New Release - More Than Red

Jason Crane at WGMC, Rochester, New York has included "More Than Red" on his list of the "Twenty Best Jazz Releases of 2002"!

Click to play "Sweet and Sour" MP3 from More Than Red. (Requires Quicktime or another MP3 player.)

Click here to see new review on jazzreview.com!

Read Paul West's excellent review of the album - click on: "All About Jazz.com"

Recent Broadcast Media Response:

"More Than Red is an excellent CD. You sound great, Paul. It's perfect for my format and I'm enjoying it very much. I will definately keep spreading word about you and your music among my listeners and continue featuring your music on my program." - J.L. Bueno, Cadiz, Spain

"A fantastic record." - Russ Haines, WWSP, Stephens Point, WI

"Dynamite musicians." - Marc E. Copeland, WFDU-FM, Teaneck, NJ

"Let me say again how impressive this record is. The tunes are strong, as is the playing. Your choice of sidemen is excellent, particularly Walter Kingsley. An incredible record... every track." - Jason Crane, WGMC, Rochester, NY

For Immediate Release:

More Than Red

Music as a Prevailing Experience - Searching for Common Threads of the Urban Experience

Paul Serrato, composer and pianist, has been applying his music roots in jazz and contemporary music to the diverse music scene of New York since the 1960s. In More Than Red, a new CD release, Serrato has produced a disk that crosses jazz borders. The musicians pursue textures as well as grooves, to explore jazz traditions with a "downtown" New York edge. Blues, ballads, and Afro-Cuban all contribute to the urban mix.

The record has been released on Graffiti Productions, Serrato's independent label. More Than Red was produced in the spirit of the rich Latin jazz heritage of piano and percussion explorations by such diverse artists as Erroll Garner, Billy Taylor, Nina Simone, Candido, Mongo Santamaria, Ray Barretto, and many others. This is a unique jazz tradition, which continues to fascinate pianists and Latin percussionists alike. DJ Tom Mongelli has described Paul's music as a non-romanticized "gritty reflection of the urban landscape".

Paul Serrato views the jazz quartet/quintet ensemble as a particularly American derivative of the classical string quartet with its endless possibilities. The bass, for example, can be a powerful instrument in its own right, as well as a support sensed in the background. Conversely, the trumpet by nature is a dominating voice which, given the setting, can reveal a romantic, intimate side. Providing a musical canvas in More Than Red which allowed these instruments to paint their own colors was the challenge, and the pleasure.

In New York's protean off-Broadway and club scene of the 1960s and 70s, Paul both arranged and composed music for shows and acts. He wrote several songs for the counter-culture hit, Vain Victory, later featured on the PBS series, An American Family. This offbeat spectacular, featuring Andy Warhol factory Superstars, was the 1970s downtown answer to "Hair". One of the songs, White Shoulders, Black and Blue, has become a standard in PaulÕs band book. The song received considerable airplay nationally when it was released in 1996 on the CD Neon Palm Tree, in a new definitive arrangement. Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side could describe many of Paul's 1960s musical activities. "I knew all the people in that song," Serrato says. "They all had acts and shows that I composed music for." Though the Velvet Underground was then the downtown band of choice, some Superstars sought out Paul's music because it was jazz.

Experiments and Extensions

In New York's Chelsea at the Chapel Theatre (later the Limelight disco), Paul composed an original music score for the play Cityscapes 3. The score fused piano blues with a Coplandesque sound palette. As a special event for the vast church space at intermission, he created a fifteen minute work of "found sound", or "musique concrete", entitled Broadway Electronic. This was a sound image of urban surrealism. A portion of this can be heard mixed into Street Smarts, one of the selections on Paul's Nexus CD.

For Coney Island of the Resigned, Paul composed music, and adapted and composed texts for soprano and piano. This vocal triptych ranged in expression from lyricism to surreal sprechstimme. The work was performed in recital at Christ and St. Stephen's Church on New York's West Side, and at Concordia College in St. Paul, Minnesota.

In the 1980s Paul led a band called Declining Income. "We were all very politically minded," he says. This group became band-in-residence for the Commotion Poets, a cluster of bright writing/performance talent. Performances were in cafes and theatres. The band was the first to perform on multiple occasions with the poets on the Staten Island Ferry. Audiences in St. PeterÕs Church in the Citicorp Building in Manhattan have heard several firsts by Paul. His songs have been performed there, both with Serrato as soloist, and with gospel/jazz singer L.D. Frazier on Jazz Vespers programs, and at All-Night Soul concerts. St. Peter's music fans have also heard the Paul Serrato Group at Jazz for the Homeless concerts.

Independent Enterprise

As the independent music movement of the 90s gained momentum, Paul recognized an opportunity to participate and market his music in a new way. The moment had come to start recording the considerable body of music that had developed in venues over time. Recording had become a new, exciting medium to master. Further, the challenge of listeners and potential fans nationwide became a really exciting prospect. Nexus was the first release in this new venture. Paul performed Stage Door Johnny, a jazz portrait of a nocturnal Times Square Character, on the Joe Franklin Show. Nexus succeeded in generating national airplay, encouraging Paul to continue producing.

At this time, New York City radio audiences heard the live premiere of Life and Death of a Graffiti Artist on WBAI-FM. This three-movement work, a response to the controversial Michael Stewart police custody case, was an urban fusion of jazz, classical elements, and funk. Selections from it are on Nexus, and More Than Red. Serrato's theme music for Not Limited, an interview TV program produced in Los Angeles in the mid-90s, was heard in many Western states.

During this period, the Serrato Group was featured on See How It Is, on Manhattan cable. In 2000, NY Artists Unlimited, an 18-year-old multicultural actor's touring company, created Song of the Simple Truth, a bilingual adaptation of the work of Puerto Rican poet Julia de Burgos. Paul was commissioned to compose music for the project. The result was a choral setting of the poem Universal Dead, performed by the repertory company.

Future releases from Graffiti Productions include Jackie Curtis: The Marrying Kind. This is a rediscovered early producing venture by Paul. A forgotten studio session, it comprises a collection of surprisingly romantic vocals by an eclectic performance artist who "took a walk on the wild side" and died of a heroin overdose in 1985.

For ever-growing numbers of fans, a plentitude of new music will be forthcoming from Paul Serrato and Co.

More Than Red Popular Response:

I love your piano compositions! - Hiromi Tsuruta, designer, NYC

The new CD is fantastic! I love it. Please send me two more - thanks. - Sean Justice, photographer, NYC

What a great CD - it's your best yet! - Bonnie Forward, acting coach, Santa Monica, CA

I absolutely love it! I continue to play it in high rotation - it feels like a classic. - Colleen Delaney, actress, Silver Spring, MD

It's great! I can't stop playing it - don't stop! - Gloria Concepcion, restaurateur, Sebring, FL

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