By JOHN BURNETT By JOHN BURNETT ADVERTISING Tribune-Herald staff writer Brittni Paiva will debut her new CD “tell u what” with jazz legend Tom Scott on Saturday night at the new Banyan Drive Café in Uncle Billy’s Hilo Bay Hotel.
By JOHN BURNETT
Tribune-Herald staff writer
Brittni Paiva will debut her new CD “tell u what” with jazz legend Tom Scott on Saturday night at the new Banyan Drive Café in Uncle Billy’s Hilo Bay Hotel.
Scott, a saxophonist and three-time Grammy winner, produced and played several instruments on the album, Paiva’s fifth. The 23-year-old ukulele wizard from Hilo impressed the jazzman when she sat in with him at last year’s Lanai Jazz Festival.
“She was just spectacular,” Scott told the Tribune-Herald last week. “She really played great, and I was really taken with her — her rhythm, her style, her confidence — and the relationship just kind of grew from there.”
Paiva called her association with Scott “surreal” and “something I’ve only dreamed about.”
“To have the opportunity of working with somebody so experienced in music and well known in the music industry, it’s a dream come true,” she said.
“I didn’t know my music could sound like that,” she said. “I’ve always enjoyed taking the ukulele on a journey like that, but to actually hear what else it could do with different background instruments and different genres. It’s beyond what I expected.”
The album won’t be released officially until July 10, but those at the 7 p.m. show will have a chance to pick up a pre-release copy. Joining Paiva and Scott on stage will be Volcano Choy and the Volcano Jazz Ensemble. The $20 ticket includes one drink, pupus and the show. For tickets or more information, call
(808) 383-3085. Tickets will also be available at the door two hours prior to the show.
Paiva and Scott also have CD pre-release shows in Honolulu on Thursday and on Kauai on June 30. Visit www.brittnipaiva.com for details.
Paiva wrote three songs on the CD, including the title track, a funky uptempo number with Scott’s scorching tenor sax and Paiva’s uke driving the hook home via call-and-response passages.
The only vocal on the album is by former Doobie Brothers frontman Michael McDonald, who reprised “I Keep Forgettin’.” His vocal contribution to the track is sparser than on his 1982 hit version, which also featured a female vocal by McDonald’s sister, Maureen.
“I told him to leave some room for Brittni, and I think it sounds great,” Scott said.
McDonald, who lives on Maui, showed up with his wife, singer Amy Holland, at a Valley Isle brunch gig that Scott and Paiva played the same week as the Lanai fest.
“He said, ‘If I can do anything to help this project, please let me know,’” Scott said. “So I didn’t let him off the hook.”
Paiva described McDonald, perhaps the premier blue-eyed soul singer of the baby-boom generation, as “so cool.” She said she and McDonald “talked story a little bit” after the Maui show.
“He said one of his dreams was to play in a coffee shop with his ukulele,” she recalled. “I said, ‘What kind of dream is that? You’ve been all around the world touring.’”
There are three other big-time session players on the CD: Arturo Sandoval, the Cuban-born trumpeter on Scott’s Latin-flavored dance tune “Mira”; Ray Parker Jr. on electric guitar on Bob Dorough’s “Comin’ Home Baby”; and Chuck Findley on flugelhorn on “A Taste of Honey.”
“A Taste of Honey” sounds nothing like either the Beatles’ or Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass’ recordings, the two best-known versions of the song. Scott scored it in 6/4 time, which gives the song an ethereal quality.
“I love how Tom arranged it. It’s really relaxing,” Paiva said.
The album continues Paiva’s tradition of including several genres on her recordings. Some of the other offerings include Béla Fleck’s reggae tune “The Lochs of Dread,” an instrumental version of Eddie Harris’ lively pop-jazz standard “Cold Duck Time.” There’s also an adaptation of French composer Gabriel Fauré’s 19th Century classic “Pavane.”
Scott said that Paiva “exceeded my expectations.”
“The nicest thing that could happen as a result of this CD coming out is that Brittni gets the recognition she deserves as a real virtuoso artist on her instrument,” he concluded. “I want to make people aware of just how good she is.”
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
