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<< Jeanne Newhall
For Release on July 13, 2006
JEANNE NEWHALL FINDS NEW FREEDOM
ON WILD BLUE
Blix Street Records Debut Set For August 2 Release
Truly a contemporary artist, Jeanne Newhall draws from many musical currents. A classically trained pianist who grew up with Mozart, Bartok and Bach as well as rock ‘n’ roll, folk and pop, her rich, warm vocals and the sophisticated nuances of her piano and arrangements welcome listeners into a shimmering world of words and music.
WILD BLUE is Jeanne Newhall’s much-anticipated debut on independent Blix Street Records. Set for release on August 2, 2006, the album signals new directions for the Los Angeles-based artist, who describes the piano as a “percussion instrument,” confesses to a “fetish for guitars” and grew up watching sunsets in the Arizona skies. “For me–whether I’m singing or playing or composing–music is about life. It’s about living up to my full potential as an artist. It’s about evolution. I don’t know whether I’ve taken a hard right or a hard left on WILD BLUE,” she says, “but I’ve found a new freedom with this album.”
“WILD BLUE is a master work from a consummate artist—constantly surprising in scope, but cohesively fit together,” says Blix Street Records President Bill Straw. “We jumped at the opportunity to release it.”
Newhall produced and arranged the album and composed seven of its ten tracks. She also gathered together a group of musicians she calls “my musical family” to fill in the notes. Family members include drummers John Robinson Jr. and Dom Moio, guitarists Matt McKenzie and Mike Miller, percussionist Brad Dutz, cellist Stephanie Fife and violinist Charlie Bisharat, whose credits, together, range from Quincy Jones, Ray Charles, Lionel Richie, Maynard Ferguson, Keely Smith and David Benoit to Barbra Streisand, Frank Sinatra, Bette Midler, Steve Winwood, Eric Clapton and Madonna.
A mix of contemporary and original material, WILD BLUE opens with Bruce Springsteen’s “Hungry Heart” (“I couldn’t resist that song. It got under my skin. There’s so much love in it,” she says,) and closes with “These Foolish Things” (“It’s the kiss at the end.”). Newhall’s poignant, powerful delivery brings a new intimacy to the former’s bittersweet lyrics and indelible melody, and her savvy take on the Marvell & Strachey jazz standard bookend a collection that takes the listener through the borderlands of life and love, heart and soul. The album’s introspective title track was written by Nashville-based Grammy-winner Marcus Hummon. Newhall discovered the song when a friend gave her a cassette with the admonition “You should know about Marcus.”
Seven of the album’s ten songs are Newhall’s own, and each one is a showcase for the versatility of her talents as singer, pianist and writer. She calls the flirty, catchy “Fallin’ Into You” “the most different song on the album—it feeds my R&B side.” The lyrics and melody of the introspective “Ancient” ebb and flow with contemplative musical interludes. “I think ‘Ancient’ is the soul of the album. It swept over me,” she explains. “It came in and said ‘Here’. It feels like a dream because I think life is a dream.” “The Real Story” is, indeed, a real story; Newhall wrote it about a very wordy Scorpio friend. “This Kind of Life” and “Still” were both written on the same Valentine’s Day. She describes the former as “a personal testimony” and ends it on a joyful note with a Sanskrit prayer reflective of her longtime practice of Ashtanga yoga. The rhythm section sets the tone for “Everything But The Sun” and “Red Sky,” and both are examples of the magical interplay between lyrics, notes and voice in a Jeanne Newhall song.
Prior to her Blix Street debut with WILD BLUE, she recorded 13 albums, each one reflecting the depth of her talent and the breadth of her passion for music. Among those albums are the five CDs that comprise “The Piano Street Series,” which includes celebrations of the rich musical heritage of France, American Ragtime and the works of Dvorak, Saint-Saens and Chopin. Her most recent solo release was E’SENSUAL.
Jeanne Newhall has, in fact, been making music all her life. She began studying piano when she was six-years-old and made her professional debut at age 14. She studied with Nadia Reisenberg in New York City and with Abbey Simon at Indiana University, but the connection was immediate when she heard Herbie Hancock in college, and the course of her life and her music forever changed. She discovered a whole new world of voicings, melodies and improvisations. “Improvising is the way that musicians tell their stories, and it’s a beautiful way to talk—through the music,” she says. “They can question, and they can exclaim things and they can hem and haw–or they make a storm happen. It’s wonderful. It’s raining. It’s snowing. It’s sunshiny, and flowers are growing. I love to talk…but playing it on the keyboard is even better.”
She’s right about that. Philosophers have told us that music speaks a universal language, and, with WILD BLUE, Jeanne Newhall speaks to us all.
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For further information and review copies, contact:
Sharon Weisz or Elizabeth Pendleton, at 323-934-2700 or w3pr@yahoo.com.
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W3 Public Relations • 5657 Wilshire Blvd. Suite 300 • Los Angeles, CA 90036
(323) 934-2700 ▪ FAX (323) 934-2709
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