Artists
Big Noise Artist Mark Winkler Releases 22nd Album, “Hold On”
An acclaimed artist on the Los Angeles jazz scene, Winkler’s original songs have been sung and recorded by a cadre of top singers like Dianne Reeves, Joe Sample, Randy Crawford, and Dee Dee Bridgewater.
Over his long recording career, Winkler has invited other top jazz vocalists to join him in the studio. He has recorded with Jackie Ryan, Steve Tyrell, Claire Martin, and Sara Gazarek, among others. He shared top billing on two albums with Cheryl Bentyne from the iconic group The Manhattan Transfer, and collaborated with David Benoit on their album Old Friends, about which Jersey Jazz said, “Winkler is one of the best male vocalists on the jazz scene.”
Big Noise has worked with Winkler since 2013.
Despite his long tenure at the microphone, Winkler does not just sit on his laurels. Each new album builds on the previous one. According to JW Vibe, “Winkler is one of those rare artists who not only never misses, but keeps getting better with time.”
Winkler continues to seek new and interesting ways of expressing himself through the creative energy he draws from working with other like-minded artists. For Hold On, he worked with six stellar pianists, including Grammy Award Winner John Beasley, Rich Eames, Tamir Hendelman, Eric Reed, Greg Gordon Smith, and Jamieson Trotter. Each brings his own style to the project, creating a rich tapestry of sounds.
Also joining Winkler are some top Los Angeles players including Gabe Davis (bass), Christian Euman (drums), Kendall Kay (drums), Bob Sheppard (sax), Brian Swartz (trumpet), Lemar Guillary (trombone), Joey De Leon (percussion), George Doering (guitar), Emmy Award Nominee Grant Geissmann (guitar), and The GGS Singers (background vocals).
The album was produced by Barbara Brighton, who also produced eight of Winkler’s previous albums.
Over the years, Winkler mainly wrote lyrics with four major collaborator composers. For Hold On, Winkler co-wrote four of the eleven songs with Greg Gordon Smith, whose production company specializes in cinematic original music and sonic branding for major brands like Hulu and Dolby. Winkler says, “Greg is a fantastic composer. We’re really in sync with each other. I feel like I found my very own Bacharach.”
Winkler opens the album with the title track, his original co-written with Smith, “Hold On,” which Smith also arranged. “A Little Taste” is an iconic Dave Frishberg song. Winkler was attracted to its witty, literate lyrics. As a lyricist, Winkler is particularly drawn to great writers and considers Frank Loesser one of the best. Most versions of Loesser’s “If I Were a Bell” have been sung by women, but Winkler could not resist singing it.
Winkler is a film buff and loves noir and campy sci-fi moves. “Cat Women on the Moon” is his homage to the goofy sci-fi flicks of the fifties. After Frank Sinatra put his imprimatur on “It Was a Very Good Year,” relatively few people dared to record it. But Winkler finds his own way with the song after he was inspired by a bossa nova version he heard.
Another collaboration with Smith, Winkler co-wrote the swinger “My Future’s Just a Memory.” Written from the perspective of an older person, the song is about consciously savoring the good moments of your life. Billy Joel’s “Vienna,” a song suggested by Brighton, features Beasley’s spare and elegant arrangement, which allows the lyrics to shine.
Winkler was inspired to write “Train in the Desert” after visiting an exhibit of Georgia O’Keefe’s paintings. When Winkler started dating again after his husband passed away, he met some “interesting” people. “The Devil Don’t Want a Saint,” arranged by Eames, was inspired by one guy in particular who wound up being quite different than he pretended to be.
Composed by Smith, “My Electric Car” is Winkler’s homage to clean energy. Winkler closes the album with “I Dream of You Each Night.” It was inspired by the TV series Fellow Travelers, a show about two gay men in the 1950s who had to hide their decades-long relationship. Coming of age in the 60s and 70s, Winkler well understands the oppression that gay men endured.
Mark Winkler has accrued a legion of fans because he has shown time and again his ability to engage hearts and minds as a performer, recording artist, and lyricist. Hold On brings us into Winkler’s world where swing, humor, and even elegance conspire to create a thoroughly enjoyable listening experience.
