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| Lawson Rollins' New Album Elevation Lawson Rollins, the renowned genre crossing and Billboard-charting guitarist, will release his newest album Elevation (Infinita Records) Oct 18. It features Rollins' virtuosic guitar playing, guest performances by nearly 20 world music masters and was recorded in far-flung locales such as Nepal, California, Virginia, and Iran. The thirteen original tracks on the album were written by Rollins and feature lush, expressive arrangements based on his flamenco-infused guitar, mixing Middle Eastern, Spanish and Indian musical motifs. Following the success of his videos on YouTube - viewed over five million times - and his critically acclaimed solo releases Infinita (2008) and Espirito (2010), Elevation similarly brings together an eclectic and ambitious group of guest musicians including Buckethead, who brings his metal-infused guitar to three tracks on the album. Elevation was co-produced by Rollins along with Iranian musician/producer Shahin Shahida, one half of the best-selling duo Shahin & Sepehr and producer of the 2010 all-star benefit album Hope for Congo (Sheryl Crow, Norah Jones, Bat For Lashes, Mos Def) and Dominic Camardella who has produced and performed piano and keyboard with renowned jazz greats such as Flora Purim, Airto Moreira, Maynard Ferguson and Ottmar Liebert. Shahin was in Iran during the summer uprisings of 2010 and recorded santur-player Pejman Ekhtiari in Esfahan for album track "Persian Night." "It's almost a document of the heated atmosphere of that historical summer in Iran, " says Rollins. Shahin also recorded the vocals for "Voyager's Tale" that summer in Iran, the lyrics derived from the Persian classical poet Hafez and sung in Farsi. Additional production was contributed by William Aura, a program coordinator and Nepal specialist for Playing For Change, a multimedia music project and foundation that builds music schools around the world. He recorded Nepali musicians in Kathmandu for several tracks on the album including Kirin Nepali on sarangi, Ruben Kumar Shrestha on flute and Raju Maharjan on tabla. ABOUT LAWSON ROLLINS: Inspired by the work of Andres Segovia, Lawson Rollins began playing classical guitar as a teenager, developing a dexterous, virtuosic classical fingerstyle technique and a taste for fusing Spanish guitar with Latin jazz, samba, and rumba. After 4 studio albums as part of the Latin guitar duo Young & Rollins, Rollins released his debut solo album Infinita in 2008 to overwhelming praise (All About Jazz called it "easily one of the year's best"). This album, and it's follow-up Espirita, spawned several Billboard-charting radio hits and established him as not only a gifted performer but a sought-after collaborator in the world music community. write your comments about the article :: © 2011 Jazz News :: home page |