Gang-
As some of you know (yo Kat!) Sean Mason and Solar Wind has a new release out as of mid-january. (I was fortunate enough to hear some early cuts, and it's quite good. It's starting to get some press, will be in Jazz Times review section in May, and others too, he's now on 65 stations around the country, so momentum is building.
His "radio" cut Catalina Breeze is now in light rotation on Smoothjazz.com, so now he's playing with the big boys in smooth jazz like J Kasiwa, Koz, AA, R Freeman, et al- Sean is, as you could guess, loving it.
www.smoothjazz.com
So, I thought we could help him out by giving some feedback to smoothjazz.com and ask for more plays, and it helps them too... it's actually a good mix on that station, (still too many vocals, but there generally well done, and we just can't get away from cover tunes...)and it hasn't had a dropout in over an hour (which from my experience is good!) Apparently it's run by a former LA WAVE employee, Sandy Shore- don't know about her myself, but Sean said she's a great lady and a huge supporter of this style of music, and would love to see more creative music come out.
Anyway, I thought I would ask you good folks to help support my buddy here; he's really quite talented, a super nice guy, and deserves to make it in music. So far he's funding all this with his day job, so he's a very committed guy and really wants this CD to "break out".
Sean's mp3 site is
http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/52/solar_wind_featuring_sean_.html
he has two of his new tunes up there now, one with David Benoit and Eric Marienthal, and a fusion tune you funkier types will like.
Thanks for your support, gang, let's keep the music alive!
Later
TonyY

Sandy Shore is good folk..she was involved in quite a few west coast CJazz stations before there was any such thing as smooth and like a lot of us, when Smooth Jazz Network-BA took over all thes tations she created other venues that were more supportive of the music than radio can be at this point in time. The station has the cali lifestyle vibe and is all singles but it's a good mix..occasionally youll hit a cluster of luther/james ingram laden sets but she plays a lot less pop vocals than she used to and sometimes you can go thru hours that are luther/sade/anita free. I used to like Anita and Sade but the once an hour rotations on SJ stations burned them out for me, especially since its always the same 3-4 songs!

Thats what I like about the southeast..you're allowed to like this music even if you are allergic to most wines!

contemporaryjazz.com didn't give it a very good review but that shouldn't dissuade anyone from checking it out. Jeff is a great writer/reviewer but his tendency is towards stuff that has more of a lite RnB flava..this doesn't have that generic sound, it sounds pre-smooth actually..so it probably just was an ear shock to him.

Hey Shannon- thanks for the heads up on contemp jazz review- he sounds like he liked the debut CD better, and the fusion-y tracks, and frankly I do too, but Sean knows to make any money at this game you have to get in "smooth" and then crank it up. His first CD will always stand out as more purely Sean to me.
Based on what you said, you must have gotten to listen to it- what's your take on it? I agree it's really pre smooth, with very little of the generic sounds in the background, drums that sound like drums, or digital drums that sound more like digital than hip-hop. Apparently Sandy liked it enough to add it to the rotation. Plus, Sean is going to buy some ad time, that may have influenced the opinion a bit, but she seemed very positive towards it.
I also agree about her station- I've been streaming it for 6 hours mostly, and no Luther yet. But there a lot of vocals and cover tunes, nature of the beast I guess.....
And when I think wine, I think Bali Hi, which I left a bottle of, recycled, on my hopefully girlfriend's driveway- That cured me of wine drinking in one shot...and we didn't date after that. Don't think her Dad appreciated my deposit.... Guess that's why it's called "rot-gut" wine.
back to work....
TonyY

Solar Wind

Downloded and uploaded four tracks to my playlist today without even getting a listen to.AHHHH but tomorrow will come and give me reason to listen to my station.

Keep The Jazz Alive

Fishman

Thanks Fishman-
I think you'll like most of it, let me know what you think. I'll pass along to Sean that you've done that.
Thanks!
Tonyy
PS Shannon- yeah, too much vocals and hip hop on that station, but for acouple hours it was really grooving along well. Out of the past two days, I'd say maybe a 8 out of 10. Too many wine and cheese ads though!

Hey bassix, that Solar Wind with Sean Mason is awesome. Just heard Mix It Up and Pacific Strut and really liked both very much. Will look forward to hearing more from Sean and will have to scratch up some more cash to go and purchase a couple of his CD's. Thanks for letting me know about him and it's just a shame that these bands can't get their music played on the local airwaves were people can decide if they like it or not. This music is to good not to be aired around the country.

Thanks again

Fishman

Fishman-
You're welcome, and thanks on Sean's behalf for putting it on your playlist. He's really a good guy, and I agree about this needing to get out to a wider audience.
Mix it Up is from his new one- you can pretty much download the whole first CD there on the mp3 site, except for sound quality- He made a first class recording, and spent the bucks to have it professionally done. THe 2nd CD is more about succeeding, it's being promoted across the country, on 65 stations (regular radio) now. Here's hoping it works.
Thanks again, and check out some of the other tunes on his site, you'll like them.
TonyY

I was listening to smoothjazz.com last night and there were waaay to many vocals (Simply Red and James Taylor among others) and it seemed like every third song was a cover. The last time I checked it out about 2 months ago I heard 2 hrs of really good CJazz songs, not nearly as many covers and the vocals werent pop. Don't know if they switched back to more of a lite/EZ format or I just hit a yucchy section of their music mix last night.

