Description
DownJazz Records is thrilled to announce This Is Neo-Soul, a new album from keyboardist, composer, and longtime Roy Ayers music director Mark Adams, arrives just over a year after Ayers’ passing at 84. The 10-track release — available worldwide on limited-edition color vinyl, CD, and digital platforms — gathers fifteen all-star musicians from the working bands not only of Ayers, but also of Chic, Lonnie Liston Smith, Luther Vandross, Gloria Gaynor & Chaka Khan. Adams spent more than twenty years as the musical center of Roy Ayers’ touring group Ubiquity — the long-running, ever-evolving band Ayers used to carry his sound around the world — serving as keyboardist, arranger, and onstage ballast throughout thousands of shows. True to its present-tense title, This Is Neo-Soul isn’t a gaze into the rearview mirror. It’s a continuation of a language Adams lived for more than two decades. “It’s a Roy Ayers, ’70s sound, but we authenticated it with the people who played that music & the people trained by them,” Adams says. “I played with Roy for more than 20 years. He taught me everything. So we made this the real thing.” “This is not a tribute band. This is the band. The true representatives,” Schwartz adds. “These guys grew up on this. Mark’s played this music in over a thousand shows worldwide. This tutelage of mentor and mentee is evident in the album and in the band.” The band includes Chris DeCarmine (drums, Roy Ayers), Dave Mullins (saxophone, Gloria Gaynor, Gill Scott Heron), Monte Croft (vibraphone, Gladys Knight), Steve Kroon (percussion, Luther Vandross), and Kenyatta Beasley (trumpet, Mary J Blige). Additional artists include Chic vocalist Kimberly Davis; vocalist John Pressley (Roy Ayers), Jonathan Quash (Mark Adams), Miya Bass (Broadway); guitarists Bill White (Lonnie Liston Smith) and John Smith ( William Patterson); plus bassists Roy Bennett (Bernard Perdie), Donald Nicks (Roy Ayers), Emanuel “Chulo” Gatewood (Dianne Reeves) & a Brooklyn gospel choir.
