By JESSICA A. BOTELHO

From singing and writing music, placing among the Top 16 on season five of American Idol, serving as a correspondent for The Early Show on CBS, to being a former hotshot basketball player, Ayla Brown seems to excel at everything.

This summer, Brown also did a bit of acting, as she took part in the movie, Cowboy Spirit, playing the role of Molly. The full-length film premieres Nov. 29th at the Orpheum Theatre in Foxboro, Massachusetts.

In the past, she finished high school as one of the top female basketball players in Massachusetts’ history, scoring 2,358 career points before playing for Boston College. She even found a way to combine singing and basketball, as last season she was asked to perform the National Anthem for the Philadelphia 76ers at every home game.

“It was such an honor, so I said yes,” said Brown, who will again take on the duty this season. “They also wanted me to set up a merchandise table and sell CDs.”
The problem, she said, was she was yet to record an album at that point. But that didn’t stop her. As a result, she ended up forming her own record label, Ambient Entertainment, for which she’s released the self-titled Ayla Brown in January.

“I kind of used it as a kick jump and motivator to put out an album – I didn’t want to have to wait for any sort of big guns to get involved,” Brown said. “It’s super easy to start your own label and that’s exactly what I did to make sure that I had content available at every game.”

Brown is grateful for the experience. Founding her own label, she said, has given her more freedom and flexibility as an artist.

“I’m really, really lucky to have put together a CD on my own label because creatively I get to choose all the songs,” she said. “I’m doing everything a major or a larger independent record would do. The only difference is that person is me, not someone else.”

As was mentioned earlier, Brown, who splits her time living in Massachusetts, Philadelphia, PA, and Nashville, TN, released her most recent CD, a self-titled album, through the label. It was recorded in Nashville at the studio of legendary country star, Ronnie Milsap. She hired Jeff King, who has played with country sensation Reba McEntire, to help with the recording process.

“I asked him if he wanted to band lead my session and surprisingly he was excited about it, which made me excited,” Brown said. “He is just absolutely incredible and one of the best session guys in town. And the players on the album have played with Kelly Clarkson, Sara Evens, [and] Jason Aldean. It’s not everyday that you get the best of the best.”

Adding to her long list of accomplishments is the fact that she co-wrote seven out of the nine tracks on the disc, as well as produced the album. She had an engineer handle the technical side of the process.

“As the producer, you’re in the studio with them the whole time and you tell them, ‘Hey, can you redo that solo? Can you make it sound more like this instead of that?’” Brown said. “It was great.”

The album is currently charting on Billboard in the Northeast, which pleases her to no end.

“I got an email from Billboard a few months ago saying, ‘Urgent: Ayla Brown is charting,’” she said. “I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh. The hard work is paying off.’”

Her next effort will be a patriotic album, Heroes and Hometowns, set to be mastered later this month. She said her goal is to release it by Veteran’s Day, but if not, it will be available in time for holiday shopping.

Part of the proceeds of each CD sale will be donated to Hugs for Heroes, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting military troops overseas through shipments of care packages. Since it was established in 2004, more than 10 tons of goods have been delivered.

“A friend of mine started [it] in 2004 after someone came to her school and talked about how not many soldiers get care packages from the people they love,” said Brown. “Two out of the 10 guys would be getting care packages and the rest of the guys felt really left out. She thought that was a shame. Every person in the unit should get a care package.”

Another non-profit organization Brown is affiliated with is the Songs of Love Foundation, which is dedicated to providing free, personalized songs for children and teens facing tough medical, physical or emotional challenges. She serves as spokesperson and has written 10 songs for the effort.

“I was on The Early Show as a national correspondent for a two years and it was the first story that I pitched,” she said. “The producer I was working with at the time had written many songs for the organization and he told me about it. It was the beginning of a great relationship with Songs of Love. It’s so rewarding. It helps them get through whatever treatment and tough times they are going through.”

Helping children is something she holds close to her heart. While she doesn’t play basketball as much as she used to, coaching kids in the future would be ideal.

“If I were to ever coach I would love it to be for a middle school or an elementary school where it’s still fun and you get to teach the kids and have a good time doing it,” said Brown. “At the college, and even high school level, there’s too much pressure to excel and succeed.”

