Bennett Paster Trio returns to the Django, NYC
Sunday September 10, 6:30-pm
$25/person plus 2-drink minimum
The Django is a Paris-inspired jazz venue & cocktail bar under the Roxy Hotel in TriBeCa, with vaulted ceilings. Food and drinks available. Join us for an evening of original music from our forthcoming album Radiance plus standards, Stevie tunes and whatever else strikes our fancy.
Bennett Paster (piano), Gary Wang (bass) & Tony Mason (drums).
Podcast Music Production
Original Music for Where’s My Village? Podcast
Late last Fall I was asked to write and produce music for a new podcast from Fortune Magazine entitled Where’s My Village? It’s a limited series about the childcare crisis in America, and the stories of people who are trying to fix it.
Composing for a podcast was an exciting new learning experience for me. I combined my compositional and technical skills to create a flexible, modular musical construction kit that included a unique theme and a series of flexible musical beds for use under dialog. I’m pleased with how the project turned out- the music serves the content and mood of the stories. As a working parent myself, I find the content resonant and are thought-provoking. Check out Where’s My Village? on Google Podcasts, Spotify, Apple Music and wherever fine podcasts are streamed.
Looking for music for your new podcast, video or theater production? Don’t hesitate to reach out to start a conversation about working together.
Bobcaygeon
I’m always delighted to be in the company (in person, or via the virtual online studio) of vocalist Tyley Ross and guitarist and sonic wizard Ben Butler, and I’m delighted to share our newest release in a series of great Canadian song covers. Here’s our rendition of Bobcaygeon, originally recorded by The Tragically Hip. This song was new to me when I learned it for a gig with Tyley the year before the pandemic. The song has a simple power and a mysterious and frighteningly compelling lyric, but I hadn’t heard Tyley’s story behind why he chose this song (see his comment in the original post). Knowing now how he connects to this song in such a personal and painful way adds to its power.
Kudos to Tyley for his beautiful singing and vocal arranging, and also to Ben for crafting this arrangement and playing so many contrasting parts on guitar, keys, samples, etc. I played piano, mixed and mastered the track. Enjoy!
Here’s Tyley’s touching story about why he chose this song:
How Bobcaygeon got under my skin is a mystery. It’s not a song that hooked me on the first listen, but over the years it grew on me, and now from New York City where I live it fills me with memories of the North and has the power to pull me back home. Listening to it puts me at a lakeside campfire in the woods somewhere north of the 401, and then somehow, that middle section snaps me back to the 1990’s on Queen West.
Another layer of meaning was added for me when The Hip’s lead singer Gord Downie got cancer around the time we found out my brother Carrick was on the same painful trip. When Gord left the stage for good my big brother followed him out soon afterwards. This is one of the songs that connects me to him still.
I find solace in music, especially in songs that can take you back to better times. Songs that remind you of where you’re from, of the people who love you and the ones you’ve lost.
I’m joined here again (via our virtual and asynchronous recording studio) by Bennett Paster on piano and mixing duties, Ben Butler on guitar and most everything else. The voices are mine. The artwork is by Bob Donatucci, who incidentally, I pay with chocolate babka from his favorite NYC bakery.
Emily Cavanaugh “Seeing Me Home”
Singer/songwriter Emily Cavanaugh and I co-produced the track “Seeing Me Home (A Song for Idaho).” Emily has a charitable project called A Song for You that crafts custom songs for people facing end-of-life situations- this song was part of that work. This heart-wrenching song was written for St Lukes Health System in Idaho, who distributed the song to their network of over 15,000 nurses, many of whom performed in the song’s video. Emily sang lead and backing vocals, and I mixed, arranged and played keyboards. The track also features Leo Sidran (bass, drums, guitar), Wells Hanley (piano) and Oscar Zambrano (mastering). Check out the touching video below or stream the song on your favorite platform.
Wash & Dry Studio: Winter 2021-2 Update
Wash & Dry Studios has been managing to find ways to help our clients and friends to make some great music, in spite of the health and safety issues of these past months (and years!). Don’t hesitate to reach out if you’d like to book some time to work on your project with us! Here’s a roundup of recent musical highlights at the studio.
Guitarist Alex Levine, pianist Russell Kranes, bassist Sam Weber and guest drummer Jay Sawyer spent 2 days in February tracking their new jazz project. Their music, featuring original songs and some creative arrangements of standards and pop songs, builds on the classic jazz piano/bass/guitar trio format. They added guest drummer Jay Sawyer on a few tracks for some rhythmic support and variety.
