01/02

Happy New Year!

Hello and welcome to the latest update from your friends at J. D'Addario. Inside this month's newsletter read about the latest from our endorsees including John Dolmayan, Alex Acuña, Will Kennedy, Peter Michael Escovedo, California Guitar Trio, Michael Manring, Eric Gorfain, Billy Ward, Kenny Davis, Ludvig Girdland, Kalani, Michael Valerio, Frank Gambale, Ric Fierabracci, Martin Simpson, Phil Woods and many more. Please read on!

To submit artist news, please e-mail John Ferrante at
john.ferrante@daddario.com

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D'Addario News:

The Winter NAMM show will take place this month (1/17-1/20) in Anaheim, California. If you are attending, please do stop by D'Addario's booth #4834. This year's in-booth performers include the California Guitar Trio, Michael Manring, Eric Gorfain and the Section, Kenny Davis, Ludvig Girdland & Michael Valerio, and Frank Gambale and Ric Fierabracci.

Guitarist Michael Chapdelaine and the California Guitar Trio are both performing at this year's Acoustic Café at NAMM. The café is an annual event hosted by Acoustic Guitar Magazine.

Creed's latest release, "Weathered," is riding high on the Billboard charts. Guitarist Mark Tremonti has done it again!

Poncho Sampedro can be heard on the latest tune from Neil Young, "Let's Roll." The tune was inspired by the final words of one of the heroes heard over the phone from the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania on September 11. Those on board bravely prevented the terrorists from succeeding in their mission and saved countless lives.

Frank Gambale recently shot a 90-minute concert DVD for Warner Brothers featuring Steve Smith on drums and Ric Fierabracci on bass with special guest Steve Tavaglione on tenor sax. The video will be released in conjunction with a new instructional guitar video in which Frank will demonstrate all the parts played in the concert. This month, Frank returns to the studio with Steve Smith and Stu Hamm to record a 3rd CD for Tone Center.

Martin Simpson has been nominated for 4 BBC Folk Awards including Musician of the Year, Folksinger of the Year, Album of the Year, and Traditional Song Arrangement of the Year.

Chapman Stick player Steve Adelson has released a new CD, "The Answer's Inside." Special guests include Larry Coryell and Tony Levin. Steve features the Stick on all the tunes along with some MIDI Stick sounds.

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Bluegrass News:

Mandolin great John Reischman and his band the Jaybirds are recording a new CD. It's a follow-up to his critically acclaimed CD released in Canada in February 2001. The first CD, self-titled "John Reischman and The Jaybirds" has been picked up by the US bluegrass label Copper Creek. The Jaybirds have been touring extensively in Canada. They performed four US tours in 2001 including shared dates with bluegrass titan Ricky Skaggs. D'Addario endorsee Jim Nunally is the guitarist with John and the Jaybirds. He continues to perform in his Duo with Dix Bruce and they are in the mixing stages of their third, as of yet untitled, CD.

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Classical Guitar News:

Guitarist Scott Morris has recently united with guitarist Isamu Nakashio to form the Yale Guitar Duo. Both Scott and Isamu are graduates of the Yale School of Music. The two have already performed a number of recitals in Los Angeles and will be featured in the first concert of the year for the Guitarra Del Mar series at the Arroyo Heritage Theater in Pasadena in January. The program will include Mozart, Brahms, York, Takamitsu and Brouwer.

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Bowed News:

Bassist Reginald Veal recently finished several tours in Japan including working with saxophonist Sadao Watanabe and pianist Yutaka Shiina. Reginald also won an award to commemorate his work on Wynton Marsalis's Pulitzer Prize winning "Blood on the Fields."

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Evans News:

Please do stop by and see us at the winter NAMM show - booth # 4834. This year's in-booth performers include Billy Ward, Alex Acuña, Will Kennedy & Peter Michael Escovedo, and Kalani.

Evans is proud to welcome drummer John Dolmayan to our family of performing artists. John is a member of Los Angeles based hard rock act System of a Down. The band's latest CD, "Toxicity," recently reached Platinum status and has received numerous accolades including Time Magazine's #3 rank in their Best of 2001, SPIN magazine's "Album of the Year" 2001, Rolling Stone's "Rest of the Best," Alternative Press readers' poll winner - "Artist of the Year," and Entertainment Weekly's "2001 Breakouts." The band is currently on the road.

Van Romaine recently filmed the latest video for Enrique Iglesias.

Gary Moffatt was a busy man in 2001. Gary completed 100 show dates with his band .38 Special including a performance at the Charlie Daniels Volunteer Jam Tour. Gary and the band also recorded a movie soundtrack for "Supertroopers" (opening soon at a theater near you); released "The .38 Special Anthologies CDs, along with a Christmas CD entitled "A Wild-Eyed Christmas Night." Gary is also part of an instructional video, CD & DVD set for release in 2002.

David Northrup recently performed with Travis Tritt at the Grand Ole Opry.

Jon Dowling is in the studio recording his second album. Entitled "The Second Time Around," the album features Will Lee, Bruce Hornsby, John Walsh, and Al Pitrelli.

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Marching News:

Brian Mason and members of the Phantom Regiment percussion section recently presented a marching percussion clinic entitled Play Clean! to over 200 students at the Indiana Percussion Association Festival. The students were guided through elements of 'clean' playing as Mason and the Regiment demonstrated basic, intermediate, and advanced concepts and techniques.

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Planet Waves News:

What the Pros are saying about Planet Waves:

"I just finished three Christmas concerts with Martin Simpson and we both used the Planet Waves cables exclusively. I can honestly tell you that the sound this year was better than ever before! Good cables make a big difference, and the sound was very clear and clean." - Ed Gerhard (fingerstyle guitarist)

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Vandoren News:

Phil Woods recently won the DownBeat Magazine Critic's and Reader's Polls in 2001 for his alto saxophone work. Way to go Phil!

Saxophonist Horace Alexander Young recently performed as a member and featured soloist with the Spokane Jazz Orchestra in a special performance of Duke Ellington's Nutcracker Suite. The performance was conducted by Gunther Schuller and consisted of not only the suite but also several other rarely performed Ellington compositions.

Eric Marienthal is performing on behalf of Vandoren at this month's NAMM show.

Mel Martin and Bebop and Beyond have signed an exclusive agreement with Quixotic Records, a division of North Country Distributors and Cadence Jazz. Their first release will be called "Friends and Mentors - Bebop and Beyond plays the music of Mel Martin." The recording also features Vandoren artist Bobby Watson. Release is set for March.

Saxophonist Steve Slagle has just returned from The London Jazz Festival with his quartet,which features Dave Stryker on guitar. He played the music from his latest Omnitone recording, "New New York" at the Festival, and his performance was recorded live by the BBC for later broadcasting. Steve started out 2002 playing with Grammy-winner Joe Lovanos Nonet at the Winter Orvieto Festival in Italy.

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Get the latest D'Addario, Evans, Planet Waves, and Vandoren news at http://www.daddario.com