So, where does Brown find her inspiration to succeed? Her parents are former WCVB-TV Channel 5 reporter Gail Huff and Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown.

“They’ve been so supportive,” she said.

In turn, she also supports them, as her father, a Republican, is facing Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren in Tuesday’s election. During his campaign, Brown has performed at many of his functions and participated in several events.

“I do everything I can to support him and that means going out and holding signs, doing different video messages on YouTube and being in commercials,” she said. “My dad is not only a great father, but he’s a wonderful senator. He’s doing such a great job for Massachusetts. There’s no one else as bipartisan as he is. I want someone like that as my senator. There are a lot of people who complain about the way this country is run and then they don’t even vote. I would say to those people, ‘Get out there and make a difference.’”

To learn more about Ayla Brown visit aylabrown.com.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE: JKB Management & Booking/Limelight Magazine does not endorse political candidates, platforms, or parties. However, we support ALL local musicians from New England regardless of their political affiliation or involvement.

BY JESSICA A. BOTELHO

After recently wrapping up a six-week tour with legendary entertainer Barbara Streisand, Grammy-nominated trumpeter Chris Botti, the world’s best selling jazz instrumentalist, will be taking the stage at the Zeiterion Performing Arts Center this Sunday, Nov. 4^th.

For Botti, performing in the area is exciting. In 2009, he recorded a DVD, “Live in Boston,” which he thinks helped him generate New England fans.

“It’s become one of the most successful parts of my touring world, so we love coming up there,” he said. “That upper part of the United States is a really good market for me, so we visit there quite often.”

The set will include singer Lisa Fischer, who has been gigging with The Rolling Stones for the last two decades. Not only will the show incorporate jazz to the mix, it will feature other genres, as well.

“If anything has defined my touring in the last three or four years it is the ability to go from a really traditional jazz piece, to a more orchestral piece, to a classical piece, to an R&B song and do it with real authority,” said Botti. “We have incredible musicians in the band and hopefully people will walk away from the show entertained and musically lifted, but also seeing something that they can’t see around the block from some other band.”

Botti plans to perform songs from his latest album, “Impressions,” which features an all-star list of artists, including Andrea Bocelli, Vince Gill, Herbie Hancock, David Foster, Caroline Campbell and Mark Knopfler.

Having Knopfler, best known as the singer and guitarist of the rock band Dire Straits, appear on the album was a pleasant surprise, said Botti. Knopfler agreed to sing, “What a Wonderful World” for the album. He rarely sings songs written by other writers.

“I was quite shocked,” Botti said. “That collaboration was sort of put together out of a fluke.”
Botti explained that his manager is a good friend of Knopfler, and as the two were taking a stroll in London’s Hyde Park one day, Knopfler suggested that Botti remake the classic tune.

“It was kind of his idea,” said Botti. “I probably would never have tried to enter into that Louie Armstrong territory of music had it not been for Mark. We went back to him and said, ‘Are you serious?’”

Knopfler was serious, and ended up teaming up with Botti to record the song. Botti said Knofpler’s unique voice makes the track work as well as it does.

“He almost speaks the song as much as he sings it,” said Botti. “And it was done all in one take. In the day and age of people having computers, multiple takes, Auto-Tune and this that and the other thing, one of the stipulations Mark made was that he would do it if we came to London and record it with his band. We did three takes and the second one is the one you hear. We wanted to give it authenticity.”

Having Hancock join him on the album was another treat. The two partnered musically in the past, as they once performed together at the White House for Presidents Obama, Clinton, Carter, plus the president of China, as well as their spouses.

“It was big deal for me – it was sort of nerve-wracking, but it was fun,” Botti said of the first time he played at the White House. He later performed there again when George W. Bush was in office. “There I was playing with Herbie Hancock, which, in a weird way, was even more of a thrill than to play for the politicians.”

He and Hancock played “My Funny Valentine,” a hit that inspired Botti to learn trumpet.

“That’s the song that made me want to become a trumpet player,” said Botti. “I heard it on a record player. It was the first time I ever heard Miles Davis and it just knocked me back. I just thought, ‘I want to be a trumpet player for the rest of my life.’”