French pianist Jaques Letalon and his wife, singer Marie started recording a trio project with bass, produced by my neighbor, guitarist/composer/producer Francis Jacob. They’ve been performing their blend of French songs and standards for years and chose Wash & Dr as an intimate place to track.
At Wash & Dry Studio, our focus is on the experience of the musicians while they perform- the more natural, connected and comfortable everyone feels, the better the results. Although we have a flexible and powerful new Digital Audio Labs headphone monitoring system here, these artists mostly wanted to track with everyone in the same physical space and without headphones. (Once we added drums, headphones were needed for Alex, Sam, Russell and Jay). From an engineering perspective, I enjoyed the challenge of using creative instrument & microphone placement plus some baffling to manage the “bleed” between instruments. The resulting tracks have plenty of flexibility for mixing, but allowed the musicians to communicate and enjoy the process of recording.
Singer/songwriter Emily Cavanaugh and I co-produced the track “Seeing Me Home (A Song for Idaho)” with contributions from Leo Sidran, Wells Hanley and mastering by Oscar Zambrano. Emily has a charitable project called A Song for You that crafts custom songs for people facing end-of-life situations- this song was part of that work. This heart-wrenching song was written for St Lukes Health System in Idaho who distributed the song to their network of over 15,000 nurses, many of whom performed in the song’s video. Check out the touching video here.
Legendary DJ and producer Joe Clausell (Spiritual Life Music) and I continue our 25+ year collaboration creating funky, world-music influenced psychedelic house music tracks. Fran Cathcart (Skylight Studios) is our long-time mix engineer and collaborator.
Singer Tyley Ross (East Village Opera Company, NYU), guitarist Ben Butler and I continue work on our moody, atmospheric Canadian pop song project with our rendition of The Tragically Hip’s Bobcaygeon. (More info in a separate news item above.
I recorded piano for the singer/songwriter Linda Draper’s new release Patience & Lipstick, produced by bassist/producer Jeff Eyrich.
Singer/actor and music historian Melanie Gall continued work on songs for a new show she’s performing in the UK and beyond entitled “A Toast to Prohibition,” and we also started pre-production for a new album covers tentatively titled “Melanie’s Mixtape.”
Jazz and R&B Singer Dennis Day and I continue to expand our remote collaboration reworking recordings from his archives. I remastered and restored a live recording of his from a 1980’s Washington D.C. Club performance, and we started a new project titled “Back in the Day” with is a creative re-imagining and remixing of a recording he made int he 1980s. The first full track “No One Night Stand” features
Other clients included Barcelona-based songwriter CeCe Gianotti, for whom I recorded some keyboard tracks, jazz pianist Nick Olynciw, who recorded a trio project, British trombonist/vocalist Malcolm Earle Smith and vocalist Lucie Foley, who each worked on duo projects with 90 year old NYC legendary pianist Ephie Resnick, mixing for the children’s band Here Comes Trouble (Kelly Donahue & Jon Babu), recoding with singer/songwriter John Thomas and music education program “Music & the Brain” for whom I continue to proceed educational support materials.
Winter 2022 Studio Gear Upgrades
Benny’s Wash & Dry is open for in-person recording sessions! We took advantage of some downtime during these last few pandemic months to upgrade our D/A converters, audio interface, CPU and headphone system. The studio is now centered on a zero-latency Avid Pro Tools Carbon interface and Lynx Aurora 16 (n) system. We upgraded our Mac Pro computer from 6 to a whopping 12 cores, doubling our processing power. Our new headphone mixers are a Digital Audio Labs Livemix system with 24 inputs, featuring custom mixes with levels, panning and more for each musician.
What does this mean to me, you may ask? Your experience while playing is the most important thing. Our new system assures the minimum possible latency in the headphones. That means there’s no perceptible delay between what you play and what you hear. This makes the recording experience ultra-transparent. The Carbon and Aurora (n) both have the latest state-of-the-art D/A converters assuring true, deep, transparent sound. Our new Livemix headphone mixers have more flexibility, more inputs and much better sound-quality than our old Furman system. And they’re easy to learn and use, with a dedicated “Me” knob that always controls your level in the headphones.
Interactions between musicians, great sight lines and a positive environment for creativity are critical to the creative process- we’ve still got that covered- but it’s also helpful when the gear your using helps achieve these goals by being high-quality and transparent. Book a session or come by for a tour and take advantage of our new improvements soon- we’d love to work with you to help you achieve your musical vision.
