Best-selling "Living on the Earth" author Alicia Bay Laurel has a jazzy new CD
For Immediate Release
Announcing the release of Alicia Bay Laurel's CD "What Living's All About: Jazz, Blues and Other Moist Situations"
LOS ANGELES- In a turn as unexpected as her book's New York Times Bestseller status in 1971, Alicia Bay Laurel, author/illustrator/designer of the psychedelic sustainability cult classic "Living on the Earth," has released an equally original, shocking and self-produced CD of her own jazz, blues and gospel songs (plus two jazz standards), featuring avant garde guitar hero Nels Cline, jazz upright bass legend John B. Williams, multi reed player Doug Webb and other luminaries from the LA music scene.
Platinum-selling singer/songwriter Joe Dolce says, "This is a very creative record with a lot of wonderful ideas and performances and some pretty extraordinary playing, and endearing vocals all over the place. I like it a lot! A keeper. Good work."
Opening with a rollicking trad jazz tune about a girl who runs off with a piano player, "What Living's All About" careens next into "America The Blues," a wildly produced leftist political rant featuring Cline and a seeming cast of thousands. Before she is half way through the CD, Alicia has checked off the joys of hippie life, conjured a predatory LA night scene, praised sun and sea with a gospel choir, and incorporated an orgasm into a jazz tune. Without pause, she rejoins her gospel cohorts to exhalt patience with life, improvises "Nature Boy" with Williams, romps through a walking blues about New Age social mores, decimates the publishing industry in a stylish rendition of "I Could Write a Book," avenges a bad affair in a jazzy blues freakout spotlighting Cline, and closes with a gospel love ballad complete with Baptist preacher and a duet with a soul singer from Liberia.
Equally delicious are Alicia's cover art, design and liner notes. All three of her CD covers feature women in ecstatic union with nature; this one is a moonlit, wet, soft-edged image from the school of fantastic realism.
Just as Alicia embraced the low tech life on the commune and communicated it in a style destined to influence countless graphic designers, Alicia learned on the job how to produce a CD, created three in six years, and writes about the process on her popular blog at http://www.aliciabaylaurel.com. This project is her most collaborative, working with Oscar- and Emmy-winning film composer Ron Grant as co-producer and Grammy-nominated producer/audio engineer Scott Fraser, who recorded, mixed and mastered the CD.
For review copies or to schedule an interview with Alicia, please contact her at alicia@aliciabaylaurel.com or by phone at (808) 936-5365. A hi-res photo can be downloaded from http://www.aliciabaylaurel.com/highresprphoto. MP3s of the album tracks are available for preview at http://cdbaby.com/cd/ablaurel3
Announcing the release of Alicia Bay Laurel's CD "What Living's All About: Jazz, Blues and Other Moist Situations"
LOS ANGELES- In a turn as unexpected as her book's New York Times Bestseller status in 1971, Alicia Bay Laurel, author/illustrator/designer of the psychedelic sustainability cult classic "Living on the Earth," has released an equally original, shocking and self-produced CD of her own jazz, blues and gospel songs (plus two jazz standards), featuring avant garde guitar hero Nels Cline, jazz upright bass legend John B. Williams, multi reed player Doug Webb and other luminaries from the LA music scene.
Platinum-selling singer/songwriter Joe Dolce says, "This is a very creative record with a lot of wonderful ideas and performances and some pretty extraordinary playing, and endearing vocals all over the place. I like it a lot! A keeper. Good work."
Opening with a rollicking trad jazz tune about a girl who runs off with a piano player, "What Living's All About" careens next into "America The Blues," a wildly produced leftist political rant featuring Cline and a seeming cast of thousands. Before she is half way through the CD, Alicia has checked off the joys of hippie life, conjured a predatory LA night scene, praised sun and sea with a gospel choir, and incorporated an orgasm into a jazz tune. Without pause, she rejoins her gospel cohorts to exhalt patience with life, improvises "Nature Boy" with Williams, romps through a walking blues about New Age social mores, decimates the publishing industry in a stylish rendition of "I Could Write a Book," avenges a bad affair in a jazzy blues freakout spotlighting Cline, and closes with a gospel love ballad complete with Baptist preacher and a duet with a soul singer from Liberia.
Equally delicious are Alicia's cover art, design and liner notes. All three of her CD covers feature women in ecstatic union with nature; this one is a moonlit, wet, soft-edged image from the school of fantastic realism.
Just as Alicia embraced the low tech life on the commune and communicated it in a style destined to influence countless graphic designers, Alicia learned on the job how to produce a CD, created three in six years, and writes about the process on her popular blog at http://www.aliciabaylaurel.com. This project is her most collaborative, working with Oscar- and Emmy-winning film composer Ron Grant as co-producer and Grammy-nominated producer/audio engineer Scott Fraser, who recorded, mixed and mastered the CD.
For review copies or to schedule an interview with Alicia, please contact her at alicia@aliciabaylaurel.com or by phone at (808) 936-5365. A hi-res photo can be downloaded from http://www.aliciabaylaurel.com/highresprphoto. MP3s of the album tracks are available for preview at http://cdbaby.com/cd/ablaurel3
posted by Kim @ 8:31 AM
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