To be clear, Botti started playing trumpet when he was nine-years-old after seeing Carl Hilding “Doc” Severinse, the original trumpet player on The Tonight Show. But when he was 12 or 13, he heard Davis for the first time and connected with the instrument on a more emotional level.

“I was always enamored with the sound and flavor of the dark, pretty sound Miles Davis made with his horn,” he said.

As an attempt to sound as much like his hero as possible, Botti plays on the same make that Davis plays on – a Martin Committee large bore trumpet made in 1939. He also uses a No. 3 silver-plated mouthpiece from Bach, which was crafted in 1926.

“They stopped making them years ago and I just believe that the new horns haven’t aged yet and don’t have the same sort of sound,” he said. “Someone gave me this horn to try out about 12 or 13 years ago and I played two notes on it and was like, ‘This is amazing.’ It’s a very unique sound and I’ve blessed to have run across it. It’s been a fantastic friendship ever since.”

Another friendship Botti holds near and dear to his heart is with Sting, now a solo artist who became famous by fronting the band The Police. He credits Sting with helping him establish a career.

“I never would have had a career had it not been for my ongoing, close friendship with Sting,” he said. “He has really helped me in every possible way. The relationship goes well beyond music. Meeting him and working with him and having it blossom into a deep friendship is something that I look at as the greatest thing that’s happened to me. He became family in many ways.”

Yet, Botti has made quite the name for himself in his own right. While his success came later in his life, he tours incessantly to keep fans interested.

“They are what it’s all about,” he said.

All too often, Botti said, he has witnessed artists reach the pinnacle of success and then lose it simply because they became disengaged. That’s not an option for him.

“You need to care about your audience and whether they are getting music that they love,” said Botti. “A lot of artists, especially those in their 20s, say, ‘Oh, the road is too difficult. I’m going to take four years off.’ And then their audience goes, ‘Goodbye.’ I don’t want that to happen to me. I want to be able to tour well into my 60s or 70s if I can still play the horn.”

To do that, he said, an artist must be willing to make sacrifices.  It isn’t always easy, but it’s worth it.

“You have to sacrifice a lot of life for the benefits of being able to walk on stage every night and be grateful that there is an audience there for you because they can just as easily spend their money and go download the latest and greatest thing and not come to your show,” said Botti. “That’s something that I’m well aware of.”

The Zeiterion Performing Arts Center’s box office is located at 684 Purchase Street, New Bedford, Mass. Box Office Hours: M-F 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sat 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and one hour before each performance. For more information, visit www.zeiterion.org or call 508-994-2900.

“We look forward to the show,” Botti said. “It’s going to be a great one.”

By JESSICA A. BOTELHO

Hard rock trio, ZEBRA, will be playing at the Rock Junction in Coventry, R.I., on Oct. 26^th at 8 p.m. for a special show by Limelight Magazine publisher JKB Booking. Joined by local rockers Fall and Bounce, who will be opening the evening, ZEBRA will perform hits from their own catalog, plus a one-hour Led Zeppelin encore set. It will be their only New England appearance.

“We don’t play up there a lot to begin with – maybe once every couple years, but we do have a history in Rhode Island,” said vocalist and guitarist Randy Jackson. “We used to play at the Living Room in Providence a lot. That used to be a steady gig for us in the 80s and early 90s. We have a pretty good fan base there, so it’s always good to come down.”

Jackson, who formed ZEBRA in the mid-1970s with bassist Felix Hanemann and drummer Guy Gelso, said fans should expect to hear popular ZEBRA tracks, as well as Zeppelin classics, such as “Heartbreaker,” “The Immigrant Song,” and “Kashmir.”

“We used to do a lot of Led Zeppelin back when we first started in 1975 to 1979, so we have a pretty big repertoire to choose from,” Jackson said.

Since they’re performing music they’ve been playing for more than 35 years, they don’t rehearse often. That comes in handy, said Jackson, as the members of the band don’t live in the same state.

“Guy is back in New Orleans now, and Felix and I both live in Long Island,” he said. “If we rehearse at all it’s just at sound check because we’ve only been doing 10 to 20 shows a year.”