I prefer the "non lite" live 365 stations and jazztrax studio..smoothjazz.com and WNJL (a webcast out of new jersey) both do too many EZ covers and vocals.

I think the station is in the middle of wine country..there were so many wine ads I was starting to break out in hives just listening!

Hey Shannon.....
Maybe you hit a bad mix- I lestened to it for several hours Thurs and Friday, and there were a couple hours straight of great music, then three or four vocal cuts (Phil Collins IS NOT cjazz, sorry) although I do like J Taylor, he's a jazzy dude too, has some cjazz folks in his backup band.
Last night, I had to turn it off- way too A/C lite R&B vocals etc... Jazztrax is much better most of the time, although I don't listen to it much either.
I haven't been listening to 365 much either, due to the comparatively poor sound quality- I know, you have to account for dailup modems, but the smoothjazz's sound quality is absolutely great, near CD. One of the beauties of a bradband connection, I guess.
Are you avoiding my question about Sean's CD? If you don't like it, say so- I value your opinion either way.
Later
Tonyy

I was reading Sandy Shore's "road journal" on the site and she has a wonderful piece about a big corporation cancelling her show and how it felt to go through that..check it out
http://smoothjazz.com/roadtrip/journal.htm
you'll have to scroll down a bit..
The rest of the journal is great reading..it will give you some insight into the corporate format and more understanding of why the station plays the pop crossovers, its just more steeped in traditional smooth jazz radio culture and the lifestyle thing..

The only thing is you have to sit thru the pop songs. Donna's Live365 station is set up for broadband listeners so the sound quality should be better..If I wanted to set up for audiophiles I would have to buy another station and reenter all the music to the broadband configurations , and chances are that audiophiles are going to want a more eclectic music mix so it probably wouldn't be worth the cost and time.

Just an fyi for anyone interested....
Just talked to Sean, the song Catalina Breeze is now in rotation on 95 stations, plus smoothjazz.com, AND Art Good's Jazztrax.com just picked it up! This might be the one, off to a really good start, and it's still early....so far BA hasn't said no, they are considering it, so that could be the next big thing.
Talk about happy, Sean is, and he says thanks to those of you who are supporting him.
Gotta go
TonyY

YEEHAW- check this out- Solar Wind as a top add on JazzWeek, right behind Spyro Gyra and ahead of Steve O!
http://www.jazzweek.com/chart/smoothtopadds.html
Pretty cool, Sean!
Later
TonyY

I now have a copy of Blue Horizon and will be featuring all the tracks on my internet radio station At live365.com/stations/rlk8250.

Fishman

Blue Horizon
Hi everyone,Well after playing Blue Horizon about twenty times,Solar Wind has a new fan.The first track Shorline Drive just grabs you and the rest of the CD takes you away with it.This is truly a quality work and would be a nice addition to anyones CD collection.

Fishman

hey sean and tony y-

we're updating for the month and the smooth jazz channel (provided by musicchoice.com) is on cable. well, wasn't i blown away to hear "catalina breeze" playing on their music rotation!

congratulations sean and solar wind on a spectacular cd. we love it here and it plays in the office and car as one of our favorites!

peace and grace,
-gwenn



www.smoothnotesandnews.com

Okay, okay!! Enough already!! :rolleyes:

Ya'll wouldn't stop YAPPIN' about it...so I FINALLY went and LISTENED to this music, and...

AAAAARRRRRGH!!

Ya just HAD to make me do it, didn't ya?? I mean, it's not like I've got money coming out my ears, or anything!! Ya just HAD to give me ONE MORE group to discover! Grrrrrr!!

My copy is on its way, from CD Baby. :p :rolleyes: :p

Well I just got an e-mail back from my friend at WJZI here in Milwaukee who is now the program director at the station about playing some tracks off Sean Mason's (Blue Horizon) and he said it would be up to the station consultants. Who and what are consultants and this must mean that the program director is nothing more than a label for the station.

Fishman

Cool Donna, hope you enjoy it! Let us know.
Fishman, Sean knows he has an uphill battle....or maybe an impossible one- with those kind of stations, but he's now on 112 stations around the country, got 564 spins last week, 81 per day- not too bad for a "newcomer". The big ones are the last to react anyway, they step really cautiously into lukewarm water, you know? Guess they're scared of losing income stream from advertisers, which by the way matter far more than listeners.....yeah, right....
Thanks
TonyY

Well Sean just e-mailed me bassix and I will keep pushing the station till they play his music much like I did for Daryl Stuermer.I also gave Sean information on Summerfest and hope he goes for it as it's the biggy of them all running for ten days with attendance over one million.

Fishman

Sean is sending a press kit to the Summerfest production people and I will pray that all works out and he ends up playing here this summer.

In High Anticipation!

Fishman

An FYI for anyone interested-
Sean had sent me this link to one of his latest reviews, from Jazz Nation- very positive one.
http://www.thejazznation.com/Ovations/SeanMason.htm
Later
TonyY

(Progressive Smooth Jazz)Now thats a new term and must be what I listen to.

Fishman