RISES!!!” by Richard Niles
BANDZILLA – A Short History
Bandzilla was born at SARM Studios in London in 1985. I had just finished a session for Grace Jones’ album, Slave To the Rhythm. Producer Trevor Horn had asked me to arrange the album using an 85-piece orchestra, including a full jazz ‘big band’ – 4 trumpets, 4 trombones and 5 saxes. The musicians were kindly complementing my writing and trumpeter Guy Barker said, “You really should form your own big band!” He and others had been asking me to do this but I was a studio guy at that point in my life. But I admitted it would be fun and I loved writing for big band. I told him I’d do it if he booked the gigs. A couple of months later I had written the arrangements and Guy had booked some gigs. We had “the hippest young jazz and studio musicians in London.”
My intention was always to create a CONTEMPORARY big band. I saw no point in reinventing the wheel or redoing the music of the 1940s. Although my father, Tony Romano (www.tonyromano.net) was a singer, guitarist and arranger who had worked with Crosby and Sinatra, I grew up in London of the ‘60s. I loved jazz but also loved contemporary pop. I wrote music encompassing James Brown and Nelson Riddle and Jimi Hendrix and Bill Evans and Duke Ellington and Frank Zappa. So for the album, I asked our drummer Ian Wilkinson to play a Yamaha electric drum kit triggering very ‘80s drum samples. I also utilized the sounds and sequences of keyboard genius Peter John Vetesse (ex-Jethro Tull and who went on to become a successful producer).
Peter Vetesse plays “Breakout” on the Ruby Wax show
The only way the show could afford to contract a 19-piece band would be if I had a record company who would pay the musician’s fees. I contacted an indie company called Rainbow Records. Attracted by the promise of 10 weeks of national publicity (the band had it’s own featured segment and accompanied guest artists, as well as playing the theme song co-composed with Vetesse). Our contract stipulated a 10-second plug at the end of the show: “And the new Bandzilla album, Blue Movies, is available NOW!” Rainbow signed Bandzilla and agreed to the deal with Channel 4.
Richard Niles conducting with a leek, playing the Casio synth guitar.
That all would have been great if Channel 4 had given us the plugs, but they didn’t think that part of the contract was important. After paying musician’s fees, Rainbow couldn’t afford any other publicity. The album sold about 1000 copies (the number of musicians on the London scene) and Rainbow, because of other ill-advised ventures, went bankrupt.
Bandzilla itself continued to do gigs with guest singers such as Clive Griffin (who later had a hit duet with Celine Dion “When I Fall In Love” from the movie Sleepless In Seattle), Richard Darbyshire (from Living In A Box) and Pat Kane (lead singer of Hue & Cry).
Pat Kane and Bandzilla live at the Jazz Café
Hugging with Brother Ray
But by the end of the 1990s, it was just too expensive for me to continue performing with the band. Breaking even would have been great but most gigs were costing me about £4000 ( in the late ‘90s!). As the music business changed, so did my ability to pay 19 musicians. BANDZILLA went into hibernation.BANDZILLA Wakes From a Long Nap
My career has always been a balance between pop and jazz. Pop had always been able to finance my jazz activities. As the 90s drew to a close and the ‘00s’ grew up to be teens it became clear that the pop gravy train had run out of steam. Pop itself became more formulaic, a far cry from creative records I had made with Paul McCartney, The Pet Shop Boys, Tears For Fears and Grace Jones. I now lost interest in working on yet another auto-tuned boy band or questionably coiffed coquette. Having lived in London from the 1960s, what had been the greatest of cities had become, for a variety of reasons, simply no fun any more (for me). In 2011, I moved with my wife Aylin and son Alex to Orange County, California. I built a studio and planned to spend the rest of my life writing and playing music I cared about. It took awhile but I met some local musicians and started getting together regularly for jazz jams in my living room with bassist Garrett Wolfe and multi-instrumentalist Adam Kaplan. This was indeed fun. I also found fun in writing BANDZILLA charts – with very little hope of actually recording or performing them. BANDZILLA videos began appearing on YouTube and my Facebook page had regular messages asking when I was going to resurrect BANDZILLA. The answer came when I spoke to my friend and colleague John Thirkell on Skype. John had played trumpet in BANDZILLA from the beginning and played on almost all of my pop sessions. This hip Northener’s credits include everything from ‘jazz chair’ with Buddy Rich to playing on mega-hits from the 80s to the present day (including “Uptown Funk” by Bruno Mars). Talk turned to BANDZILLA and I mentioned I had a lot of new charts, but no money to pay anyone. He immediately said, “Let’s do it! I’ll play the trumpets! I’m sure there are lots of masochists like me who’ll jump at the chance to play!” I answered that it was a major undertaking and that I’d only do it if he agreed to co-produce. Apart from being a brilliant trumpet player, John is a successful businessman – something I certainly am not! I also think the best records are made by great teams. The Funk Brothers. Bacharach and David. Horn and Lipson. Laurel & Hardy. As much as I like to be a leader, I also need an intelligent brain with a sense of humor to bounce ideas around with. John is that bouncy brain, and has that sense of humor. He agreed to help. Thus encouraged, I started recording!BANDZILLA Wiggles Its Toes And Stretches