But that might change in the near future. In between gigs, the band is in the process of arranging new material, which they’d like to record soon.
“We hope to have it out if not this year, sometime next year,” he said. “I’ve got so many songs written and I want it to be different from everything we’ve done.”

Also, on Oct. 18th they will be inducted to the Long Island Music Hall of Fame. While they originated in New Orleans, Louisiana, and were inducted to the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame in 2010, Long Island is honoring them, too.

“It’s awesome,” he said. “It’s nice that Long Island made an exception for us.”

Despite a brief hiatus in the early 1990s, the band has been together for 37 years. The “roughest” part, Jackson said, was the first five years.

“We were really active playing at clubs and partying too much, but it was a time when we probably would have broken up if we were going to,” he said. “We got through that and it’s been relatively smooth sailing for us. We’re all family and we’ve accepted everybody for who they are. Carrying on like that keeps any organization together and I think it’s really important for the fans to have the original band.”

Jackson mentioned that the members shared many of the same interests in music when they first formed and were heavily influenced by Led Zeppelin, Rush, The Moody Blues and YES. The Beatles are also high on the list.

“I’m a big Beatles fan, and Felix is too, but he’s also a huge Rolling Stones fan,” said Jackson. “I like the Stones, but I wasn’t as familiar with them as Felix was. When Journey came out, Guy was a big fan; I was not. There are certainly differences among us, but enough similarities that are a big part of why we are still together after all this time.”

In addition to playing with ZEBRA, Jackson often performs solo acoustic gigs, as well as shows with symphony orchestras throughout the United States, doing arrangements of music by Led Zeppelin, The Doors, Pink Floyd and The Eagles, to name a few.

He began teaming up with the orchestras in 1996, when his now-late agent Jim McGinnis contacted and informed him that an East Coast promoter started a company that combined classic rock with an orchestra. The concept was to perform the music of one group at each show.

“They did a trial run of the show in Virginia Beach and wanted a different singer,” Jackson said. “I flew down to Virginia, met Brent Havens, the conductor, and we’ve been doing shows ever since.”

As noted, Jackson is a fan of The Beatles, and in the liner notes of the ZEBRA’s best of CD, he mentions that the first concert he ever saw was The Beatles at City Park Stadium in New Orleans in 1964. He was just nine-years-old at the time.

“It was like Christmas and Mardi Gras all rolled into one,” he said. “I love the music and I was so young that I didn’t really understand – I just knew it was exciting. It made a big impression on me.”

Jackson said that his neighborhood friend wanted to go to the show, too, but his parents didn’t take him to the show because they didn’t approve of The Beatles. Little did they know the band would be one of the most successful and influential acts of all time.

“I remember his mother saying years later, ‘That was one thing I’ll always regret,’” he said. “But that’s the kind of time it was. Like all other musical groups, parents are a little leery of them when they first come out.”

Speaking of The Beatles, Jackson played John Lennon’s Mellotron, an electro-mechanical, polyphonic tape replay keyboard, for the ZEBRA song, “Who’s Behind the Door.” Jackson got the opportunity thanks to producer Jack Douglas, who produced ZEBRA’s first album, as well as Lennon’s final album, “Double Fantasy.”

“We were up at the record plant in New York where Lennon recorded the album and the Mellotron was still there,” Jackson said. “Jack brought it in and told me it was John’s, so sitting there planning Lennon’s Mellotron was kind of surreal for me. That’s what was great about recording with Jack. I got to hear a lot about my idols and people I looked up to from a guy who experienced it first hand.”

For tickets to the Oct. 26th show at The Rock Junction, visit www.brownpapertickets.com/event/239202. Tickets are $25 in advance and $27 the day of the event.

For more information about ZEBRA, visit their website thedoor.com.

By JESSICA A. BOTELHO

Headspace, a British progressive rock band consisting of five best friends, including keyboardist Adam Wakeman, just kicked-off a U.K. tour in support of their debut album, “I Am Anonymous.” It follows their 2006 EP “I Am….,” which was recorded just in time for the band to earn the honor of opening for Ozzy Osbourne during the European leg of Ozzy’s 2007 Black Rain tour.

