From Cello Suite No 3 in C major, BWV 1009 performed on clarinet. It is not a quality, but rather a consequence of its qualities, that Johann Sebastian Bach's melody never grows old. It remains ever fair and young, like nature, from which it is derived.

Suites are so rich in harmonic and melodic structures, creating for the performer unlimited space in which to exploit the colors of clarinet sound.

Artwork courtesy of Strbn on Flickr at http://tinyurl.com/hch45y5

Sherbrooke, March 2015 - The Eastern Townships prolific composer/singer/guitarist and producer Mike Goudreau presents his 17th album Je reste accroché, featuring 12 new original songs, 11 of which are sung in French!

This is Goudreau's 2nd Blues album featuring all French vocal original songs. The 1st album "Nous avions rendez vous", released in 2000 on the Montreal based Bros Label had a successful run with concerts at Montreal's Francofolies in 2001 and a live recording at la Maison de la Culture de Frontenac, recorded by Radio-Canada's "Silence on jazz" and broadcast coast to coast!

With Je reste accroché, you'll discover a good-timing mix of contemporary Blues and traditional Blues with diverse influences : Chicago Blues, Swing, Jazz, Rock, RnB, Country and even a Reggae! Mike Goudreau is accompanied by long time cronies and musicians, Maxime St-Pierre (Michel Cusson, Jean-Pierre Ferland, Alain Caron) on trumpet and horn arrangements, the brilliant saxophonist Dany Roy (Garou, Bet-E and Steph, Suzie Arioli), Nino Fabi (Garou, J.C. Lauzon) on keyboards and the rhythm section of Jean-François Bégin on drums and percussions and Jonathan-Guillaume Boudreau on bass.

Goudreau wrote all the songs on the album with the help from lyricists and collaborators Michel Aubin, Lise Gaudreau and the Frenchman Jacques Mège. Diverse song subjects such as : relationships, love, breakups, partys, friends, society and lighter stories with a comical edge. The always instantly recognizable "Goudreau" signature is in the music and grooves. A Blues album that defies the convention that Blues is solely sung in English. Finally a Blues album that all francophones can understand in the language of Molière!

Recorded and engineered by Jimmy Lord at Studio Plante Verte in St-Julie, Quebec and mastered by Steve Corao at Sage Audio in Nashville, Tennessee, this recording can stand beside the big Blues productions from the USA. The proof is in the pudding since Mike Goudreau's music productions have been heard on dozens of network TV shows and films from the United States in the past 7 years, such as : Dirty Sexy Money (ABC), Army Wives (Lifetime), Kath and Kim (NBC), George Lopez Show (TBS), Justified (FX), Scoundrels (ABC), Friday Night Lights (ABC), Let's Make a Deal (CBS), Memphis Beat (TNT), Auction Kings (Discovery), American Pickers (Discovery), Oddities (Discovery), Hung (HBO), Defiance (FX), The Fosters (ABC Family) and most recently the TV movie "North Pole" (Bravo/Hallmark).

For the past 25 years, Goudreau continues to expand his horizons in the world of music not only in Québec and the United States, but also, all over the world! We invite you to rediscover this great Canadian talent!

www.mikegoudreau.com
info@mikegoudreau.com

The 24 preludes and fugues recorded by Daniel in volumes 1 and 2 do not have a fixed, prescribed order beyond a prelude in one key being followed by its fugue in the same key. The track listings are, accordingly, neither in a "Bach" nor a "Chopin" order. We live in the era of the playlist and the mp3 so I think that performers and album listeners alike can decide what order this cycle will have even if there are fixed track numbers on the albums at the time of purchase.

As an American and a guitarist I can't imagine composing a set of preludes and fugues without a grateful consideration of blues, ragtime and other popular styles. Overtly and obliquely these styles permeate the cycle alongside more obviously traditional European elements. I believe the music of Scott Joplin, Robert Johnson, Duke Ellington, and Thelonius Monk is as indissolubly part of the Western musical heritage as Bach, Haydn, William Byrd or Stravinsky. There is no "opposition" between twelve-bar blues and contrapuntal processes for me.

And if the history of American music is full of blues, it's also full of Gospel (and other styles). Alert listeners will note the variety of traditional Christian hymns woven into the cycle. My aim was to make a cycle that reflected upon the span of polyphonic music up to even its more "modernist" forms, yet remains traditionalist enough that a majority of the music could still potentially be played in liturgical contexts. I've played some of these preludes and fugues in church services. Just as the cycle was not composed with any duality in academic and popular music in mind, neither was it composed to be construed in strictly "concert" or "church" music terms.

Jeremiah Lawson

Artwork courtesy of Abhijit Kar Gupta at http://tinyurl.com/j5rsghd

Supposedly founded in 2012, Candy Empire doesn't really belong to this day and age. They operate elsewhere, not bothering with time or place. Should you come across them, you'll recognize 1950s America, dusty cult movies, crack-and-cigarette-soaked watering holes, and the first love of an aging Cuban jazz pianist.

Clouded in whiskey fumes, they drive through the city with the top down, stop at red-light districts, and fall asleep in the arms of a purring catwoman. As hopeless romantics, they run their fingers across old vacuum-tube radios, bringing out dirty, rough, yet tender sounds.

Like dark chocolate that melts into a trippy high, everything dissolves. Boundaries be gone, for the imperial capital is free!

Entertaining songs in English, French, Italian, Czech, Russian and Greek - and in Denio?s own private language - featuring her skills on guitar, bass, alto saxophone, accordion, keyboard, and MIDI programming.

This album represents the songs she would perform live at her solo concerts. She began touring Europe with her band Tone Dogs in 1988, and discovered that she had a good capacity to learn languages other than English. With the discovery that each language has its own musicality, she began to write songs in foreign tongues, often using phrase books to construct the lyrics. The Russian song is about a man whose wife has disappeared, and asks for someone to show where she is on a map; the Czech song asks the waiter to put more appetizers in the train station baggage room, the Greek song is about eating slugs for breakfast (slugs meaning both the slimy creatures, and also bullet casings, since the song was written during the war in ex-Jugoslavia).

These songs were recorded on her TASCAM MIDI Studio, attached to an Atari computer, creating a unique blend of cassette culture with digital media. Denio sings, and plays guitars, bass, accordion, alto saxophone, and does all the programming. Guest artists are Charley Rowan (accordion on Slugs), and Marjorie de Muynck (saxophone on Jig). This recording was originally released in 1993 by Steve Rubin (R.I.P.) on his label FOT Records in Normal Illinois. Artwork by the inimitable Dennis Palmer, of the Shaking Ray Levi Society.