At 36 years young, Justin Kauflin has already produced eight albums as a leader, appeared on 25+ albums as a sideman or guest artist, and recorded 48 original compositions for albums and film.

It’s no surprise that Justin is both a Quincy Jones Artist and a Yamaha artist. Now, he is also a Sam First Records recording artist! Justin’s first ever live recording showcases his love of be-bop, blues and gospel music, performed from the perspective of the modern jazz piano trio.

Side A:
1. Coming Home
2. Tempest
3. No Matter

Putting the vinyl on the record player, Live at Sam First, which features bassist David Robaire and drummer Mark Ferber, opens with the luxuriant Coming Home (one of the five originals here) and the finger-percussive smorgasbord of Tempest and then we get the delightfully cultured, uptempo jazz vibe of No Matter.

Side B:
4. Exodus
5. You Do Something To Me
6. Thank You Lord

Flipping the lush vinyl LP over and we next get the soulfully productive Exodus, which is in turn backed seamlessly by the gentle swinger sewn throughout the Cole Porter standard You Do Something To Me, coming to a close on the Gospel-hued Thank You Lord.

“Ever since losing my sight completely, the way in which I experience my surroundings has been quite unique”, Kauflin explains. “Instead of everything going black, what I see in my mind’s eye is extremely colorful and textured. Every moment is filled with an almost psychedelic swirl of blues, greens, reds, purples and gold against an expansive, seemingly endless backdrop of blacks and grays”.

“When I set out to write music for this project, my goal was to paint a picture with sound. It’s my attempt at reverse engineering my visual experience into a sonic pallet, where the instruments and timbres are the different colored paints. The title Coming Home deals with the many ways I’ve experienced home, globally, and the compositions serve to illuminate the various emotions attached to each unique location. I hope you enjoy the CD as much as we enjoyed making it!”

Sam First Records is the in-house label for the Westside Los Angeles jazz club, Sam First. A product of the club owner Paul Solomon and musician/artistic director David Robaire, the label is keeping the spirit of jazz moving forward in the 21st century.

Utilizing state-of-the-art equipment (24 channels of Grace and AEA preamps running through a Lynx Aurora A/D converter), there is a strong effort to bring pristine recording aesthetics to a live club setting. Their setup also includes AEA ribbon mics with DPA, Mojave and Soyuz condenser mics.

The first release in this “live” series is indeed pianist Justin Kauflin, a musical pioneer who is celebrated by jazz royalty including Quincy Jones.

www.justinkauflin.com