Mid-afternoon.
You had a good time at your Class of 1960 supper with the added delight of
Jennifer Milligan and her friend Pascal Fouquet. Jen is the daughter of old
friends Fritz and Carol. I love their music and told Jen that they sounded
right out of the old musical “Black and Blue” which Carol and I saw on Broadway
in the early nineties. Good stuff! Most cool. Jen and Pascal live in a house in
Normandy. One of the gigs has been a stone’s throw from Shakespeare and Company
on the West Bank. Boy, I would love to visit there some day. Kim was there with
her French class in 1995 and I am still envious.
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Out
of the Coop! by Lil’ Red & the Roosters
The line-up:
Jen “Lil’ Red” Milligan vocals and percussion, Pascal Fouquet on guitar, Thomas
Troussier on harmonica, Denis Agenet on drums, Jeff Vincendeau on upright bass.
Denis leads all the Roosters on background vocals. Mix - Jen Milligan,
Mastering - Blaise Barton, Cover Art - Jen Milligan, Photos - Maureen Piou.
“This CD was inspired by two acoustic CDs by Lurrie Bell,
"The Devil Ain't Got No Music" and "Second Nature" with his
father Carey Bell. It isn’t just the music that moves me in these CDs. The sound of the recording and
mix has an atmosphere naked and natural that lets me sink into the beauty of
the blues. I wanted to create the feeling that you’re in our home listening to
us live. I also wanted the music to have a natural in the moment groove. We
recorded songs when we were inspired and encompassed all aspects of our diverse
international group.
The simple
duo & trio roots blues and the subtle edge between it and old jazz, as well
as full band Electric and Jump Blues. We all stretched a little out of our
comfort zones to give each artist a moment in their niche, the result being
rich surprises. Given by the flexibility of an auto-production, we took risks
in the recording process. “Trouble No More” was recorded at Twins Studio all
live in one take, “Fever” was recorded sitting on the edge of the bathtub and
you may hear an occasional train pass on “Slow Down”. We took our time to get
it right with what we had to work with which was mostly creativity and
experienced musicians. There were many doubts as to whether I could match the
sounds of many spaces and microphones, put different genres of blues and jazz
side by side or create a CD with songs in duo and trio with a very fat sounding
band, but that’s what our group is, so I had faith. The mix took a lot of work,
but I knew the mastering would be the key. By chance, Blaise Barton the Grammy
winner who did the engineering, mixing and mastering for one of the CDs that
inspired this process was available to bless our CD with his talents, and that
he did. We learned a lot through this process. You have to take some risks to
find rich surprises. “ Lil’ Red [Jen]
From - back Album Cover: ‘Out of the Coop’
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