JJ GREY SOLO ACOUSTIC
INDY CD & VINYL - INDIANAPOLIS, IN
Adam Scone
Born:
Youngstown, OHInstrument:
Organ (Hammond B3 w/ Leslie 122), bass (Ampeg SVT w/ SVT 8x10 cabinet)Biography
Organist Adam Scone remains true to his art form. "The organ is such a vital part of popular music", he says, "and it's important that people around the world get to hear it. It is critical that it is not forgotten." Adam has dedicated his life to keeping the sound of the Hammond B3 organ alive. His new focus is to melt the stylistic preconceptions of the instrument, to break away from the artistic norm, and anticipates showing this creativity to a wider audience with his upcoming solo releases.Since February of 2004, Scone has been playing organ with JJ Grey & MOFRO, including their breaktrhough performance at the Bonnaroo Festival, the Austin City Limits Music Festival and many others.
In the Jazz world Adam has worked in alto great Lou Donaldson's band, playing in New York's two most prestigious Jazz Clubs, the Village Vanguard and the Blue Note. Previously Mr. Scone has worked with Jazz legends Jimmy Cobb, Ben Dixon and Al Harewood, Bubba Brooks, George Braith. He has also recorded with other great musicians in the R&B field, including drummer Bernard Purdie and bassist Fred Thomas.
Adam is also member of the world renowned funk group the Sugarman 3, who have played many of the worlds top music festivals including the Montreaux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, The North Sea Jazz Festival in the Netherlands, the Montreal Jazz Festival, The Purple Weekend in Spain, and the Glastonbury Music Festival in the United Kingdom.
In 2001, 2002 and 2003, Mr. Scone was chosen as a Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts' Jazz Ambassador. This enabled him to bring the organ sound to 18 Countries in Africa, South America and throughout the Middle East.
Adam was born September, 1975 in Cleveland, Ohio but grew up in Youngstown, Ohio. He began playing piano at the age of 5. At the age of 16 he switched to the organ after hearing the phenomenal organist Gene Ludwig play. He was highly encouraged by the great Youngstown drummer Shedrick Hobbs. Adam graduated from William Paterson College in New Jersey. In 2003 Mr. Scone also received an Honorary Degree of Music from the Honduras Conservatory of Music.
Recording Credits:
JJ Grey & MOFRO, Country Ghetto (Alligator)
Adam Scone, Psychedelic Eye (Organtone)
Adam Scone, High As A Rocket (Organtone)
Adam Scone, The Wild New Electric Organ Sounds of Adam Scone (Organtone)
Sugarman Three, Pure Cane Sugar (Daptone)
Sugarman Three, Soul Donkey (Daptone)
Sugarman Three, Sugar's Boogaloo (Daptone)
Sugarman Three, Sweet Spot
Sugarman Three, Dirty Red
Sugarman Three, Sugar's Boogaloo (Daptone)
Various Artists, Spike's Choice - The Desco Funk 45 Collection (Desco)
Melvin Sparks, It Is What It Is
Uptown Originals, Live Means Hot
How We Feel About Scone
There are precious few "keyboardists" and far fewer organ players in the world today. A player can be completely accomplished on a piano and be totally lost on an organ. While guitar players still traditionally remain guitar players, organ players are becoming a thing of the past. The technology frenzy has given us thousands of terrible imitations of organ sounds (and a million and one others) and all but robbed us of the folks who can really "work" one and create those REAL sounds on the REAL thing.Adam Scone is a true organ player. Like many of his predecessors (Jimmy Smith, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Lee Michaels, etc.), Adam plays the bass lines on the bottom manual of the organ with his left hand and on the foot pedals with his feet. His right hand belts out the upper part of the organ from the percussive bubbles deep in the rhythm, to the roaring solos that scream out of the Leslie speaker cabinet.
Adam lives in and gigs regularly around New York City. He's worked in the studio and shared the stage with many Jazz legends including: Lou Donaldson, Jimmy Cobb, Ben Dixon, Al Harewood, Bubba Brooks, and George Braith. It was with Sugarman 3 that I first saw Scone play in 1998 at the Jazz Café in London. The group happened to be on tour in Europe and Daryl and I went down and saw them. We rarely went out (London is expensive) and it was by chance that we chose that night to go to the club. Sugarman 3 floored Daryl and me, and without saying a word we both knew we'd love to play with any of the guys in that group. Six years later that opportunity arose and we took it. It is our privilege and our honor to have Mr. Adam Scone on board.
