Retro Lover

Tales From The Sad is a collection of thematically connected songs, jazz inflected with an occasional latin flavour added to the mix.

Where as my last album, Shades of Desire, was mostly a solo effort, I wanted with this CD to bring in the talents of other musicians to add instrumental variety and dynamics to the tunes. In this respect I have been fortunate to be able to work with some talented players.

First and foremost, Mark Ham - perhaps better known in the recording world as Teyshablue. Mark's tasteful and creative keyboard accompaniment and solos have added textural sophistication to the tunes that otherwise would not have been possible.

Guitarist Ulrich Everling of Stuttgart adds melodic grittiness with his rock-inflected solo work. Having worked together as a duo in Southern Germany in the mid-nineties, the musical rapport then established clearly remains.

Berliner Peter Befort, Bassist and Guitarist, contributes with his smooth, Wes-like guitar solo on Triangle Love, the punchy bass on And So It Goes… and on guitar and bass in Moments. He captures perfectly the direction and feel of these tunes. Pete is much in demand on the Berlin Latin-Jazz scene as a bass player and performs regularly with his own Trio.

Laszlo Moldvai, composer and pianist, writer of film scores for German Television, currently performs in and around Berlin in his duo: die linkshändler. Laszlo and I performed as a Jazz Piano and Guitar Duo in West Berlin (before the fall of The Wall) in the late eighties. It is a pleasure to close the album with his improvisation on a tune that we performed so often together.

Tom Shields, (Ft. Worth, Texas) performs the guitar solo in Country For The Common Man, while Ralph Time (North Richland Hills, Texas) takes the laid-back drumming on It’s Not Just Gold.

Individual tracks for the songs on this album were recorded variously at Teyshablue Studios, North Richland Hills, Texas, U.S.A., Terry Cork Studios, Stuttgart, Moldvai Music, Berlin-Wedding and the K Road Music Studio, Berlin-Dahlem, Germany.

All tracks produced, mixed and mastered at K Road, Berlin.