Try, Try, Try!
Hello friends! Spring is my favorite season here in NYC, and after the doldrums of winter, I’m rambling ahead into the lovely weather with a feeling of hope and promise. I’ve started booking some live performances again, I have a new single to share, and I’m preparing to safely reopen my recording studio for public sessions sometime in the coming months. Stay tuned for more info, or shoot me an email to discuss your project and goals. In the meantime, we’re still doing remote production, mixing, tracking & more!
Vocalist Tyley Ross, guitarist Ben Butler and I have been working on a new moody, atmospheric collection of Canadian songs that I’m really proud of. Here’s the second track from the forthcoming EP: Try (originally recorded by Blue Rodeo).
Farewell to 2020… Hallelujah!
2020 was a humdinger of a year- one that I think we can all be glad is now behind us… In the spirit of rebirth and renewal, I offer up this new release from vocalist Tyley Ross (East Village Opera Company frontman and leader), with me and guitarist Ben Butler (Sting, George Michael). Tyley’s dulcet high tenor eloquently expresses Leonard Cohen’s message, while Ben’s haunting e-bow & tender acoustic guitar and my keys and mix set the song in a dreamy landscape, bathed in ambience and light. I hope you enjoy it this first release from what promises to be a new collection of songs in 2021.
With fond remembrances of all those we lost in 2020, I offer this with love and hope. Here’s to a brighter 2021.
Paster, Popejoy and Shaffer together again
1986 flashback: dateline Albuquerque, New Mexico: High school classmates bassist Stuart Popejoy, drummer David Shaffer and I have a trio called “dbs Noise Creation.” We used to play jazz and standards regularly at school events, and also occasionally perform live around Albuquerque. Deep in my closet I have our debut cassette recording from that era. That same year we met a tenor saxophonist named Alisa Valdés who attended a different high school. We played together as a quartet on occasion, both with Shaffer and later more frequently with another classmate, late drummer Blair Newsome as the Nouveau Adobe Quartet.
Alisa was a mature young musician, more interested in the soulful lyricism of her melodic lines than in simply how many notes or how loud she could play. We became close friends and jazz buddies- our shared love for jazz was rare amongst my peers. She turned us on to records by Wayne Shorter, Dexter Gordon, Steps ahead and others, and though only a year older than us, her musical honestly and essential simplicity influenced my development in ways that I still consider important.
Flash forward to the present: Alisa Valdés is a well known published author. We’ve been occasionally in touch over the past 30+ years. But, I recently learned that she was facing some serious health struggles. With the weight of the Covid-19 pandemic bearing down on the world, I decided I should reunite the dbs trio to remotely record a track for Alisa.
Stuart, David and I had only recently played together for the first time in over 30 years at my 50th Birthday party in February 2020. But I knew these guys would do a great job creating something to cheer up an old friend. I selected an unrecorded song that I wrote in 2010 while on tour with Paul Beaudry and Pathways for the US State Dept entitled Haze and Light. The song’s simple, essential melody reminded me of Alisa and the ways she’d influenced me back in the 80s.
Enjoy the first recorded music from Paster, Popejoy and Shaffer in decades- Haze and Light. Alisa is recovering is expected to make a full recovery. Get well soon, old friend- we send our love.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music, Soundcloud or wherever fine music is streamed…
Yes Virginia Reunites with Bill Withers Tribute
If you lived in NYC during the late 1990s and early 2000s, you might remember my funk band Yes Virginia. Our recording Overeasy is still one of my favorite albums I’ve ever done. Though we’ve all been working on other projects in past decades, my bandmates and I have stayed in touch. For years, in our previous band Random House of Soul, we often performed our rendition of Bill Withers’ Kissing My Love. Withers’ recent sad passing incited us to reunite to record this song for the first time. Tracked remotely, because of the Covid-19 pandemic, this video serves as a reminder of the importance of staying connected with friends and loved ones. And, hopefully, it’ll get you dancing and brighten your day!
Recorded by and featuring: Bennett Paster, Matt Stone, Whynot Jansveld and Jamie Moore, with fond memories of our fallen bandmates Andrew Frawley and Jill Seifers Walsh. Mixed by Bennett Paster and Mastered by Whynot Jansveld. Video edited by Matt Stone.
No matter how far apart we are, music has a great way of bringing us together. #YesVirginia. Add us to your favorite playlist on Spotify, Apple Music and more: https://linktr.ee/yesvirginia