Even as Neal Schon prepares solo project, Journey announces

[tater1977]

Even as Neal Schon prepares solo project, Journey announces summer dates with Pat Benatar and Loverboy
April 3, 2012 12:08 pm

http://somethingelsereviews.com/2012/04 ... -loverboy/


Neal Schon will be busy this summer, putting the finishing touches on a new solo release, even as Journey hits the road again for a series of summer concert dates.

They’re continuing to tour behind the well-received 2011 release Eclipse, which debuted at No. 13 on the Billboard 200 chart. It was the group’s second collaboration with Filipino lead singer Arnel Pineda.

[ONE TRACK MIND: Drummer Steve Smith goes in-depth on songs from throughout his career, offering insights into recordings with Journey, Jean-Luc Ponty and Vital Information.]

The initial six announced stops include cities California, Kentucky, Iowa and at Sturgis, South Dakota, between late July and late August. Also appearing with Journey this summer is Pat Benatar and Loverboy, except at Sturgis, where Benatar is sitting out. Complete concert dates, venues and cities are below.

Schon worked on his as-yet-unnamed new solo project with former Journey drummer Steve Smith, and the pair will also appear at the April 27 tribute concert for Ronnie Montrose, to be held in San Francisco. The duo will perform as members of the Ronnie Montrose All-Star Band, along with Styx’s Ricky Phillips, KISS’s Eric Singer and members of Y&T, Tesla and Mr. Big.

A new documentary focusing on Pineda called “Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey,” written and directed by Ramona S. Diaz, will premiere April 19 at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City. The documentary also will be shown at the San Francisco International Film Festival 2012 on May 3.

Here’s a look back at our recent thoughts on Journey. Click through the titles for complete reviews …

NEAL SCHON WITH STEVE SMITH, “THE CALLING” (2012): They play with a furious yet controlled abandon, sounding nothing like the smooth-swinging pop-rock that powered “Send Her My Love” or “The Eyes of a Woman.” Still, that doesn’t mean this doesn’t sound like Journey. It’s just Journey of a different vintage. Instead, “The Calling” recalls the heavy weather of 1977′s Next, with its thunderous rhythms and fretboard-melting riffs, but at the same time retains the free-form prog-rock inclinations of Journey’s 1975 debut. For fans of the original pre-Perry configuration of this band, Schon’s “The Calling” is like a letter from a long-lost friend.

JOURNEY – ECLIPSE (2011): In many ways, the initial cuts on Eclipse recall the wide-open heavy fusion of the the band’s original Gregg Rolie-era records, a period when guitarist Neal Schon pulled and stretched his muse. At the same time, singer Arnel Pineda possesses a second-act Steve Perry-sounding penchant for soaring expectancy. For age-old fans, that often makes this album the best of both worlds, a musically dense recording in the style of the band’s underrated 1977?s Next, and a loud one, but at the same time one that doesn’t completely abandon the visceral mainstream pop sensibilities that defined the band’s subsequent hitmaking period in the 1980s.

SOMETHING ELSE! INTERVIEW: GREGG ROLIE, FOUNDING MEMBER OF SANTANA AND JOURNEY: Gregg Rolie, a 1998 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, has learned a lot about himself since taking fame’s exit ramp to start a family almost 30 years ago. He’s put into perspective the work done as a founding member of Santana, a stint that saw Rolie co-produce the group’s first four albums beginning in 1969. The bluesy B-3 stylist then added to an overstuffed resume that already included an appearance at Woodstock, leaving with Neal Schon to launch Journey. There, he helped craft a series of 1970s recordings that set the stage for that band’s arena-rock supernova moment in the 1980s.

ONE TRACK MIND: JOURNEY, “FEELING THAT WAY/ ANYTIME” (1978; 2011 reissue): A new Greatest Hits Vol. 2 was, in some ways, more interesting than Journey’s initial best-of compilation — if only because its songs haven’t necessarily become ear-wormingly familiar. Perhaps the most potent examples are these twin 1978 gems from Infinity, Journey’s first project with Steve Perry. His appearance would immediately transform an interesting, if often unfocused jam band — co-led by Santana alums Gregg Rolie and Neal Schon — into a hit-making juggernaut. This album easily became the band’s biggest seller to date, as Journey moved toward a tighter focus on songcraft

[tater1977]

Journey bandmates Steve Smith and Neal Schon reunite, find ‘an immediate chemistry’
Posted by Nick DeRiso
April 4, 2012 9:32 am
http://networkedblogs.com/w0sod

Steve Smith left Journey to focus on jazz, his first musical love, in the late 1990s – but he has remained close with the band’s co-founding guitarist. That relationship was rekindled recently when Smith sat in on the sessions for Neal Schon’s forthcoming solo project.

Originally invited to put down rhythm tracks for four tracks over two days, the two reconnected on such a deeply resonant level that Smith ended up performing on 11 tracks as the session stretched into four magical days.

[ONE TRACK MIND: Drummer Steve Smith goes in-depth on songs from throughout his career, offering insights into recordings with Journey, Jean-Luc Ponty and Vital Information.]