I began by revising over 50 BANDZILLA arrangements I had in my filing cabinet or in my computer. What tunes should we record – my original compositions or my quirky arrangements of jazz or pop standards? My first idea was to do a combination of both. My own compositions are a weird mixture of Zappa with Steely Dan, Tower of Power and Gil Evans. Better to play it safe and have ‘something for everyone’. Tunes everyone knows and a few originals they will put up with. Don’t scare the horses. Eventually, that was rejected. I realized, with the help of my friend Garrett, that I should damn the torpedos and give them some serious garlic. How many more years would I have left to expose myself? I couldn’t make a positive by worrying about possible negatives. This would never be a simple commercial project anyway. I also realized that by concentrating on my own tunes I would be making a clearer artistic statement, establishing a more intense personality. And personality and intensity are actually commercial. I started recording. Technically, the method is: The acronym “MIDI” stands for “musical instrument digital interface”. This interface allows a musical part to be translated into digital information concerning the pitch, volume and duration. This in turn can be used to control a synthesizer or sampler containing a virtually unlimited number of sounds. I write my scores using a notation software called Sibelius. I export the scores as “midi files” and import them to Logic Pro X, a digital audio recording software. This allows me to hear what I’ve written in a sort of low budget way. I want humanity, dynamics and sensitivity. To get this, I replace virtually all the midi instruments with real musicians. I took the audio of the brass and woodwinds from Sibelius because it saved a lot of time fooling around with samples that would only be replaced. Also, the Sibelius samples sounded fine! I would need to begin with drums. The choice of drummer was crucial to the project. The problem with working with any of the great drummers I had worked with in the past was that I needed someone to work with me in my studio. It would need to be a jazz player who could also groove and funk me sideways! Someone with taste, artistry and a sense of humor. And someone in Southern California! This seemed too tall of an order to fill. Until, by a fortuitous accident, I met Ian Palmer.
BANDZILLA Gets a Cup Of Coffee From Ian Palmer
BANDZILLA Serves Uncle Richard Eggs Benedict
Although I had written guitar parts, now that a human drummer had replaced my midi drums and loops, I revised about 80% of what I had written. All the parts were played on my trusty Washburn J6 and the Lyndsay-Wilson “Samurai”. The Washburn is a jazz guitar, an L5 copy, named The Montgomery (for Wes). For guitar nerds, it has PRS pickups and a Fishman acoustic pickup, so it gives me a lot of options. I also have the excellent BOSS ME-80 guitar pedal. Having said that, for live work, I just plug the Washburn into my little AER amp and it sounds great.
On stage with the Washburn (and the fabulous Baskerville Jones!)
The Samurai is a Strat-like guitar made by Howard Wilson Robinson. He let me borrow it for the record. It is more suited to rocky, funky sounds. I spent a couple of weeks having fun with grooves and constructing solos. I say “constructing” because, just as improvisation can be seen as instant composition, composition is also slow improvisation. Sadly, Howard took his guitar back and I now play a very nice blue Strat.
I was quite pleased with my guitar parts and now I had to think about bass. I thought for about 15 milliseconds and called my friend Garrett Wolfe (who has an excellent bottom).
Bandzilla Never Has A Second Cup Of Coffee At Home!
I met Adam Kaplan when I bought a piano for the studio because he’s a piano tuner. It turned out that he also played sax, flute, alto flute and percussion. I suggested we get together to play and he suggested his friend, bassist Garrett Wolfe. We began weekly jams and formed The Richard Niles Trio. Garrett has a sense of time that never moves. He understands the role of the bass. He also has ears and uses them to listen for the right moment to make little comments on the proceedings. He understands that playing with others is a conversation, and like a good conversationalist, he lets the other guy speak, adding an occasional supportive ‘uh huh’ when appropriate… In short, he is a fine musician. So I naturally asked him to accept the challenge of facing the beast that is Bandzilla. Most people say playing my arrangements is “demanding”, “torture”, “impossible”, “insane”. Garrett called it fun. More importantly, he is a really sensitive human being and gives me a lot of encouragement during those moments when a composer thinks, “I’ve gone too far, we’re all doomed!” I think having seen ‘the dark side’ has made Garrett one of the most positive and fun-loving guys around with more enthusiasm than a box of puppies. With my bottom end taken care of, it became time to replace some more of my MIDI.Bandzilla Bakes a Coffee Cake With a Scottish Chef
Steve Hamilton is a supremely talented pianist and synthesist. He had played on both of my albums Santa Rita and Club Deranged. He is very respected on the Scottish jazz scene, playing with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, Tommy Smith and touring with Billy Cobham. Everything Steve plays is just right for the track and his solos are phenomenal. Even though he lives near Edinburgh, Facebook allows us to keep in touch. When he offered to play on the album, I said, “Yes, please” instantly.
