Or is it Geniii?  Hey everybody:  a few notes on some things I have coming up, and one in progress!  Just finished five days in Portland, OR, working with Gino Vannelli on his new CD, and am again reminded what an incredible musician the guy is.  We did a CD 20 years ago called “Slow Love”, and I was really struck by the depth of his writing, producing, singing, mixing, you name it.  That one took a LONG TIME, as we did almost the entire record in Logic on the computer, programming drums, bass, keys, guitars, horns, strings…I even took a nice little “harmonica” solo on a sound we built out of our own samples in a Kurzweil K2000.  Great record, and 20 years later we picked up right where we left off, but older and wiser. 

Gino’s writing has as much really cool harmony in it as anybody can fit into a contemporary song;  this CD is a kind of “Americana” one, with a small band featuring slide guitar, piano, percussion, pedal steel, harmonica, and some string sections.  But it’s as sophisticated as it gets, yet incredibly friendly to the ear.