Interestingly, the results don’t so much mirror their sound together with Journey – which coincided with singer Steve Perry’s arrival and a shift into platinum-selling arena rock in the 1980s – as it does the incendiary fusion of the group’s original incarnation with frontman Gregg Rolie and drummer Anysley Dunbar.

Smith talked to us, in the latest SER Sitdown, about reuniting with his former Journey bandmate, about the way his passion for jazz informed later forays into mainstream success – and just how underrated that initial fusion-inspired edition of Journey still is …

NICK DERISO: I was very intrigued by the new pairing with former Journey bandmate Neal Schon. What led to that reunion?
STEVE SMITH: Neal and I have stayed in touch over the years and we’ve always enjoyed playing together. Neal has been very busy with Journey for many years now and, when he had a recent break from their schedule, he gave me a call to see if I wanted to play on a four tracks for a new instrumental solo album he was working on. I thought that sounded like a good idea, so I agreed to come to Fantasy Studios in the Bay Area and record for two days. I ended up playing the four songs in one day, so we started jamming because he didn’t have any more tunes written yet. I ended up staying three more days and we finished 11 tracks in that time.

NICK DERISO: Was it difficult to recapture that musical symbiosis after so long apart? I have to think that the open-ended instrumental format provided an encouraging environment for the two of you.
STEVE SMITH: Neal and I have an immediate chemistry so we got right into a creative zone. First of all, Neal is a prolific writer. Every time he picks up a guitar, he plays something new — and with a little work that idea can be developed into a tune. We did the kind of jamming that we used to do with Journey, and then we experimented with moving the ideas around to create arrangements and finished songs. The keyboard player, Ivan Lens, was there to help flesh out the songs and, between the three of us, we just let the ideas come. We came up with the entire album in four days!

[SOMETHING ELSE! INTERVIEW: Gregg Rolie discusses leaving behind a Hall of Fame career as a founding member of Santana to form Journey with Neal Schon – and then give it all up to start a family.]


NICK DERISO: In many ways, it harkens back to the era just before your arrival in Journey, when Schon and Co. were making fiery explorations into fusion rock. Is there a part of you that wishes you could have played on their first trio of recordings?
STEVE SMITH: No, I wouldn’t have been ready for it first of all, and Aynsley Dunbar did a great job with that music. In those years, 1973-76, I was mainly playing big-band jazz and small-group jazz and hadn’t played any fusion, let alone rock. Neal and I are the same age, but he was a child prodigy and I became a professional musician after many years of study and practice. I think Journey was ahead of the curve in those years because fusion was just happening then, so for a rock band to incorporate that approach into their music was daring and innovative. The first edition of Mahavishnu Orchestra lived from 1971-73; the fusion version of Return to Forever had just started in ’73, which was the same year that Journey started.

NICK DERISO: Describe that period in your own musical growth.
STEVE SMITH: During those years, I was going to Berklee and focusing on absorbing the jazz concepts of the ’50s and ’60s, by studying the work of drummers like Buddy Rich and Max Roach and playing music inspired by Miles Davis and John Coltrane from their innovations in the 1960s. It wasn’t until I started playing with Jean-Luc Ponty in October 1976 that I started playing fusion music. I auditioned for the Ponty gig and got it, left Berklee and jumped into fusion playing with both feet! Growing up in the ‘60s, I understood rock and funk on a cultural level; it was natural for me, not much study required. I had studied and absorbed jazz by putting in the work, plus there was still a certain amount of great jazz in the culture in those years. When you mix all of that together, you get fusion and that kind of playing came naturally to me. I saw the birth of fusion and was able to see the great fusion groups first hand. The point is, I wasn’t ready to deal with Journey’s music until the time that that I joined the band in September 1978.


Here are details on Steve Smith’s upcoming 30th anniversary tour with his jazz band Vital Information. For more, go to: www.vitalinformation.com.
May 31 – Anthology Jazz Club – San Diego, CA
June 1 & 2 – Catalina Bar and Grill – Hollywood, CA
June 4 – Kuumbwa Jazz Center – Santa Cruz, CA
June 5 – Yoshi’s SF – San Francisco, CA
June 6 – Center for the Arts in Grass Valley – Grass Valley, CA
June 13 – Scullers Jazz Club – Boston, MA
June 14 – Ephrata Theatre – Ephrata, PA
June 15 & 16 – The Iridium Jazz Club – New York, NY
June 17 – Blues Alley – Washington, DC
June 18 & 19 – Nighttown – Cleveland Heights, OH
June 20 – The Jazz Kitchen – Indianapolis, IN
June 21 & 22 – Jazz Café Music Hall Center Jazz – Detroit, MI
June 23 – The Ottawa Tavern – Grand Rapids, MI
June 24 – Martyr’s – Chicago, IL
June 26 – Radisson Lackawanna Station – Scranton, PA
June 27 – Cape Cod Jazz Fest – Wequassett Resort – Harwich, MA







Trackbacks

[brandonx76]

Has there been any announcement on the release date of Neal's new album?

[tater1977]

Has there been any announcement on the release date of Neal's new album?

I keep seeing "late summer" for release but don't know for sure...

[maverick218]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Neal have two solo albums "in the can"?