News

Cellar Live is really excited to roll out our new look. We're now operating under the umbrella of Cellar Music. Under that umbrella will be Cellar Live, enabling jazz fans to hear exciting live recordings, Cellar Music which will be dedicated to dynamic studio recordings, and historically important, never-before-released archival recordings will be released on our new label Reel to Real Recordings.
Daryl Jahnke at 2 Hats Creative is responsible for the new website and logos have been done by Perry Chua. It's been a huge pleasure working with these gentlemen to roll out this new look.

There will be more changes coming as well including The Cellar Sound, a weekly newsletter that will g outline all of the label's activities as well as all kinds of other jazz-related information.

Cellar Live is looking to engage more with its audience and we have the help of the fantastic team of Scott Morin and Angela Wrigley who have been working hard on all of our social media channels and streamlining the label's look and message out in the world.

There are very exciting times for the label and we want to thank all of our supporters for allowing us to continue to make great recordings and speaking of great recordings, we have a bunch of great ones coming out in the coming months including a swinging session led by trumpeter Joe Magnarelli playing the music of Tadd Dameron and a wonderful disc by Chicago singer Alyssa Allgood called Exactly Like You. You'll be seeing these appear on the site in the coming weeks!

We'll also be embarking on some very exciting recordings using the funds from our Patreon campaign including a recording with Vancouver tenor saxophonist Mike Allen with Peter Washington on bass and Lewis Nash on drums. This will be recorded at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. We'll also be heading into the studio with saxophonist Stephen Riley.

There is much more news to come but this gives you a little taste of what we're up to!

Cory Weeds & The Cellar Live Team

Hi everyone, this is Cory Weeds, owner of Cellar Live. I'm excited to unveil “Jazz Scene”, a new way for fans to get behind the record label, and also receive dozens of creative perks and privileges. Every record label is looking for a way to provide listeners great music, and to help musicians share that music with the world. Even though it's gotten harder and harder to release records, we try to keep up with industry trends, and even create a few of our own!

2018 is a big year for us, as we work on a series of four special projects from cities around North America. Alyssa Allgood (Chicago) Larry McKenna & Bootsie Barnes (Philadelphia) Stephen Riley & Ernest Turner (North Carolina) Artist: TBA (New York City). These four records feature musicians who have made or are making significant impacts on their respective jazz scene whether up and coming artists such as Alyssa Allgood in Chicago or legendary figures such as Bootsie Barnes and Larry McKenna in Philadelphia.

We would like to invite you, our enthusiastic listeners and fans, to be part of the season. This is similar to a crowd-sourced fundraiser, except that I want to forge long-term relationships with our valued partners in Jazz. To entice you, we have some really exclusive rewards and perks for our Jazz Scene patrons. Come on board for an entire season! In the spirit of inclusiveness and community, we've put together a bunch of great rewards that I think our regular patrons will enjoy. Have a look on the right, and step up to join us. We’ve been so fortunate to have enthusiastic people behind us. Please keep in mind that that what every level you contribute at, it gets charged four times (once for each project) so if you would like to for example contribute a total of $1000, you'd pledge the $250 level,not the $1000 level. If you're not in a position to contribute financially you can still help us out by telling you friends about it, sharing this page and drumming up some support for us! Thanks for your time and for your support!

We're really excited about the upcoming months at Cellar Live. So many wonderful releases in the pipeline and a ton more planned.  I'm particularly excited about the releases of our "Cellar Select"  Series of recordings that we used the Patreon funding platform for.  The first one is out now.  Cory Weeds - Let's Groove, The Music Of Earth Wind and Fire is available.  My friend Randy Cole did a great video that captured the recording session that you can watch here:

Our next "Cellar Select" release will be at the beginning of November featuring a good friend of mine Sam Taylor with his mentor, tenor saxophonist Larry McKenna.  This album is stellar and is unapologetically swinging. The two tenor saxophonists are spurred on by an all-star rhythm sections featuring pianist JEB PATTON, bassist  NEAL MINER and drummer PETE VAN NOSTRAND.  Check it out!

The album will be available for pre order very soon!  Speaking of available soon, Canadian treasure, PJ PERRY drops a new album recorded live at The Yardbird Suite in Edmonton, Alberta featuring JON MAYER piano, NEIL SWAINSON bass and QUINCY DAVIS drums.  Check it out!

