The latest CD of famed Grammy award-winning Composer and Bassist Nathan East has arrived. Reverence is the follow-up to his long awaited self-titled debut CD.
When working on his debut, East felt he already had a head start for a second project because he wrote and recorded so much material that he couldn’t fit it all on one project. Reverence was released on January 27th and debuted at #1 on both the Billboard Contemporary Jazz Album and Jazz Album charts.
Musically, once again East takes a dive into several genres, as he has always been an equal opportunity type of guy when it comes to different styles of music. He hops into a few covers, including Earth Wind & Fire’s classics “Love’s Holiday” and “Serpentine Fire.” "Serpentine Fire" was initially covered back in '91 by Phil Collins, Eric Clapton and East’s brother Marcel East. That recording was rediscovered just last year and they have re-mastered it and added some additional vocal work from EWF’s Philip Bailey, Ralph Johnson and Verdine White.
Like East's debut CD, Reverence features lots of star power including Kirk Whalum, Gerald Albright, Yolanda Adams, Greg Phillinganes, Chick Corea and Ruben Studdard. These are the types of people that East has been around since his early days — he got his start at 16, backing up my fairy Godfather Barry White.
Tune in all month long to hear selections from Reverence, by Nathan East, our CD of the Month here on Your Source for Cool Jazz & More, WEAA 88.9FM.