Thursday, March 23, 2017

Joey DeFrancesco & The People Make Mack Avenue Records Debut with First Ever Quartet Album, Project Freedom

 When jazz aficionados think of Joey DeFrancesco--and they often do--they ponder his matchless talents as a modern-day avatar of the Hammond B3 organ and the Philadelphia history he shares with his principle instrument. Organ-based blues and jazz started in Philly and DeFrancesco is the first to tell you so.


DeFrancesco is adored for his buoyant, moody sense of swing and balladry as a composer and as a player. That's a bluesy, blustery sensibility shared with the men in his family: saxophonist/grandfather Joseph DeFrancesco, and his father--organist "Papa" John DeFrancesco. Jazz lovers also dig DeFrancesco's second instrument, the trumpet, and the inspiration gleaned from his first big boss, Miles Davis--with whom DeFrancesco gigged when the organist was in his late teens.

"All that--that's what's been expected of me, all of which makes me proud, but there's so much more," says DeFrancesco on the day he flew back to Philadelphia from his current home base of Phoenix. DeFrancesco stopped by the City of Brotherly Love to receive a star on the Philadelphia Music Walk of Fame alongside local giants such as Coltrane, Dizzy and Nina Simone.
So for Joey DeFrancesco's Project Freedom--his debut for the Mack Avenue Records label--DeFrancesco adds several feathers to his cap including those of world traveling storyteller, quartet leader, freedom fighter, peace maker, spiritual healer and genre-busting composer and cover artist. "All of my albums mean a lot to me," he says. "Project Freedom though--this one means just a little bit more."

Quick to mention the influence of Philadelphia in every note that he plays--"that's where all my initial inspiration comes from," he explains--DeFrancesco looks beyond worshipping at the altar of Hammond B3 priests such as Jimmy Smith and Jimmy McGriff on Project Freedom. "It was never JUST organ and it was never JUST jazz for me," says DeFrancesco of a personal past that figures into new songs, such as the space-funk of the title track or what he calls the "free soul" of Sam Cooke's emotional "A Change Is Gonna Come."

Stylistically, DeFrancesco has long believed that his approach to playing and composing comes from the saxophone. "It's that sense of breathing that affects everything," explains DeFrancesco.

An homage to John Lennon opens Project Freedom with a gorgeous snippet of "Imagine" (Prelude) with a soaring tribute to J. Rosamond Johnson's uplifting composition, "Lift Every Voice and Sing" rounding out the purifying package. Mostly though, it's DeFrancesco's existence as a spiritual being--walking in the footsteps of humanity's inherent goodness--that is at the heart of Project Freedom. "There are notes and rhythms, sure, but it is how you live your life that is most crucial," he says. "It's how you play AND present yourself."

Being a frequent flyer with a globe-hopping world touring schedule has given DeFrancesco insight into differing--but not opposing--viewpoints that he longed to espouse through music. "I always thought that as touring musicians, we were spreading peace. No matter what happens in the world, we keep playing. In a lot of the so-called forbidden places too. When we're there, through war and conflict, problems melt away through music. We're playing for these people, hanging out with them, and we all come together and we're grooving with each other because of the music. That is true freedom. Music is true freedom."



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