Hold On was released on Café Pacific Records and is available on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and all streaming platforms.
Online:
Markwinklermusic.com
facebook.com/mark.winkler.10
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Artists
Tokyo Soul Singer Tyrone Hashimoto Releases New Single Oct. 2, Plays Tokyo Jazz Club Same Night
Balle Balle Radio™ Entertainment Desk
Tyrone Hashimoto (born Shunichi Suzuki), a Tokyo-based singer-songwriter,, plans to release his latest single, "Wake Up in the Morning Sun," across streaming platforms on October 2, per his production company Teddy Bear Productions. The artist will celebrate with a live performance by the Lakeside Struttin’ Band at Sometime Jazz the same evening.
The song arrives as the latest entry in what Hashimoto has called the "Music Cruise" series, an ongoing project now in its seventh installment, according to prior coverage of his work. The announcement describes the new track as an offering of encouragement, framed around the idea that a better life is within reach.
Hashimoto has built a four-decade career that spans well beyond his nine solo albums, all recorded in English, and a catalog the announcement puts at more than 600 original songs. He’s written jingles for McDonald’s, KFC, Nissan, Canon, Sharp, Kodak and Tokyo Disneyland, among other clients, and took a bronze prize at the Cannes Commercial Film Festival in 1994 for a Panasonic spot. One commercial job, for the Japanese coffee brand UCC, reportedly involved bringing James Brown into the studio to sing for the ad.
Originally from Yaita in Tochigi prefecture, Japan,, Hashimoto won the Grand Prix at the first All Japan Folk Music Festival at age 17, citing Simon & Garfunkel and Peter, Paul and Mary among his early influences. He went on to work with Haruomi Hosono’s Tin Pan Alley project, played a role in Yellow Magic Orchestra’s debut album, and became an original member of La Orquesta Del Sol, described in the announcement as Japan’s first major salsa band.
His American profile traces back to a 1987 visit to Seattle, where local press and broadcasters, including KIRO, KUOW and NBC affiliate KING5, covered his music; a KING5 documentary profiling the artist that was subsequently distributed to 37 additional U.S. markets. He has also taught voice and guitar to more than 1,000 students, including Japanese musicians Sugizo, Miyavi, Takeru and Junya Enoki, and recently received an honorary doctorate in music education from University of Perpetual Help System DALTA in the Philippines.
For Studio CarryOnHarry, the throughline here isn’t the single itself but the career behind it: a working musician who has moved fluidly between recording artist, jingle writer and educator for going on 40 years, in two countries, without a signature hit driving any of it.
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According to the announcement, the record lands following months of roster adjustments that solidified the five-member configuration, and the record is framed as the sound of that lineup settling into place. The band describes the title not as a literal question but as a kind of shrug, an expression of the loose, sideways attitude that runs through the tracklist.
The EP opens with “Feeling Sideways,” which the band positions as the reset point for this new phase, constructed from restless grooves and crooked rhythms, per the band’s description. The focus single, “Crooked,” follows, built around jagged guitar work, live drums and a melodic bassline, with the line “I move crooked but I land just right” serving as the track’s stated thesis.
“Morning Sun” is described as a tonal shift toward something wider and brighter, using imagery like a “paper weight sky” to move from heavier material toward something more lifted. “Not Lost” continues that throughline lyrically, with the band pointing to the line “I’m not lost, I’m just aligned / With the beat that hides between your time” as a statement of purpose. The EP closes with “My Shadow’s Got Its Own Mind,” which the announcement calls a late-night, low-lit close to the record, framing the band’s embrace of unpredictability as a deliberate stance rather than a lack of direction.
Taken together, the band and its team describe What The …. as the clearest statement yet of Song 1’s identity: an alternative indie-punk work anchored in big hooks, live-wire guitars and knowing self-awareness about not fitting a mold.
Studio CarryOnHarry will be watching whether “Crooked” gives the band a genuine breakout moment beyond the EP cycle, since focus singles built around a clear lyrical hook are often where a band either finds a wider audience or doesn’t.
No compass or straight lines required, as the band themselves put it, just an audience willing to turn it up.
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