In a recent e-mail interview, Wakeman, son of former YES keyboardist Rick Wakeman, said Headspace is excited about performing again after spending the last five years writing and recording their full-length album. They are thrilled to be getting the chance not only to perform, but to also reconnect with one another.

“The writing took place over many years purely because of our individual schedules,” Wakeman said. “I was on tour most of 2007/8 and 2010/11 with Ozzy, so a lot was done by sending ideas back and forth. I am very lucky to spend a lot of time with bands such as Ozzy’s or Sabbath and many other artists I really enjoy, I just felt that I never actually got to see some of my older friends and this gave us the opportunity to get together and work as a band on something for ourselves. This band is the sum of its five parts and everyone’s input is essential.”

The Headspace line-up includes Wakeman, plus Damian Wilson on vocals, drummer Richard Brook, bassist Lee Pomeroy, and guitarist Pete Rinaldi. Wakeman said he and Rinaldi got together as often as possible to collaborate and sent the rest of the band what they worked on so they could add their parts.

“Damian wrote all the lyrics and the majority of the melodies, plus a few acoustic sections, too,” said Wakeman. “‘Soldier’ was a finished song he bought to the table, but it was too ‘folky’ with major chords, so I just got him to sing the melody and played some different chords to make it fit with the band.”

From there, the album continued to evolve. During the process, Wilson and Rinaldi came up with the idea for a concept album, which encourages the listener to ponder his or her relationship with humanity and the mental battles he or she endures.

Wakeman said the concept can be analyzed by showing the connection with The Kübler-Ross model, commonly known as The Five Stages of Grief, a hypothesis introduced by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ book, On Death and Dying.

“The Soldier in our story is reflecting on emotions from coming back from war and struggling to understand Man’s inhumanity to fellow Man,” said Wakeman. “He is also questioning religion in ‘In Hell’s Name,’ and in ‘The Big Day,’ he ends up on a plane on its final journey. ‘Heads were bowed – Hand’s clenched with fear,’ draws a beautiful image of people in the ‘brace’ position. Are they praying or just ‘bracing’ for the crash? At a time like that no one knows what’s going through your head. Is the search for a God futile and pointless, or is that where it begins?”

As is often the case with most prog-rock bands, many of the album tracks are lengthy, as one is 15 minutes long, and at least four others hover around 10 minutes. There are eight songs on the album.

“We don’t ever have any preconceived ideas about song length,” Wakeman said. “We had lots of time to reflect on sections and whole songs, and we recorded the whole album first to make sure it worked musically and lyrically. Then we re-recorded everything again.”

Wakeman said the experience was fulfilling and highlighted attributes of each of his band mates, noting that they are the “most talented musicians I know, and the people I would choose to spend time with, if I actually had any free time.”

Aside from their musical talents, he said Rinaldi brings clarity to a lot of situations and helps him with the business dealings for the band. Also, they have their comical sides, as well.

“Because we all know each other so well, there’s a lot of humor involved when we’re all together,” said Wakeman. “Lee and Rich are great fun to be around and Damo is the most random character I know, which is why he’s so good as a front man.”

Wakeman went on to say that some of the situations Damo gets into on tour are quite interesting, to say the least. He anticipates the remainder of their current tour to be no different.

“He was once late for a recording session at my studio because he was arrested on a bus after being wrongly pointed out as a robber,” Wakeman said. “Another time, he was thrown out of a bar and arrested for someone else starting a bar fight [and was] released with no charge. He just seems to find himself in the most bizarre situations.”

Touring with Ozzy, he said, is just as entertaining, as well as enjoyable.

“Ozzy is a true, old school rock royalty in my book,” Wakeman said. “He has the utmost respect for people and is the most genuine, honest person I know. What you see is what you get and that’s pretty rare in anyone and almost extinct in the music business.”

Another well-known musician in Wakeman’s life is, of course, his father. Having a highly talented keyboardist/composer like Rick Wakeman as a dad has put a bit of pressure on him, yet, he has developed his own notoriety through the years.

“When I was young and we toured and recorded albums together, there were people who just said, ‘He’s only doing that because his dad’s Rick Wakeman,’” he said. “But once I got a bit older and worked with a lot of other artists, I think people realize that I have my own career.”
He also said he father was and continues to be a huge inspiration.

