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I have always believed that a recording should be done live and the more you play as you would play live, the better the recording will end up.

That means, all musicians in the same room , all playing at once, minimum or no headphones with  blending of signals into other mics.

Now all of this is just fine but the music has to be played in a natural manner where everyone can hear each other clearly and playing at a natural volume where a musician would have to learn  that  in order to play intense you do not have to play loud.

My last CD was recorded in this manner.

Spanish Breeze will move up to #24 on next week’s Jazz-Week World Chart.

And another observation:

The song I feel has the most expression because we recorded all in the same room is on on syndicated radio. I do not think it is smooth jazz but simple, expressive , beauty with all the imperfections that portray us as human beings.

Track #6 “Dulzura Con Rabia” will be added to the New Music Hour with Mariaa Lopez which airs on www.smoothjazznetwork.com <http://www.smoothjazznetwork.com/>

So I conclude  that human beings are really capable of feeling expressions of others.

Music recording should move away from present trends , take one step back in time, forget about packaging and focus only on the feeling.

Let us all trust our feelings , reflect them, play them, get them recorded  so that others can feel our guts.

Thomas Lorenzo today needs to express to the one he loves: You´re cute !.

Listen on http://www.barcelonamusic.info/Cute.m3u or on
http://www.myspace.com/thomaslorenzo

Music is emotion.

Belleza de agua dulce. Sweet water and beauty.

I urge to see in my daily life beauty that I can reflect myself upon and feel in my soul.

Water, fresh water, cold water , blue water, a lake ,a pond a river, the smell of the mist of the morning Dawn

I cannot get enough of it.

I urge to see in my daily life beauty that I can reflect myself upon and feel in my soul.
When I touch water l feel that it wants to get inside of me and be part of me sharing with me it´s flow of softness and power.

This composition recalls all these feelings and much more than I can only express through music.

Words in my mind are very limited but with music as a language iI can convey my feelings further beyond any written or spoken form of expression.

Let me share with you how I feel about the beauty of fresh sweet water.

Composed by Thomas Lorenzo

Thomas Lorenzo on Spanish Guitar
Alphonso Johnson on Acoustic Bass
Walfredo Reyes on Drums
Dave Garfield on Piano

Engineered by Bruce Sugar
Listen on
or you may also listen on

Blue Secrets

Music is emotion. A musical portrait of the Australian Outback. Blue Secrets.

Blue secrets is one of the tracks I enjoy most from the CD called Spanish Breeze by Thomas Lorenzo.

Thomas plays electric guitar on this composition accompanied by Alphonso Johnson on Bass, Walfredo Reyes on Drums and Dave Garfield on Piano. The track was recorded in 2009 at West-lake Recording Studios Los Angeles by Bruce Sugar.

After listening to the track a few times I realise that the composer does portray a notion of vastness, slow travel, reflection and harmony but in the middle of the track something strange happens.

I get a feeling that the scenario that the composer had in mind has now changed. We are no longer in a vast space.

There are walls around us, an urban enclosure but once again it is still soothing.

There is still a trance in this new setting and I must say that a clever one as the melody is the same all the way through the composition but what changes is the harmonic complexity.

After this new setting gets clearly stated the harmony complexity disappears and once again we are back in the vastness of the possible dessert.

Conclusion

I wonder if the track ever needed this change of setting.

Is is that human beings cannot focus on something nice for a prolonged period without forgetting who they are ?

I believe this is the case and this is what the composer was trying to say with his music.

To see beauty we must reflect upon ourselves.

Nice really Nice.

Would I like to visit the Outback after listening to this song.?

I think I would.

But they all woke up the next day feeling very confused and empty.
One of the wise men said to his wife “Why am I feeling sad and empty if I have made love and given music to my friends”

His wife answered “My beloved husband, I give you clean shirts in the morning and you bring them back dirty in the afternoon. They have to be washed again so they can be worn again.

