Newly released single from CommonGround
Fire & Rain sessions!
It often happens on an album project, when final song selections are made, one or two tracks just don’t make the cut. When finalizing the songs/sequence for CommonGround’s Fire & Rain tribute album to James Taylor, North Star's founder/president felt this version of You Can Close Your Eyes was just too different from the rest of the album.
Ron Fournier’s arrangement on this one was inspired by a number of factors. While Bruce Abbott performed most of the other songs on saxophone, his beautiful flute tone seemed to be just the right voice for this melody.You Can Close Your Eyes also didn’t seem to lend itself to a series of improvised solos from the various band members. Working on it in the wee hours one night, Ron came up with the idea of writing an original acoustic guitar interlude for Peter Calo. As always, Peter rose to the occasion with a typically masterful performance.
This found-again arrangement of You Can Close Your Eyes is presented here in its entirety as a single for
your listening enjoyment.
Click here to listen on Spotify Click here to listen on Amazon Music Click here to listen on Apple Music
Fire & Rain sessions!
It often happens on an album project, when final song selections are made, one or two tracks just don’t make the cut. When finalizing the songs/sequence for CommonGround’s Fire & Rain tribute album to James Taylor, North Star's founder/president felt this version of You Can Close Your Eyes was just too different from the rest of the album.
Ron Fournier’s arrangement on this one was inspired by a number of factors. While Bruce Abbott performed most of the other songs on saxophone, his beautiful flute tone seemed to be just the right voice for this melody.You Can Close Your Eyes also didn’t seem to lend itself to a series of improvised solos from the various band members. Working on it in the wee hours one night, Ron came up with the idea of writing an original acoustic guitar interlude for Peter Calo. As always, Peter rose to the occasion with a typically masterful performance.
This found-again arrangement of You Can Close Your Eyes is presented here in its entirety as a single for
your listening enjoyment.
Click here to listen on Spotify Click here to listen on Amazon Music Click here to listen on Apple Music
North Star Jazz & CommonGround Recordings
And visit our streaming page for links to our whole catalog
on the streaming service of your choice!
We made it through!
And to let you know that we’re thinking of you. Without your support since we made our first CD for North Star back in the ’90s, we would never have gotten the chance to make all the records that followed, and to connect with all the folks that have written to us or come to our concerts and club dates over the years.
In recent years we haven’t had the opportunity to play together as often as we’d like to. And now, with all live music events cancelled for the foreseeable future, it’s going to be a while before we’re able to see you up close and personal. We’ll miss playing together, and seeing you all.
At the same time the music marketplace is also changing. Again! We still have plenty of CDs for most of our titles, so feel free to visit our store and we’ll be happy to send some to you. The days of buying and owning downloadable tracks is however, coming to an end. The new model is based on subscription services such as Pandora, Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music. Our music is available on those services and most other similar ones.
Sometimes it takes a little extra effort to find us. Depending on the project, some of our albums were listed in slightly different ways. The North Star Jazz Ensemble, or Bruce Abbott and The North Star Jazz Ensemble. Our other identity as CommonGround is sometimes listed as Common Ground. But we’re out there so keep trying.
We hope that our music will provide a little moment of calm amongst all the confusion that we find ourselves in at the moment.
Feel free to contact us via email on our contact page.
We’ll be updating you on our various adventures going forward. And while we haven’t played together all that much recently, we’ve all been busy with other projects, and we’ll keep you informed about some of those as well.
Hang in there. Thanks for your support over the years. Stay safe and stay well.
The North Star Jazz Ensemble and CommonGround.
Want to check in with what we've been up to individually? Check these out,
Bruce Abbott Music Ron Fournier, Copywriter, Songwriter Marty Ballou/RI Music Hall of Fame
Peter Calo Paul Mason/Dunes Trio Paul Mason/The Conversation
And to let you know that we’re thinking of you. Without your support since we made our first CD for North Star back in the ’90s, we would never have gotten the chance to make all the records that followed, and to connect with all the folks that have written to us or come to our concerts and club dates over the years.
In recent years we haven’t had the opportunity to play together as often as we’d like to. And now, with all live music events cancelled for the foreseeable future, it’s going to be a while before we’re able to see you up close and personal. We’ll miss playing together, and seeing you all.
At the same time the music marketplace is also changing. Again! We still have plenty of CDs for most of our titles, so feel free to visit our store and we’ll be happy to send some to you. The days of buying and owning downloadable tracks is however, coming to an end. The new model is based on subscription services such as Pandora, Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music. Our music is available on those services and most other similar ones.
Sometimes it takes a little extra effort to find us. Depending on the project, some of our albums were listed in slightly different ways. The North Star Jazz Ensemble, or Bruce Abbott and The North Star Jazz Ensemble. Our other identity as CommonGround is sometimes listed as Common Ground. But we’re out there so keep trying.
We hope that our music will provide a little moment of calm amongst all the confusion that we find ourselves in at the moment.
Feel free to contact us via email on our contact page.
We’ll be updating you on our various adventures going forward. And while we haven’t played together all that much recently, we’ve all been busy with other projects, and we’ll keep you informed about some of those as well.
Hang in there. Thanks for your support over the years. Stay safe and stay well.
The North Star Jazz Ensemble and CommonGround.
Want to check in with what we've been up to individually? Check these out,
Bruce Abbott Music Ron Fournier, Copywriter, Songwriter Marty Ballou/RI Music Hall of Fame
Peter Calo Paul Mason/Dunes Trio Paul Mason/The Conversation
North Star Jazz on the Web
If you enjoy listening to music on Pandora, Spotify, Apple Music or many of the other online music services, be sure to list us in your online radio choices.
Check out photos from our trip to Nantucket to play a concert for the Nantucket Arts Council. Our date this past May was cancelled due to high winds
and dangerous seas, but we're working on a return date for the Fall, so keep you eye on this space for updates.
and dangerous seas, but we're working on a return date for the Fall, so keep you eye on this space for updates.
photos by Steve Mason
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Bruce Abbott
Ron Fournier
Piano and keyboards
Learn more about this music at www.jazzillustrated.com or visit Ron online at www.ronfournier.com Paul Mason
Drums and percussion
Paul spends his summers playing with this trio on the beach in Narragansett, RI www.dunestrio.com |