MP3 The Awakening - Visions

Jazz Fusion World Music

12 MP3 Songs
JAZZ: Acid Jazz, JAZZ: Jazz Fusion



Details:
The Awakening is new jazz for a new era, presenting the music of composer, producer and electric bassist Frank Stokes. Performing from the 1970's into the 21st century, Frank Stokes grew up in Brooklyn, New York, in the 1950's. Going backstage for years with a relative working as the stage manager at a Brooklyn theater where Alan Freed and Murray The K staged shows Frank Stokes was inspired by Little Richard and he can still see the spotlight shining on Jackie Wilson, onstage ten feet away as Frank watched from the wings. In 1976 Frank Stokes joined Kongress, founded by Otto von Ruggins, fronted by the late Australian master of sorcery who invented the Dancing Cane illusion, Geoffrey Crozier, with whom Frank Stokes also played bass in Shanghai Side Show. Frank Stokes evolved from an influential underground bassist playing metal in seven inch heels with a flamethrower mounted on the back of his headstock into a serious composer of jazz, by chance meeting Jaco Pastorius during the seven years he spent running a Brooklyn recording studio. Jaco spent a night playing bass, piano and drums with Frank in the studio and urged him to form a band. The Awakening features two drummers with degrees from Berklee and Juilliard and The Awakening Horns, a tenor, flute and clarinet player praised by The New York Times for his work with Ornette Coleman with a trumpet and flugelhorn player belonging to the International Association Of Jazz Educators. Frank Stokes is also a painter and fine line illustrator working to honor his Native American heritage, producing a drawing or series of drawings to set the scene as each one of his songs tells a story. Dance floor grooves, Native American, Latin, Funk and World rhythms are combined with more contemplative numbers to stimulate mind, body and spirit, sending healing energy in all directions.