Keyboardist extraordinaire John Novello started out playing with icons like Donna Summer, The Manhattan Transfer, Ramsey Lewis and many more but now we get him all to ourselves. His new hit single “Crush” featuring Gerald Albright has a classic yet unique sense of deep old school jazz, soulful pop and R&B. With the release of his brand new album Ivory Soul Novello doubles down gliding and grooving through a set of instantly memorable melodies teased by his signature improvisational style. With some help from the great Tom Scott and Eric Marienthal on featured sax, songs like “Shuffle The Deck” and “I Can’t Stop My Heart” simmer and sparkle with Novello’s beautifully nuanced energy. On “Funk Shui”, featuring Donald Hayes, Novello delves into that most sacred of jazz inner sanctums created by Miles Davis and unleashes a haunting theme entwined in mesmerizing threads of alternately heart pounding and etherial melodic strands.

The title tack “Ivory Soul” becomes no less than an epic adventure which leaves the listener’s ears somewhere between the Village Vanguard and Beale Street, a genre unto itself. Add to this mix the Latin bounce of “Fiestaville”, the rich down home flavor of Novello’s take on “Put Your Records On”, along with the joyous interpretations of standards “Black Bird” and “Stella by Starlight” and the album’s title becomes self explanatory. So take a journey you won’t regret and tune into to “Ivory Soul” the new album by John Novello available on iTunes and Amazon.

Source: 529 Music