After eleven inspired albums that have passionately surveyed a broad spectrum of musical styles and prominently featured many of music’s finest players, R&B/Jazz multi-instrumentalist Brian Culbertson decided to keep conceptualism to a minimum and simply title his twelfth album XII (the Roman numeral for twelve).
Packed with astounding guest performances from the likes of renowned R&B singer Avant (on the first scheduled AC/Urban AC single “Skies Wide Open”), Brian McKnight, Faith Evans, Kenny Lattimore and Ray Parker Jr. to Go-Go music pioneer Chuck Brown and acoustic guitar legend Earl Klugh (on the first smooth jazz-radio single “That’s Life”), Brian’s latest GRP Records CD is 12 fresh offerings from the man for whom exciting ideas and combinations flow faithfully like water.
“I was just noticing that there are a lot of ‘12s’ in my life,” Brian muses? “I was born on January 12, I’ve been living in Los Angeles for 12 years now and have been married to my beautiful wife Michelle for 12 years. There are 12 notes on the piano and it was at the age of 12 that I knew I was going to be a professional musician. Also over the years, 1s and 2s have been in the addresses of all the places I’ve lived.” As he started working on the album, Brian thought of yet another way to make his fans a part of the creative process in a brilliant extension of the DVD he created last year, Live From The Inside.
“I decided to create a video blog to give fans a chance to watch me make the album from start to finish. Almost daily, they could watch me execute and explain every step of the process, including seeing me in sessions with all of my amazingly talented friends. The response has been phenomenal with many people tuning in every day to see what I’m up to. To ‘Twitter’ about the project, I labeled the topic #BCXII. Someone said that would be a great title for the album, so it stuck.”
Fri, September 10th, 7:30 p.m. (Doors open at 6:30 p.m.) Shaftman Performance Hall at the Jefferson Center -541 Luck Avenue, Roanoke, VA 24016 (540-345-2550) Tickets Range From $19.50, $24.50, $34.50 in advance, all seats are $3.00 – higher day of show. Tickets available from Jefferson Center Box Office
