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CD Review - Venue Magazine July 2009

Venue Magazine CD Review July 09

There’s a lot to this album by Dr Sax, aka Paul Raymond – so much, in fact that it takes a few listens to get a sense of it all. In the end though it’s pretty catchy stuff that creeps up on you with some deftly poppy hooks, which is surprising as the general tone of the album is smooth soul-jazz with the occasional outing of funk & swing. The dozen self-penned/arranged/produced tracks cover a wide range, with Raymond’s sax and Gary Alesbrook’s flugel horn superbly matched on the tight funk of the title track, Richie Blake’s bass popping nicely underneath and Sarah Davies’s gospel haunted vocal on ‘Lead Me to the Water’ both highlights. There’s even a touch of Quincy Jones from time to time, notably the lush and slinky soul of ‘Brief Encounter’.

'Why' video

'Why' featuring Kelly G

Another track and video from the new album. The video is in two parts the first is all Kelly the second part sees the band make an appearance.

Great vocal from Kelly and some lovely guitar from Cliff.

Look out for 'the stars falling from the sky'!

Pictures, above & below feature Kelly singing at a festival over the weekend.

"Why'

"Why' featuring Kelly Griggs

Kelly sings all the vocals on this track and what a voice she has. This is Steve's (the keyboard player in the band) favorite album track and Kelly does an outstanding job. And she's only 17!!

The stills above are from the video which is currently being edited for an early June release. The blue screen in some of the shots is a part of a film technique called chroma key, where you shoot against a solid green or blue background and then it is relatively easy to remove and replace with an alternative. The whole of Sin City was shot this way. 

This video was shot all in HD using Sony Z1 cameras.

'Take It to the Bridge' Video

'Take It to the Bridge' video

This is the video of the title track from the new album. A brassy, classy piece of funky jazzy which features Gary on trumpet and Kelly on vocals.

Pictures above are stills from the video

'Tender Touch' official video

'Tender Touch'

This is the 'proper' video for the song 'Tender Touch' which Sarah sings so beautifully! We've carried on the idea of the comic strip with most of the footage being 'de-saturated' and color corrected to exaggerate the black & white tones. Video also features Cliff playing some fantastic guitar 'licks' and Richie & Steve laying down a lovely seductive 'Purdie Shuffle' style rhythm.

The comic book lyrics are still there and they tell the story of a groupie / fan coming on to one of the band. Happens all the time, especially to Steve (the piano player)!! 

Tender Touch Comic Book Pages

'Tender Touch' (with comic book type pages)

This is the album version of the song together with a comic bookpe concept... hope you like it, we're planning to do more along these lines.

'Tender Touch' live recording March 09

'Tender Touch'

Another song from the new album but given the live recording /performance treatment. The feel on this live version is very different from the album version and that was the intention. 

One of the things that I like most about Jazz, in particular is that no tune will ever sounds the same on two separate occasions. Music for me is a living moment in time that should capture the spirit and essence of the now and hopefully with these live recordings we've captured some special moments. 

This song features another great vocal from Sarah and some nice understated muted trumpet from Gary.

'Something's Missing'

'Something's Missing'

Another track from the new CD that we recorded live in March 2009. Despite the picture of Steve above, the regular Dr Sax keyboard player, he doesn't actually play on the recording as he had to leave early for an audition (for a top UK celebrity singer that we're not allowed to talk about!) so Paul played piano on the recording.

As well as Sarah's impeccable vocal there is yet another beautiful solo from Gary, this time on flugelhorn.

Please enjoy!

  

'Lead Me to the Water' live recording March 2009

'Lead Me to the Water'

Another track from our live recording (March 2009). This is also one of the tracks from the new album but played in a very different way. This is much more laid back and without the multiple vocals, flutes and saxophones of the original. 

Steve can be seen and heard playing his 'cajon' in this track, I believe it means box in Spanish and inside can be found guitar strings and sleigh bells(!) makes a great sound though.

Sarah sings beautifully as always and Gary plays a lyrical and ultra smooth flugel solo which probably inspired the laid back feel to the whole track.

Hope you like it!

'Let My People' live recording March 2009

'Let My People'

Above are some stills from our video shoot (March 2009) and below is the first video featuring one of a number of tracks that we recorded and filmed recently, live in Bristol. 

The band was: Richie: bass; Cliff: guitar; Steve Wilson: percussion; Steve Williams: piano; Paul: sax; Gary: trumpet & flugelhorn and Sarah: vocals. The sound engineer was Tony Hobden who recorded the session to Pro Tools. We recorded 5 tracks in total and each one went down in two takes. 

Because we were recording in a really ambient space, Steve our drummer used a percussion based set-up with a 'Cajon' providing the kick drum type sound. He played this with his hand and used brushes on the snare.

This is the first track to be mixed with the edited footage. All the tracks will be featured here over the next few weeks... we hope you will enjoy them!

'Take It to the Bridge' CD design

This is the full 6 page CD Digipack design for the new album.
As well as the hard copy CD, the album will also soon be available from all of the usual online outlets such as iTunes.
The girl who designed this cover and who also took all of the photographs is Nerissa (Barnes) and I do think that she has made a wonderful job of it. My idea was always that the album design should look and feel like a piece of artwork in the same sense that all of the music was conceived as part of a living tradition of music making, rather than as a commercial entity and I hope that we have achieved our objective.
Plans are underway to make a video over the next couple of weeks!
More info soon!