Bernie Worrell, Cindy Blackman Santana, John King
Biographie Bernie Worrell, Cindy Blackman Santana, John King
Bernie Worrell
the Wizard of WOO — came to prominence as a keyboardist, composer, arranger, and producer for Parliament/Funkadelic in the 1970s. He was the driving force behind the band’s greatest hits, including the legendary bassline for ‘Flashlight’. Bernie’s classical training (Doctor of Music/The New England Conservatory of Music, where he Majored in Classical Piano) and much-coveted perfect pitch placed him in an ideal position to propel the band forward. Bernie also helped the Talking Heads develop their new sound in the 1980s. Bernie was a prominent voice in R&B, pop, rock, jazz, reggae, classical, and the jam band scene, appearing on an eclectic array of recordings by the likes of Rita Coolidge, Mtume, Public Image Ltd., Keith Richards, Fred Schneider, Deee-Lite, Mos Def, Gov’t Mule, Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker, Bootsy Collins, and Praxis. He also played a key role in recordings produced by Bill Laswell. His legendary musical voice was achieved by way of piano, harpsichord, synthesizers, clavinet, melodica, and organ. As a leader, he mentored young and experienced musicians alike via Bernie Worrell and the WOO Warriors, and the Bernie Worrell Orchestra. He also played a prominent role in albums by the Seattle-based band Khu-éex’, a band that uses the rhythms and poetry of the Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest, augmented with funk and R&B. That band continues to release recordings from the hundreds of hours of material they recorded with him. Bernie passed in 2016, but his genius, guidance, and influence will resonate in the musicians with whom he worked, and with those who heard him from the audience, for years to come.
Cindy Blackman Santana
is a virtuoso drummer whose artistry spans the realms of jazz and rock. As a bandleader and as a musician, Cindy is a sound innovator with a passion for pushing creative boundaries and exploring movement and change. She has been creating magnificent musical time and space since the beginning of her career as a busking street performer in New York City in the 1980s. She has toured and recorded with artists including Pharoah Sanders, Cassandra Wilson, Bill Laswell, Joss Stone, Lenny Kravitz, Joe Henderson, Buckethead, Don Pullen, Hugh Masakela, and Angela Bofill. In 2010, she was part of the all-star line-up performing ‘Bitches Brew’, a tribute to Miles Davis’ seminal album staged at the San Francisco Jazz Festival and NYC Winter JazzFest. More recently, Cindy has become the regular touring drummer for Santana. Having met several years earlier at a festival in Europe while she was touring with Kravitz, Cindy first played with Santana in spring 2010. Carlos proposed to Cindy during a July 2010 concert, and they married that December. Looking ahead, they will collaborate artistically as well, on projects that will no doubt reflect their shared passion for improvisation and belief in the transcendent nature of music. On her own, Cindy is continuing to develop the heady jazz-rock fusion that she drives so powerfully on 2010’s Another Lifetime, a tribute to her mentor, the legendary drummer Tony Williams. She continues to build a body of work and artistic legacy that make her one of the finest drummers and recording artists of this or any generation.
John King
is a freelance guitarist who has been working in New York since the mid-1970s. He has played and recorded with David Moss’ Dense Band, Butch Morris’ various ‘Conduction’ projects, and William Parker’s Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra, as well as leading his own trio Electric World. With various lineups, they toured the US and Europe throughout the 1990s, recording three albums on the Ear-Rational, Enemy and P-Vine record labels. In 1992, Jazzthetik wrote regarding the Enemy release Hot Thumb In A Funky Groove: “his guitar solidly and confidently plays 21st Century blues.” Electric World’s final members were Abe Speller (Sonny Sharrock Band) on drums and Amin Ali (James ‘Blood’ Ulmer) on bass . That band’s recording Life = Love featured Bernie Worrell as special guest on keyboards for some four tracks, recorded at Bill Laswell’s studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. In the summer of 1994, King first heard Cindy Blackman at a Summerstage gig in Central Park in NYC. That fall, he invited Bernie and Cindy into the studio to form this collective creative trio. The recording from the one-day session was long thought lost, but was recently unearthed in a pile of archival material and has since been remixed and remastered for this release.
