David Lacapelle

2022 release. Featuring David's 12 piece big band, contributions by Jeff Lorber, Eric Marienthal and more! With over 20 #1 smooth jazz radio hits, sales of over 2 million albums, and touring the world over for more than 30 years, David Benoit is a true smooth jazz icon!! On A Midnight Rendezvous, David fulfills his long-standing dream of writing and arranging for a 12 piece big band featuring some of the top instrumentalists on the L.A. scene, including Eric Marienthal, Wayne Bergeron, Roberto Vally, and others. Additional highlights include the seductive title tune "A Midnight Rendezvous," the driving "Long Journey Home," and much more!

Young Danish-Hungarian organist David Bendix Nielsen makes his solo album debut with a recording that weaves the music of J.S. Bach and Arvo Prt into a rich recital. By combining composers with such apparently different musical approaches, Nielsen sheds new light on both, so that listeners hear unexpected parallels between the music of the German Baroque and that of 20th-century Estonia. One characteristic shared by both composers is that of a deep spirituality, as heard in chorale preludes and fugues by Bach, or in Prts hypnotic tintinnabulation in Spiegel im Spiegel. There is secular music, too, in the form of Bachs organ transcription of Vivaldis Concerto in D minor. David Bendix Nielsen is the organist of St. Marks Church in Copenhagen and teaches at the Royal Danish Academy of Music. He won the Lonie Sonning Talent Prize in 2018, and from 2022 to 2023 was a recipient of the Young Cultural Elite scholarship from the Danish Arts Foundation.

Austrian Syndicate…the phrase immediately brings to mind the best-known and most influential of all Austrians in jazz, Joe Zawinul. And yet David Helbock’s project is much more than just a homage to his compatriot. It is a return to the roots of fusion jazz and how things developed from then on. It is also a new direction stylistically for Helbock, who has harnessed a panoply of inspiration with a refreshing openness to new sounds from far and wide. As Helbock himself puts it: "This is close to my heart." Helbock has been able to enlist the best rhythm section in Austria for the Syndicate: Raphael Preuschl on bass and bass ukulele, drummer Herbert Pirker and percussionist Claudio Spieler. The quintet also has an American in it, one for whom becoming Austrian was a matter of choice: pianist Peter Madsen. This Austrian supergroup is also a place where Helbock’s stellar international guests shine brightly: Maria João, Fred Wesley, Dhafer Youssef, Alex Acuña and Lakecia Benjamin.

Three renowned bandleaders & solo artists of European jazz come together to form a very special trio. What unites them is the love for clear themes, melodies, harmonies, with a strong rhythmic grounding. Qualities that originate in the cool jazz of the 40s and 50s which philosophy the trio continues using the jazz vocabulary of today.