MP3 The Seventh Triangle - Diamond Bar

Progressive Smooth Jazz - in a somewhat Steely Dan fashion.

12 MP3 Songs
JAZZ: Smooth Jazz, JAZZ: Jazz Vocals



Details:

'Here's a scene that you've seen before/On the sands of a foggy beach...'
-- 'A Play On Words - Act One' by Jason Peri, from the 1991 CD All Thumbs on NewHatRecords.

Jason Peri met Dave Tilton at Fresno (CA) State University in 1975. They formed a band called The The a few days later. Peri came up with the first part of the name and Tilton added the second half. Actually, it may have been the other way around; regardless, they continued as The The for the next three years. During this period, Tilton was completing his BA in English, which included taking a writing class taught by future US Poet Laureate Mark Strand. In 1978, the band dissolved. Peri moved back to Los Angeles and enrolled in the prestigious Dick Grove Music School in Studio City, CA. Tilton moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and continued to perform in coffeehouses and small clubs.

In 1984, Peri formed NewHatRecords. The following year, Tilton joined him in Los Angeles for a project that resulted in a new band called The Seventh Triangle -- whose name was inspired by a six-triangle sculpture displayed at Fresno State University - and the 1986 NewHatRecords cassette titled Apart From Everything. Peri wrote (or co-wrote with Tilton) the recording's ten songs, which were performed in an 'unplugged' format years before MTV made this style an industry standard. Peri played guitar, bass and percussion; Tilton played harmonica, mandolin and jaws harp. Both shared lead vocals and harmonies.

Peri and Tilton spent the next three years recording solo projects for NewHatRecords. In 1989, while waiting for the World Series to resume following the Loma Prieta earthquake, they began work on a new Seventh Triangle recording. With bassist Mike Davenport, they released the NewHatRecords CD All Thumbs in 1991. The band's music had evolved into a mostly electric format. Tilton and Peri played electric guitars, with Peri adding keyboard and drum machine sections. Although they cowrote three of the CD's thirteen songs, Peri and Tilton did the bulk of the songwriting individually, resulting in a wide variety of rhythms, sounds and subject matter.

Once again, Peri and Tilton began a period of solo recordings and live projects apart from their work as The Seventh Triangle. Tilton formed his own label, D-Side Records, in 1998 and released two CDs. During the same period, Peri completed UCLA's Film Scoring program, began composing movie soundtrack music and taking karate classes. The latter activity found him crossing paths with a drummer named Scott Moreno...

...which leads us to Diamond Bar, the first recording in ten years by The Seventh Triangle, released on April 1, 2001 by NewHatRecords. The CD contains a dozen songs featuring a style Peri calls 'progressive smooth jazz,' which Tilton describes as 'being in Steely Dan's neighborhood -- maybe down the block a few houses away from theirs.' Moreno's lyrical, jazz-based drumming pushes the band's sound into a new direction, resulting in a thoughtful, witty, swinging and joyful music.

Over the years, The Seventh Triangle and its members have performed with a wide range of musical stylists. A short list of names includes Bill Spooner of The Tubes, jazz flutist Alexander Zonjic, Stan Kenton's reunion big band, Third From The Sun, Through The Woods, 1960s folk icon Randy Sparks and The Back Porch Majority, Mimi Farina's Bread & Roses Foundation, rural blues guitarist Bill Miller and solo projects by members of The Doobie Brothers and Stevie Wonder's band. These people and many others have been part of the path that led to Diamond Bar.

Until next time, 'love and do take care....'