You need to feel empty to feel the need to replenish.Please hurry up and replenish your soul as our bed awaits your return”

The wise man understood very well, had a big breakfast and set off to play with his friends to replenish his soul so his wife could have another happy night.On his way back home , of course he was hurrying, he..

Wise man in a hurry to get home feeling the need to feel empty again.

When will musicians stop giving away their talent for almost nothing and letting others take the little money we make.

As a composer I wish to get the most out of my royalty collection agency.

In Spain the only collection agency is called the SGAE.

Unfortunately it has as members both publishers and composers.

A contradiction that could be  summarised  as having the same union looking out for the interests of both  the workers and the people that use their talent, the bosses.

In Spain the publishers now control how composers should be paid. The composers have sold out.

The publishers are now owners of the composers rights and have great power in the SGAE They have more power than the composers.

This means that for example a composer wants to get his music on TV he has to give away most of his rights. This can be considered ok but he gives away his rights to that organism who now has power to dictate the rules and establish how much he will get.

It would be like in the old times where you worked for a boss and you would have to pay him back form the salary your lodging and equipment  rental  as a shovel a pick etch that you used for your job

The new bosses can now dictate how much the musicians will get paid. For example  the new bosses in the past had to pay good fees-to musicians for television broadcast of for example: TV commercials.

Now since the TV´S are also the bosses they have ruled that the income from Television adds is now reduced to a 3rd of the original costs.

That way the television both acquire money from savings , not having to pay composers, and from royalties as they own a lot of the publishing.

The funny thing is that no one complains about this type of working for a boss who is your union buddy.

When will musicians stop giving away their talent for almost nothing and letting others take  little money we make.

Thanks to all my readers .

Thomas Lorenzo

Spanish Breeze

The Live recording. The composers thoughts, Barcelona October 23rd 2009

This album was recorded live at Westlake Studios, Los Angeles on the 10th 11th and 12 of August.

I seeked the live performance of all tunes to portray the live essence of what music is about.

I believe that society can think of excellence as a synonym of perfection.

I believe that imperfection is what is attractive to all humans, qualities such as shyness, power, greed, and forgiveness. Music has to portray these qualities of all human beings.

The more it does the warmer it sounds and the more each individual musician can be heard as such.

A recording with overdubs and where the rhythm was not created listening to the feeling and interpretation of the melody can only be dull. The more perfect the more boring the music is.

A perfect person is a boring person. Would you fall in love with a perfect person?

A live recording requires a lot of experience as a musician,

I believe this cd sounds fresh and natural.

The quality of the sound was achieved by minimal signal processing, full dynamics, very little compression, eq, etch, recording and mixing at 96k and mastering in the analogue domain before quality conversion back to 44.1k.

Bruce Sugar supervised all the process carefully from the studio setup, microphone selection, mixing, and mastering to achieve this natural sound.

In other words a lot of musicianship, state of the art recording equipment, mixing and mastering gear has intervened to achieve an album that sounds as natural as we are.

So technology here is used to aid us and help you take home the musicians we are.

I wish to share this experience with you and create this adventure as another pleasure in life to feed of.
Thomas Lorenzo
23rd of October 2009

The saxophonist Wayne Shorter, a member of the great Miles Davis quintet of the ´60s, will open the festival next October 28 at l´Auditori in front of his quartet, undoubtedly the most powerful machine of nowdays jazz. Jimmy Cobb, the only survivor of the totem record in the history of jazz, the masterpice Kind of Blue, will perform at the Palau on November 7 with a band (Wallace Roney on trumpet) with which recreates the magic of an iconic recording . Finally, Marcus Miller, who composed the famous Tutu with Miles, will debut on November 11 at the Palau de la Música with a show that will feature the young Christian Scott on the trumpet. These are the first three concerts of 41 Voll-Damm Festival Internacional de Jazz de Barcelona, which will begin on October 18 and end on December 6. Tickets go on sale on Monday, July 13 at the Tel-Entrada Caixa Catalunya.