Another one that is coming up a early in the New Year is the fantastic trio of led by the great saxophonist SCOTT HAMILTON featuring ROSSANO SPORTIELLO on piano and JJ SHAKUR on bass. This was recorded over 2 shows at Pyatt Hall at the 2017 Jazz Festival.

Those are just a few things that are upcoming at Cellar Live.  We also have great records coming up from Jodi Proznick and her quartet featuring Laila Biali, The Emmet Cohen Trio featuring Ron Carter and a nice date from the sextet of San Fransisco pianist Adam Shulman!  Stay tuned!

Cellar Live

No, this isn’t a blog post to toot my own horn so to speak about It’s Easy To Remember making it to #1 on the JazzWeek Charts but…..full disclaimer, it is another post about the importance of labels such as Cellar Live relying on fan engagement and financing to continue to release great recordings.

It’s Easy To Remember was recorded live at Smalls Jazz Club in New York City.  The concept of how it came about is quite unique and I venture to guess that the concept is unique to Cellar Live.  For 6 years I have been taking groups of people to New York City for 10 days at a time to experience all the great things that New York has to offer, in particular, jazz!  About 4 years ago, I started incorporating a live recording into the itinerary as an actual event.  I added up all the costs of doing the recording ie: space rental, engineer, artist fees, piano tuning, catering etc. and divided it up by how many people we had on the tour and that chunk of money was allocated against the activities budget for the tour.  Of course there are still the post production costs but the pre-production and actual production of the recordings are covered.  In return the group gets a) a great performance b) an inside look at how recordings are made. It’s a win win situation. Cellar Live has done 4 of these recordings:

CL032013 Tardo Hammer – Simple Pleasure

CL021914 John Webber – Down For The Count

CL032014 Steve Kaldestad – New York Afternoon

CL032014 Joshua Bruneau – Bright Idea

CL031616 Emmet Cohen – Masters Legacy Series Volume 1

and

CL031716 – Cory Weeds – It’s Easy To Remember

Put quite simply, without this model, these records likely would’ve never been made, or at least most of them.

We were able make records in a unique way when I owned Cory Weeds’ Cellar Jazz Club.  Doing 4 night runs and including some of the costs of making the record in the ticket price etc.

As record labels, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to monetize recordings and we’re forced to come up with new and creative ways to produce quality records.

Crowdfunding is another thing that musicians and labels are relying on.  I have been on the fence about crowdfunding for some time. I have used it and had some success and some failures.  I have however been quite impressed with Patreon which is more of a long term commitment to a label, project or concept. The site is www.patreon.com/cellarselect.  We have launched a series of recordings with the theme of mentorship. Musicians recording with their mentors.  The first of those 4 recordings will take place on April 9, 2017 when I go into the studio with Steve Kaldestad on tenor, Dave Sikula on guitar, a big mentor of mine Mike LeDonne on organ and New York drummer Jason Tiemann.  We have offered a some really cool benefits and perks.  So far we’ve raised about $1500 USD per album which is fantastic but we’re well below our goal of $5000 per records. 

All of this to say that with help, we can make it to #1 and YOU can be a big part of that success!  Please check out the campaign and consider getting on board with Cellar Live! www.patreon.com/cellarselect. 

Okay, I have been a bit lazy with the blog lately but what would you rather have me working on?  A regular blog post? Or producing incredible jazz jazz recordings?  I can tell you that I have been focussing my efforts on the latter and boy do we have a lot of incredible stuff happening!  

First off, The Organik Vibe Trio - Things We Did Last Summer is continuing to get rave reviews worldwide and is enjoying considerable success on the Jazz Week Charts.  As of this writing it sits at #22! 

We just pre-released Metalwood - Twenty today at www.cellarive.com. For a limited time (one month) you can download the new CD in high resolution format and receive a a bonus track!  On July 1st, we'll take it down and it will be available again in August WITHOUT the bonus track. Check out the teaser here!

I really enjoyed working on this record and am super excited about how things turned out!  The band will be on tour in September as well including a 3 night run at Frankie's Jazz Club from September 9-11!  

Also pre-released today is a record I'm really proud of. Antonio Ciacca Quintet - Volare, The Italian American Songbook.  It's a supremely swinging album. Check it out on the site and download it today or order your physical copy!

What else is coming up?  Oh my, where to begin!  We have my record The Cory Weeds Quintet featuring David Hazeltine - It's Easy To Remember that is being worked on as we speak.  We also have an amazing promo video to go along with that record as well as The Emmet Cohen Trio featuring Jimmy Cobb - Masters Legacy Series.  We hope this will be one of many CDs by Cohen to come. I'm also heading into the studio in July to record a follow up to This Happy Madness with the Jeff Hamilton Trio. I can't wait to record with these guys again! 