“He’s the person I call with questions about the business that I need advice on, because chances are he has come across it in his long career,” Wakeman said. “I appreciate YES a lot more now than when I was younger. I swapped my YES albums for a football when I was eight.”

For Wakeman, he’s just grateful to be a musician. He said he loves being able to jump from one project to another so he never gets bored.

“I recently finished a film score for a British indie film called “Nothing Man” and then went straight on tour with Ozzy and Friends for the summer,” he said. “Then it was lots of press for the Headspace shows and album, and a recording session with a singer/writer from Nashville.

I have friends who gave up touring to just be writers or producers, but I know that I would really miss touring if I were to stop doing it. You can never replace the feeling of playing in front of a crowd and seeing people really enjoying a show.”

To learn more about Headspace or find out how to purchase their music, visit headspaceonline.com.

By JESSICA A. BOTELHO

 Music icon Al Green, 66, has been making what he calls “smooching music” for more than 40 years and, for the first time in his career, he’ll be performing at New Bedford’s Zeiterion Theatre this Sunday, Aug. 26. He anticipates the experience will be “Simply Beautiful.”

“You know Al and he is going to do what he do in New Bedford,” said Green, a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer who has sold more than 20 million records. “I want to feel what New Bedford is like. I’ve been to other cities in Massachusetts but I aint never been to New Bedford.”

Green not only is a performer but a Reverend, and is the pastor of the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Memphis, Tennessee. It’s not far from his home which is located in close proximity to Graceland.

But this Sunday he’ll be bestowing his blessings on his musical fans by playing a medley of Motown songs from artists like Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, The Four Tops and The Temptations, plus his own biggest hits like “I’m Still in Love with You,” “Tired of Being Alone,” and “Look What You Done for Me.”

“I’m going to do all that good stuff,” Green said.

He’ll also sing fan favorite, “Let’s Stay Together,” a song so popular the President of the United States is familiar with it. In fact, to the surprise – and delight – of the crowd, Obama sang its opening lines at a rally in New York in January.

“He improved that in there – I didn’t know what he was doing but I thought it was kind of neat,” said Green, who was in the audience at the time. “I didn’t even know the President even knew my song but he sounded better than me. I said, ‘Oh, man. He’s going to put me out of a job. If he’s sounding that good I won’t be singing long.’”

All joking aside, Green has nothing to worry about – he’s been selling out shows during his current tour. So far, he said he’s having a “fantastic” time and finds it rewarding to look out into the crowd and witness people enjoying themselves.

“I can see that expression on their faces when I start to sing and they get into a finger-snapping groove-type thing,” he said.

In a similar way, Green hopes he has a positive effect as a preacher. While he knows a performer and a Reverend are different, he said they are comparable because they offer people a piece of his heart.

“A Reverend is a Reverend, a performer is a performer, and a show is a show, but it exemplifies the real life facts of the person that’s doing the show,” he said.

As for being a Reverend specifically, he appreciates the “significance” of it. He wishes more people would find the harmony he found.

“If everybody had significance of being a reverend you wouldn’t have some shooting in a theater about some movie that’s coming out,” he said. “Can you imagine all the lives that have damaged by this? It’s a show – it’s not for killings folks. If you have the tranquility of what we’re talking about then you wouldn’t be carrying an assault rifle around.”

Instead, Green is focusing on a few special things – creating new music, as he has an album in the works; as well as sharing love and happiness, both on and off stage.

“I dance, I pass out roses, I blow kisses, I hug people, I tell them that their love is worth something and that really are special,” he said. “You’ve got to think you’re wonderful. I think you’re wonderful.”

But that’s not all fans can expect from him at The Z.

“I’ve got 14 people on stage and we pack a tight ship,” said Green. “To all my Limelight fans, we kick butt out there.”

The Zeiterion Performing Arts Center’s box office is located at 684 Purchase Street, New Bedford, MA. Box Office Hours: M-F 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sat 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and one hour before each performance. Parking is free in an adjacent garage. For more information, visit http://www.zeiterion.org.