The more tracks he sent me, the better the record sounded. Apart from pianos he sent some nice pads and synth solos. His piano solo on “This World is Mine” will always be a feature of this album!
Other solos were contributed by the phenomenon that is Nigel Hitchcock. I first heard about Nigel as an incredible kid who had ben lead alto in the acclaimed National Youth Jazz Orchestra at the age of 12. I hired him to play lead alto on the The Pet Shop Boys “Overture” I had written for an 85-piece orchestra. He became lead alto for Bandzilla and recorded and performed with me on many sessions for Ray Charles, Kylie Minogue, Take That and numerous others.
Recently he has been playing with Incognito and Mark Knopfler, so he was too busy to do all the saxes. But he kindly sent me some beautifully ‘Nigellic’ solos to set the bar very high for those who follow!
It’s actually impossible to praise Nigel Hitchcock’s playing too highly. He leaves the very finest musicians breathless. Those who are not smiling are just very jealous.
Bandzilla is known for its blistering brass sections and who better to kick off than the guy who was there from the beginning, Johnny Thirkell!
Bandzilla Serves Orange Juice in a Red Plastic Cup 
Bandzilla Slips Back Into Bed After Breakfast
I met Ed Barker when he was writing a book of transcriptions “The Solos Of Nigel Hitchcock”. He interviewed me for the book about some of the work I’d done with Nigel and somehow I started giving him arranging and composition lessons. A clever fellow, he absorbed everything like a sponge in the Gobi desert. I became aware that he had absorbed some Hitchcock too, because this guy could really play, with a big fat sound! We worked together on sessions and I co-produced and wrote for his fab solo album “Simple Truth”. Then he came to LA where he had a radio hit with a tune we wrote called “When You Smile” sung by the utterly superb Lance Ellington. Fast forward to 2016, Ed was leaving LA to return to the old country, but promised to return to play alto & tenor saxes and clarinets on the album. He picked up some expensive instruments in LA but wasn’t happy with the sound, so he only ended up doing the clarinet parts! Before he left for London he bought a new alto. Back in his flat, he began to record, but I thought it sounded a bit too ‘bedroomy’. So he propped his bed up against the wall to absorb the vibrations and it all sounded great. I maintain that the sound is more emotional because of the number of females who have shared that bed – the world’s only mattress with an odometer.
Ed Barker, Richard Niles and John Thirkell modeling their beards…
Bandzilla Sings For His Supper
While all this instrumental stuff is going on between London and LA let us not forget that a lot of the tracks have vocals. And I love writing backing vocals like a hip horn section. And they need to have flawless time, tone and intonation. That left me with no choice but to say yes when I was offered the services of the Australian vocal epiphany that is Kim Chandler.
I have performed with her, worked on commercial studio projects with her, and even done teaching gigs with her. I’ve written stuff for her that would make many singers run to the hills begging for mercy. Not our Kimmy. She just dusts down her epiglottis and sings the hell out of whatever I throw at her.
Thanks to her hubby Russell for recording all her warbling at their bonzer home studio in Spain.
Bandzilla Slides Home
Back in the old country (England) after having shredded his lips in my studio, John Thirkell produced the trombone section, all four players of which are named Mark Nightingale. The first 6 tunes were recorded in Jakko Jakszyk’s studio. Here’s a pic of that session featuring the side of John’s face:
I think they were deliberately taunting Mark by placing him close to a number of non-brass instruments. Despite that, Mark’s playing on these tracks was described by John as “insanely good” and I think that’s accurate.
Here’s a pic from the next sessions at Gavin Harrison’s studio:
You will notice that Mark is wearing a different shirt and I believe he color-coordinates his clothing to the vibrations of the music.
For me the album only began to sound like a big band when Mark started recording. All the complex combinations of harmonics began to gel with the overtones created by Mark’s undertone. He completely whipped it out for his solo on This World Is Mine. I’d worked with Mark since the 80s in the London studios, but I was still amazed at the richness of his tone, the musicality of his phrasing and the groove of his time.
The album was mixed by Mike Parlett in his fancy LA studio. A really stellar job, considering the complexity of the arrangements. Congratulations to his dog DIGI who was a great help.
MORE TO COME AS THE SAGA UNFOLDS – WATCH THIS SPACE…