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Hey, everybody!  A little update on where I’m going to be and what I’m going to be up to in the next little while here, starting with a cool piece of news that makes it hard to get to sleep:  I will once again be working on a CD with Herbie Hancock, doing my virtual orchestra and probably some additional noises on his forthcoming CD.  This is always a BIG HUGE BUZZ for me, as someone who really cut his teeth on all Herbie’s discs from 8th grade on, it is a thrill to work with him.  This one’s being produced by Kendrick Lamar’s producer Terrace Martin, so should be huge fun!  

THEN, I got called by Gino Vannelli to work on his next project;  Gino and I produced a CD together in 1996-97 called “Slow Love” that’s still one of the best projects I’ve ever worked on.  I programmed almost the entire thing in Logic, really lush and well-produced, I had a blast on this little imitation MiniMoog we’d rented laying all kinds of unusual lead synth sounds on it.  Gino is an incredible writer, singer, player, and producer, and these records aren’t “easy” to make, but we’re both perfectionists and the end result is pretty great!

In September, I’ll be on tour in Johannesburg, South Africa with 3 incredible singer/songwriters:  Deniece Williams (Let’s Hear It For The Boy), Bill Champlin (Chicago, “Hard Habit to Break”), and Brenda Russell (“Piano In The Dark”, “Get Here (If You Can).  My first trip to Africa after all these years being everywhere else, looking forward to that!  

Also in August - September i’ll be doing some touring with my solo show, up the west coat to Portland, Oregon, and then to Copenhagen for a couple concerts and some workshops/clinics.  Here’s an idea of what the solo shows are like, doing tracks-on-the-fly in Native Instruments’ Maschine software:

I’ve been getting more into Reaktor and its incredible, unusual “Ensembles”, so there will be more textural, sound-design sorts of things on these gigs…

And as always, working on tracks here for this project and that project:  LA guitar legend Jeff Richman’s CDs (I’ve done a few of these at this point!), the great bassist Joe Hubbard, for whom I’m arranging, playing and mixing (fun tracks to blow on), mixing for Chris Minh Doky, orchestral arranging for Glen Roven…

And finally, my track on “Keys To The City”, in which 14 different New York pianists (OK, FORMER NY Pianist here) do an original take on classic New York-themed songs, is getting a very nice response;  I did kind of a wild take on “New York, New York, It’s a Hell of a Town”, in 7/4 as a latin-esque sort of thing, trying to capture some of the manic energy and irony of the city. You can hear the idea here, at least the first half!  

See you all in a Video Exchange!  - George Whitty