Dear Good People of Music, bossa nova by Joao Gilberto fills the air at SpragueLand as I write you. It’s been a good week and the music and surfing are taking over. All moments music, all moments ocean, except for when I’m dealing with email and texts, when I’m having great dinner hangs with Kylie and Stef, when we’re taking the Rocky mini dog for long walks, when I’m weaving through some rad summer big time traffic, and when I’m weaving through some HTML commands. I wouldn’t have it any other way!
Churn, churn, churn, the media machine marches on!The latest from the spinning world of what’s going on is that vocalist Sacha Boutros’ latest CD NY After Dark is nominated for a Grammy for best engineered recording. This is great news and she recorded her vocals and some guitar over here at SpragueLand. This is still the “first round” of the Grammy selection so it can fall out if it doesn’t gather enough votes. Fingers crossed as it’d be a happy day to have a Grammy hanging around the studio.
We had a fun Dizzy’s gig weekend with first up, a bossa nova Jobim exploration with vocalist Maria Rosa at the helm. Super enthusiastic audience and great to play all of those Jobim beauties!  Jobim bossa nova at Dizzy’s with Irving Flores, Ryan, Julien Canthelm, Maria Rosa, and Peter. Next up, saxophonist Brian Levy along with Mikan on piano and me on guitar had a blast shapeshifting trio style at Dizzy’s on Sunday night. These are amazing players and we started with some songs and then easefully branched out into other vistas to let the music morph. It worked out and our jazz writer about town, Robert Bush was there and dug the direction too. He writes “ the rhythm triplicate at Dizzy’s, Brian Levy, Mikan Zlatkovich and Peter Sprague have a shared sense of propulsive chemistry.” Check out the whole enchilada here.  Mikan, Brian and Peter at Dizzy’s.  After the gig and catching our breath with Mikan, Brian, and Peter. The good news keeps flowing in for the less conventional audio ride that is Dr. Einstein’s Spin. This is my recording released earlier this year and it’s one of my favorites as the unique instrumentation of string quartet is a creative foil for me to compose for and to perform with. Just out is a new review in All About Jazz Magazine where the reviewer reports, “chamber music that ripples with muscularity and the flow of real improvising, Dr. Einstein’s Spin is a sublime balance of disparate elements that makes for rewarding listening.” Click here for the whole article.
Coming up for gigs this week is a special Thursday night hit at the Roxy and this time my brother Tripp and his 13 year old daughter Kate will join me. Kate’s a super gifted young singer and the word on the street is that she’s picked up the skill of using a shaker to help hold down the Sprague groove. Tripp and Kate have added some new tunes to her book and tomorrow night we’ll play some Metheny music, Michael Jackson, Avril Lavigne, Burt Bacharach, Cole Porter, and the Beatles. Cool mix and hope to see you there!  Kate Sprague leading the group at the Roxy! The Sunday solo guitar brunch at the New American Craftsman continues on! See below on the gig calendar for details. That’s it and thanks for reading! all best, Peter |
“Dori”
This is a tune from our Blurring the Edges Sombra recording and it’s a song inspired by Brazilian guitarist Dori Caymmi. I’ve long loved Dori’s music and he’s got this incredible way of balancing beautiful melodies over chord changes that go in non-conventional directions. Pure magic! For my tune “Dori” it’s Fred and me on guitars, Tripp on soprano sax and flute, Kevin Hennessy on bass, Tom Aros on percussion, and Duncan on drums. Nice music and check it out here!!