Payton, Nicholas :: Bitches


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Deutsches Filmorchester Babelsberg

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N'Dambi

NDR Bigband

Night Of Jazz Guitars

PAYTON, NICHOLAS

Bitches

Personnel:

Trumpet, Vocals & All Instruments:
Nicholas Payton
Guest Vocalists:
Cassandra Wilson
Chinah Blac
Esperanza Spalding
N’dambi
Saunders Sermons

Facts:

The man with the hat and trumpet is known and appreciated as one of the most famous jazz sons from New Orleans. The fact that Nicholas Payton is dedicating his latest project to modern R&B could cause some confusion. The cornet player of neo-bop must be way off track. Oh no not at all! With guests like Cassandra Wilson and Esperanza Spalding this concept album, Bitches, is not only genre defying but also the most ambitious work of a musician who stays true to his biography and philosophy. To top it off, he proves to be a blessed storyteller.
At the age of 38, Nicholas Payton has already successfully stepped into many different arenas. Born into a musical family he took up his instrument at the age of four, and as a teenager toured Europe with an all-star band. Parallel to his school days he enjoyed lessons from Ellis Marsalis, in the nineties he teamed up with famous colleagues like Clark Terry, Elvin Jones, Wynton Marsalis, and Doc Cheatham, winning a Grammy for the collaboration with the latter in 1997. One of the most recent highlights in his still young career was the historic septet called The Blue Note 7 that celebrated the 70th birthday of the Blue Note Label with a tour and a recording. He has recorded 8 highly successful projects under his own name leading up to his 9th- Bitches.
With Bitches, the Crescent city's trumpet and piano player now presents an elaborated concept work that, first of all, will astound his audience. Payton explains: "Before I was into what is widely known as 'straight-ahead jazz', I was into R&B and Hip-Hop. I grew up listening to Earth, Wind, & Fire, Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder, and a little later on it was Prince, Anita Baker, and Run DMC. After that, it was A Tribe Called Quest, D' Angelo, and Erykah Badu, J Dilla, and Yesterday's New Quintet. What I love about these artists' records is that they are inclusive of everything. They defy all manner of genre and are beyond categorization."
Payton affirms that it was his intention to create a "modern R&B joint" with the flavor of the Seventies and Eighties, but which sounds very much like now. An album to think about, one that is provocative and stimulates on more levels than just its groove.
Let's take a look at the genealogy of Bitches: The creative process began when Payton was working on the predecessor Into The Blue, but he didn't feel confident enough to lay such a focus on his vocals then. Most of the pieces stem from a hyperactive August of 2009, the breakthrough period for this tremendous opus with its fifteen tracks divided in two acts. Payton pays homage on a very fundamental basis to the relationship between man and woman, touching on biblical and mythological themes of the story of the Creation, with the two forebears of mankind and their expulsion from paradise. The main characters Adam and Eve enchant each other, shatter their romantic feelings, drift away and return, reflect on love, eros, faithfulness, deceit, trust and forgiveness.
Most astonishing in terms of the musical side of this huge and ambitious project: with the exception of five guests on vocals (four female and one male) and the New Zealand native, producer Mark de Clive-Lowe offering beats, Payton recorded this entire CD in New Orleans, New York, Austin and L.A. on a solo run, playing vocals, trumpet, B3, piano, synthesizers, bass, drums and drum machines. In other words, he is the only musician performing on the entire recording.Nicholas conceives a very urban sound with its programmed layers and complex breakbeats on the one hand and much space of an organic kind on the other- with wonderfully inspired trumpet solos and amazingly soulful vocal qualities. Payton creates a NuSoul landscapes reminiscent of D'Angelo fused with the erotic deepness of Marvin Gaye, the harmonic inventiveness of Stevie Wonder and the eccentricity of Prince.
Beginning with "By My Side" and its majestic keyboard basses leading over to the playful innocent introduction of Eve (Esperanza Spalding) "Freesia" and the melancholy of the first separation in "Shades Of Hue" the journey continues to the sultry "Indigo" with its Latin mood and breathing cornet lines. The dialogue with the "guardian angel" Saunders Sermons and the Hip Hop-flavored up-tempo interlude "iStole Your iPhone" are followed by a magnificent threefold finale: Payton blends into one with Cassandra Wilson in a mellow ballad, grasps the spiritual stars with a gospel flavor, only to conclude with a humoresque, ironic reflection about togetherness with Chinah Blac.
Bitches will not only be the topic of today's talk of the town but may also kick off long-running aesthetic and spiritual debates in the jazz and R&B scene alike.

Who are Bitches?
Female dogs. Fine-ass females. Anyone who you love and breaks your heart. Anything that causes pain. Someone who relishes messing over people. Something or someone who causes excitement. A woman who stands up for herself. A man who doesn't. The girls who hang around looking to prey on one of "the cats". The cats who hang around acting like girls. People who can only deal when stuff is cool. People who can only deal when stuff ain't.

What are Bitches?
Bitches are not gender specific. They are not necessarily human. For example, a collection of killin' songs can be bitches.

When Bitches?
All day, every day; since the beginning of time.

Where Bitches?
Bitches are everywhere.

Why Bitches?
Why not, Bitches?

| Audio-CD / 17.50 € |