Level42.com

Hi Everyone,

The Prodigal Son makes yet another promise to keep you all informed more regularly….

I am now officially a North Londoner. Sam and I moved up from our rental flat in Putney 5 weeks ago to Hampstead Garden Suburb, which is a bit like Wimbledon, but feels different -different community, different air. I am in the process of getting my bearings which have been hard-wired to SW London for the last 48 years! My north London friends old and new are sure that I have made the right move (including Mr C. Hobson and Mr B. Cullem), whilst my south London ones have accused me of various things including being a traitor (Mr A. Lafone) and leaving the “homestead” (Mr J. Joseph). All in jest of course…meanwhile Sam is very happy to be here, and I believe that uprooting will be beneficial creatively.

I am already benefitting from the fruits of recording 5 tracks towards the new song album: I spent 2 very inspiring and productive days in a great new studio called Cream in West London with Phil Gould (drms), Miles Bould (drms&perc), Yolanda Charles (bass), Dominic Miller (gtrs,) with Mike Westergaard engineering, laying down backing tracks the old-fashioned way, and it was reeeeaallly great.My co-producer, Kipper (of Sting fame) has told me he hears my pre-Level 42 influences in the songs, i.e. soul music influences (Mr. A. Green, Mr J. Brown, and Mr S.Wonder to name three). It’s not all old sounding though, as you will eventually hear when I post up some excerpts. The songs sound great, i am really happy to be recording again. My intention is to get these 5 as-finished by the end of this month (July) and to “go get a deal” as they used to say.

I have recently finished mixing (also with Mike W.) a CD of devotional Sanskrit Songs or Bhajans, entitled Sai Satyam, which I co-wrote with Gustav and Sabeenamayi Tilmann, and recorded mainly at the Ashram of Sri Sai Kaleshwar in Penukonda in South India. The three of us are spiritual students of Swami Kaleshwar (I have been so for the past two-and-a-half years), and it was a great experience to take my MacBook and bits to Penukonda, where we found space to be inspired and also to overcome the challenges of power surges and cuts. The end result is really a beautiful CD, and I will let you know how and where to buy it when I get that information.

I got to play at Ronnie Scott’s last monday evening, courtesy of a phone call from Mark King, who had been asked to present an award to bassist Charlie Haden, as part of Radio’s 2 & 3 Jazz Awards, which took place at the Mermaid Theatre in London. Mark did a great job, and what was marvellous was that everyone who got an award then played a tune, which ranged from upcoming young singers and musicians such as Christine Tobin, Tom Cawley’s Curios, Tony Kofi and Kit Downes from Empirical, through to established artists such as Tommy Smith, and 3 special awards - Lifetime Acheivement went to Return to Forever, and it was very special to hear them play as they are musical heroes of mine and the rest of Level 42, and probably everyone else in the room! The late Humphrey Lyttleton was honoured with an award for artist of the year, and Sir John and Dame Cleo received a gold award, and did a short set that included the old “Tomorrows World” theme. I feel a particular connection with them as my father David worked as co-arranger with John and Cleo, and he and my mother, Nadia, invited Cleo to become my godmother. Another delight was ta surprise collaboration on stage of Jamie Cullem, Kyle Eastwood and Jeff Beck! Magic! After the ceremony was over, there was FOOD!, and I got to chat and hang with the great and good of the jazz fraternity, and then the party moved to Ronnies for drinks upstairs, and a jam session downstairs, where I jumped in with Nigel Kennedy, Julian Joseph, Cleveland Watkiss and other brilliant players. I now need to go to my woodshed for a bit….

Finally, the concerts with 42 are going very well, we did a nice one at the Mercedes Benz Museum in Stuttgart the other day. We have a couple more festival gigs in August and Sept before rehearsals start for the tour proper which starts the UK in October, which I’m really looking forward to: I’m thinking of getting my MiniMoog out of retirement (it had it’s first public “airing” in 25 years at the show in the Hague with Billy Cobham last May, and was a hit with band and crew). Did I mention that gig? It was amazing to be playing with the original master, and we hope to do some more shows together next year. There will be a “mini tour’ in Germany with the Dominic Miller Band (myself, Rhani, Nicolas and Dom) in beginning of November including a show at the JazzFest in Leverkusen, which is going to be filmed for a live DVD-about time too as the chemistry and interplay is wonderful in that band.

Phil Gould’s album is now finished, and it sounds great, I call it a gradual masterpiece, see if you agree or not when it comes out - he has started to look for ways of getting it released. I hope to do some live playing with him before too long, and I will definitely be putting a cooking band together to play my stuff live.

that’s all for now…

Best Wishes to you all, Mike Lindup