CRAIG
CHAQUICO
Midnight Noon
MIDNIGHT
NOON CD photos:
Bill Reitzel, CD art direction: Chris Verespej
Inspired by the expression "jazz noon" (...aka 12AM midnight),
the tunes on contemporary jazz icon Craig Chaquico's new album,
MIDNIGHT NOON, are inspired by contrast
and made to get you thinking about how maybe sometimes opposites
do attract.
The contrast of 'Midnight Noon' intrigued Chaquico on many levels.
"Even outside of the music world - and with so many technological
advances - a lot of people don't really get inspired and start working
until midnight and a 9 to 5 working day doesn't always seem to matter
as much. At least in the art and music world, so much gets going,
and is inspired, just after midnight when it's quiet, peaceful,
and uninterupted...and it's always just after midnight somewhere
in the world" he comments.
"But,
like a Magritte painting where the foreground is a dark, dimly lit,
shadowy nighttime scene while the background is filled with a broad
daylight sky with sunlit clouds, it really is about apparent paradoxes
in our lives, too...putting two words or ideas in a title or song
together that may not seem to make sense at first blush, but end
up making you see ordinary, day-to-day things in a new light ...from
midnght to noon and back again many seemingly impossible things
are possible ....like the way we recorded some of these songs with
musicians who were sometimes hundreds or thousands of miles away,
and even oceans apart on the other side of the planet in Spain at
one point working with keyboardist and arranger, Bill Heller
(....aka 'the G' for genius) , but who all were still able
to record and add parts to the same song together in a matter of
minutes using the internet and our 'laptop studios'....it's a funny
old world, isn't it? ....because it really does seem impossible
at first"
Much of the same can be said of Chaquico's musical career. He has
engaged and inspired two generations of pop music fans as the lead
guitarist and most prolific principle song writer for Jefferson
Starship/Starship and, with 20 Gold records combined between the
Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, and Starship,
he was instrumental in making that combination one of the
most successful bands in history. According to the RIAA
this prestigious position is shared only with Elvis Presley,Barbra
Streisand, The Rolling Stones, Neil Diamond, The Beatles, Frank
Sinatra, Elton John, Bob Dylan. Craig's music has always
inspired and borne a deep,spiritual vision and, by the 1990s,
after finding himself at the top of the national charts
in each of 3 consecutive decades (...'70s, '80s,
'90s) as a songwriter and band member, Chaquico left the fast-paced
pop world and reinvented himself as an award winning solo
contemporary instrumental artist, songwriter,
producer, and band leader again
at the top of the national charts in a fourth decade and
a new millennium.
Quickly becoming
one of the new genre's most popular and best selling artists, Chaquico's
debut CD, ACOUSTIC HIGHWAY (1993) was honored as Billboard's
#1 New Age indie album and Adult Alternative Album
of the whole year. ACOUSTIC PLANET, his follow up 1994
offering, received a Grammy® nomination for
Best New Age Album and reached #1 on the Billboard
chart the first week it was released by gently nudging Yanni's million
selling "Live at the Acropolis" album out of that position.
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