EMERGING NEW ORLEANS & CHICAGO TRUMPETER MARIO ABNEY
SIGNS RECORDING DEAL WITH HYENA RECORDS!
Young Titan to Be Showcased at Freihofer’s Saratoga Jazz Festival
Saturday, June 26 on Two Stages; Limited Editions of Spiritual Perception
To Be Exclusively Available at the Festival
“After I heard eight bars, I said, ‘Oh Yeah!’” --Bill Dern, Hyena Records
“Trumpeter Mario Abney is on the verge of breaking into the national and international jazz scene.” --Danny Melnick, Absolutely Live Entertainment, LLC
“Something very special is happening with Mario Abney.” --Sue Auclair, Sue Auclair Promotions
“He’s the best new artist I’ve heard in 20 years.” --Dick LaPalm, Dick LaPalm Co.
Saratoga Springs, NY (Tuesday, June 8, 2010) – Freihofer’s Saratoga Jazz Festival and Hyena Records are excited to announce that young New Orleans & Chicago-based trumpet player Mario Abney has just been signed to Hyena Records for the release of his recording Spiritual Perception.
Abney is being showcased at Freihofer’s Saratoga Jazz Festival on Saturday, June 26 by Artistic Director and Co-Producer Danny Melnick who “discovered” Abney at the New Orleans JazzFest in 2009. “Trumpeter Mario Abney is on the verge of breaking into the national and international jazz scene. I am honored to introduce him at the Freihofer's Saratoga Jazz Festival on June 26 and to have played a role in his signing with Hyena Records. Look out world!" states Danny Melnick.
Veteran music publicist Sue Auclair, who handles press for the festival, was also smitten with the young musician’s skilled playing and composition. In the process of promoting his appearance at the festival to the press and music industry, she was able to strike up a deal with Bill Dern of Hyena Records.
“I was on the phone discussing another artist with publicist Sue Auclair from Boston and mentioned our endless quest for new artists for Hyena,” states Bill Dern. “Sue said she had the most incredible new artist that she’d just heard. Having heard this before, I said, ‘well let me hear something’ and literally after I’d heard eight bars, I said, ‘Oh Yeah!’ My mind was made up immediately. Mario has a warmth and a tone that’s really classic. After listening to the first song on the CD, I knew that we had something very special so I called our long-time promotion man Dick LaPalm. I simply said to him, ‘I found one, and it’s in the mail.’ Dick called me two days later and said, ‘you’re right, he’s the best new artist I’ve heard in 20 years!’”
“I am delighted to see this come together for Mario. If Mario’s talent and creativity can combine with the enthusiasm of industry veterans like Bill Dern, Danny Melnick, Dick LaPalm, Wynton Marsalis, photographer Reed Hoffman and myself--and we can all come together like this for such an outstanding musician--it must mean that something very special is happening,” said Sue Auclair.
Hyena will print up a limited edition of Mario’s new CD, Spiritual Perception, with a wider release coming in August 2010, and the limited editions will exclusively be available for purchase at the Borders booth at Freihofer’s Saratoga Jazz Festival.
Of Mario’s sets in New Orleans, Melnick stated, “They just destroyed the audience! Mario’s band opened the Jazz Tent at 11:00AM and everyone went nuts for their set. After the show, I went straight to Mario and said, ‘I’m booking you NOW for a festival I produce in New York next year.’” And so, Abney is set to perform on both the Main and Gazebo stages on Saturday, June 26.
Many who hear Abney subsequently try to help him along with his career. Wynton Marsalis donated some money toward Mario purchasing his first professional trumpet in 2005. Later, Abney was playing at a hotel where a conference of professional
photographers was taking place. Photographer/educator Reed Hoffman heard him and gave him a free professional photo shoot. The shots are stunning.
Thirty-two year old Mario Abney is currently living in New Orleans. “This is home for so MUCH amazing music,” he says. Abney grew up in a Chicago suburb, Harvey, Illinois. “I grew up with the heavy, heavy church vibe, you know what I mean? From the time I was 7, I remember going to the South Suburban Missionary Baptist Church with my Mom and later we transferred to Victory Christian Assembly.”
Abney was immersed in music but he wasn’t really serious about it until he reached high school, despite piano lessons as a little kid and learning about drumming from sitting next to the drummer in the front row of church. His grandmother was into the blues
and exposed him to B.B. King and other artists while his mom, a violinist, turned him onto jazz. His uncle, who was more like a father to him, played piano, trumpet and saxophone.
During high school, Abney was “blown away” by the excitement of the jazz and concert bands at the school, and began to really work on his piano playing and later, French horn and trumpet. After high school he went on to college at Central State University in Ohio, where his music and trumpet playing truly flourished.
Abney married while in Ohio and had two beautiful children [now aged 2 and 6] but the marriage fell apart, “due to the struggle of being an artist in a society that doesn’t value music as a way to make a living.” Mario’s main goal of following his spiritual and musical paths didn’t always jive with practicality. Music was, after all, his first love.
“The music was spiritual for me and my mother had always been behind me, encouraging me to follow this path. But there is so much opposition to the pursuit of a musical career! It’s not taken seriously by the outside world. My mother raised me to be a ‘good man’ and to follow my path and preserve my spiritual thread through my music. Just two days before she died unexpectedly on Easter Sunday in 2009, she told me ‘You have a gift . . . don’t let anything block you from expressing it.’”
Abney now leads THREE different bands [The Avante Garde, The Abney Effect and The Mario Abney Quintet], plays gigs with other bands and loves to talk about the all-night sessions he’s been having with The Abney Effect at the headquarters of the Mardi Gras Indians Brothers & Sisters Association owned by Ivory Holmes. The band performing at SPAC, The Mario Abney Quintet [PLUS ONE--and so technically a sextet] will feature some of his best friends and top flight players from his travels: Kaliq Woods on clarinet; Josh Atkin, alto saxophone; Jessy Morrow on bass; Jason Butler on piano and keyboards and Julian Addison on drums.
Mario says that he’d like to succeed in his musical endeavors but that he doesn’t want to be “drawn into the capitalistic game that might change the passion.” Abney firmly believes that “music uplifts mankind and anything that uplifts mankind is an expression
of God.”