I have been listening to many great recordings as well lately by other lables.  Some highlights include SPIKE WILNER - Koan on Positone, ONE FOR ALL - The Third Decade, PETER BERNSTEIN - Let Loose and GEORGE COLEMAN - The Master Speaks all on Smoke Sessions Records

Alot of great music out there!

So much great stuff going on at Cellar Live these days. Wow!  We have just released ORGANIK VIBE TRIO - Things We Did Last Summer which is an amazing date with some incredibly talented musicians.  It's a fantastic record. Check it out!

In March on the 6th Annual New York With Weeds Tour we recorded two albums due for winter 2016 release.  The first date was with wonderful young pianist Emmet Cohen and his trio featuring the great Jimmy Cobb on drums and guest alto saxophonist Godwin Louis.  Emmet is part of unique crop of very young musicians who are really dedicated to the tradition of this great music, something that so many young musicians forget about.  We did this live at a wonderful space called The DiMenna Center for Classical Music and the music was captured by my good friend Jimmy Katz.

This is going to be part of a series of recordings that Emmet does called The Masters Legacy Series.  The mission is to honor remaining masters of our music and celebrate them not only for what they did 50 or 60 years ago, but for the spirit, humanity, and love they manifest and display currently.

The second project was a recording that I did with a dear friend of mine, pianist David Hazeltine.  Joining us on the recording were more friends!  Joe Magnarelli on trumpet, Paul Gill on bass and Jason Tiemann on drums.  Again, Jimmy Katz was in charge of capturing the sounds and thanks to my good friend Spike Wilner for allowing us to use Smalls Jazz Club on West 10th Street.  We did 3 hours of recording with no audience and then did 3 more hours with the 35 New York With Weeds guests.  It turned out really well!

Then of course we have the great reunion of METALWOOD slated for September release along with ANTONIO CIACCA's quintet VOLARE, THE ITALIAN AMERICAN SONGBOOK.  There is no shortage of music being released, that's for sure!

I was having a conversation with my dad today about the history of Cellar Live and how the heck we've managed to get 115 titles recorded and released.  It's amazing really.  I started thinking about the first record we did and it suddenly dawned on me that we recently lost another member of the quartet that made ROSS TAGGART QUARTET - Thankfully.  I'm speaking of the great pianist and on this particular record, organist Bob Murphy.  We lost Ross over 3 years ago.

What started as a little pet project exploded into a full fledged record label. I will never forget the making of Thankfully.  This band was so hot! It was their second performance at the club and I knew after the first one that this band was something special. It was made even more special for me as Ross was such a huge mentor of mine so to launch the label with this recording was really something.  Every aspect of making the record was so exciting. My good friend at the time Kory Burk engineered the album.  I remember meeting with designer Nicole Banda to talk about how I wanted it to look and she absolutely nailed it! Blue Note vibe through and through right from the get go.  I remember heading over to Miles Hill's house with Ross and Brad Turner to mix the album and I remember sifting through all the great photography that my friend Ian Moar took.  It was an exciting time.  

Ross went on to record dozens more records on Cellar Live as a leader and as a sideman.  Thankfully is a wonderful record and is no longer available in physical format but you can purchase a high resolution download for $9.99!

I'm really excited to finally have www.cellarlive.com back in my hands.  For the last 7 years or so we were using a U.S.-based company to handle all of our order taking, shipping etc.  It meant we had to charge in U.S. dollars and with the dollar being relatively similar it was never an issue. With the recent decline of the CAD dollar and the significant increases in shipping fees at USPS I decided it was time to bring the administration of the website back to Canada. We are a Canadian record company after all.  So here we are with brand a brand new website thanks to my good friend Luis Giraldo. We're selling hi-resolution files via download and we're selling in our home currency of CAD dollars!  This is a great thing all around!

I write this from the control room at Number 9 Audio Group in Toronto, Ontario while Metalwood (Chris Tarry - bass, Brad Turner - keys/trumpet, Ian Froman - drums, Mike Murley - saxes) reunite to make their first record in 13 years!  It's been a blast so far and the record is going to be fantastic!

Stay tuned here for updates on future recording projects etc.  There are a lot of exciting things coming up at Cellar Live.

Cory Weeds