- JJ Grey
The Players
Art Edmaiston
saxophone
Dennis Marion
trumpet
Anthony Cole
drums- George Sluppick
- Fabrice Quentin
- Craig Barnette
- Mike Shapiro
- Nathan Shepherd
- Bea Gayle
- Tim Stombaugh
- Steve Cybulski
- Ian Hendrickson-Smith
- Dave Guy
- Cochemea Gastelum
- Alex Norris
- Chris Davis
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Players
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more > Publicity Materials
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more > What They Say
Orange Blossoms Review - Blurt Online
There's nothing particularly different about this MOFRO album - it's just a stronger distillation of the band's vision. Like the three previous very fine records, the focus is on JJ Grey's soulful, deep-south vocals and earthy tales while the sticky, slow-grinding funk grooves of the band push the songs along. But like they say, if it ain't broke don't fix it, and this might be MOFRO's best effort yet.
There's a celebratory vibe to the chorus of the title track while the introspective last cut "I Believe (In Everything),"with its liquid guitar line, full-bodied horns and gospel backing vocals, is enough to draw a tear. Packed between are ten more songs that move from the ominous piano crawl of "She Don't Know" to the juke joint banger "On Fire" to the sympathetic strings working with understated harmonica on "Dew Drops." While the tempos dip and sway they're always covered by shadows and thick air.
JJ Grey & MOFRO are one of the preeminent southern soul-blues bands of the day. Everything is rooted in Grey's Florida backwater roots and the man is the real deal. Orange Blossoms is the newest chapter of a timeless band with legs to run the long race. Like the state flower that adorns this album's cover, each time MOFRO deliver an album you can smell the place as it instantly transports you to Grey's back porch staring out over the swamp.
Standout Tracks: "Dew Drops," "I Believe (In Everything)" AARON KAYCE
Jambase Reviews Orange Blossoms
JJ Grey & MOFRO have been gradually making a name for themselves since the early side of this decade, and following this summer's release of their fourth studio album, Orange Blossoms, it looks like things are going to keep getting bigger and bigger for the front porch soul man from Jacksonville, Florida. The 2007 release of Country Ghetto saw JJ Grey's music break out into a larger audience with the help of quality promotion and a good deal of radio play. But with Orange Blossoms, it's starting to seem as though Grey and his MOFRO cohorts are finally being seen and heard with the crossover appeal they've held from the start.
allmusic Orange Blossoms Album Review
By: Hal Horowitz
It's difficult to find a review of JJ Grey's music that doesn't use the word "swamp" to describe his blend of deep Southern soul and murky funk. So that's taken care of in the first sentence here, which leaves plenty of room to focus on his fourth album's low-key yet surging backwoods R&B. The disc's title and title track refer to Grey's home state of Florida's official flower, but there is little that is floral or sunshiny about his music. Rather, the Jacksonville-based Grey prefers to hover in the gloaming, layering horns and backing vocals over grinding, midtempo blue-eyed soul. This is the most elaborately produced of his albums, but like the chitlin' circuit blues in his blood, there is nothing slick about it. Similar to the illicit affair at the heart of "Everything Good Is Bad," the disc's only cover (the original was done by the obscure act 100 Proof [Aged in Soul]), Grey's music generally stays in the shadows. The funeral piano that opens "She Don't Know" is jazzy yet ominous and sounds as humid and muggy as his hometown on an August night. Ditto for the strings that appear at the song's end and pop up like wild weeds throughout this dozen-song set. Grey has matured into a compelling vocalist and it is his emotional yet subtle singing that elevates this already powerful material. His sluggish Southern drawl on the funky "WYLF" (short for "what you're looking for") infuses a laconic, easygoing, almost lazy feel, a distinguishing characteristic of his style. That's brought into sharp relief on the sticky, sweaty sex of "Move It On," a sly, nearly seven-minute deliberate groover that sounds like something the Temptations might have recorded if they had been bred in the South. Although Grey deserves the bulk of the credit for this disc's unassuming success, longtime co-producer Dan Prothero (who has worked on every Grey/Mofro project) and in-the-pocket drummer Anthony Cole are crucial elements of the stealthy vibe. It's an album that grows on you slowly like moss at the base of a withered old tree and transports you to the dank, mosquito-infested bayou at the heart of Grey's evocative sound.
