⬇️ AL BASILE ⬇️
DISCOGRAPHY 1998-2025 (20CD)
Originally a poet and fiction writer, Al Basile was the first to get a
master's degree from Brown University's Creative Writing program; he
also wrote musicals as an undergraduate.
Meeting Duke Robillard in 1969 changed his artistic direction for life. He began his performing career in 1973, hired by Duke as the first trumpet player for Rhode Island's premier jump band Roomful of Blues, and played with such blues and jazz greats as Cleanhead Vinson, Red Prysock, Helen Humes, Joe Turner, and Johnny Shines.
Leaving in 1975 to devote himself to teaching, singing, and songwriting, he was reunited with Duke Robillard, Roomful's founder, in the late eighties, His songs and playing have continued to appear throughout the nineties on Robillard's records for Rounder, Stony Plain, Pointblank, and Shanachie.
Songs he has cowritten with Duke have been used on television's Homicide: Life on the Street and the feature film Blood and WIne. Ruth Brown recorded one of Al's songs on her Handy Award winning 1997 release R'n'B=Ruth Brown, and was the first project with a song by Al to be nominated for a Grammy. The second came last year on Duke's Guitar Groove-a-Rama featuring Al's tune "This Dream (Still Coming True)" was nominated for Best Traditional Blues Album of 2006.
DISCOGRAPHY 1998-2025 (20CD)
BIOGRAPHY
Meeting Duke Robillard in 1969 changed his artistic direction for life. He began his performing career in 1973, hired by Duke as the first trumpet player for Rhode Island's premier jump band Roomful of Blues, and played with such blues and jazz greats as Cleanhead Vinson, Red Prysock, Helen Humes, Joe Turner, and Johnny Shines.
Leaving in 1975 to devote himself to teaching, singing, and songwriting, he was reunited with Duke Robillard, Roomful's founder, in the late eighties, His songs and playing have continued to appear throughout the nineties on Robillard's records for Rounder, Stony Plain, Pointblank, and Shanachie.
Songs he has cowritten with Duke have been used on television's Homicide: Life on the Street and the feature film Blood and WIne. Ruth Brown recorded one of Al's songs on her Handy Award winning 1997 release R'n'B=Ruth Brown, and was the first project with a song by Al to be nominated for a Grammy. The second came last year on Duke's Guitar Groove-a-Rama featuring Al's tune "This Dream (Still Coming True)" was nominated for Best Traditional Blues Album of 2006.
Al began his own solo recording career in 1998 with the well received
Down On Providence Plantation and followed that up with 2001's Shaking
the Soul Tree. Both discs were roots projects produced by Robillard and
with him and his band backing Basile up on his own blues and soul based
roots songs, the second emphasizing Memphis soul grooves and adding
former Susan Tedeschi keyboardist Tom West to a horn section
with Doug James and Sax Gordon Beadle alongside Al's cornet.
2003's Red Breath was Basile's first jazz CD, though he had fronted jazz
combos for twenty-five years and had been featured as a swing-based
cornetist on Duke's jazz projects such as After Hours Swing
Session.
Several underknown songs by Rodgers and Hart and Vernon Duke were
unearthed and given perhaps their first jazz treatment, and Al showed
the influences of Armstrong, Sinatra, and Strayhorn in his playing,
singing, and writing styles. 2005's solo effort Blue Ink was a
collection of Al's blues songs with Duke and his band again backing him
up and featuring Jerry Portnoy on harp, fresh from recording Me and
Mr.Johnson with Eric Clapton.
This was a dream backup band for this material, which covered a range
of blues styles from fifties Muddy Waters to Freddy
King to swamp/funk blues to New Orleans/Longhair type blues. Duke
produced and played guitars throughout. Blue Ink reached #18 on the
Living Blues radio chart.
2006's Groovin' in the Mood Room stripped the rhythm section down to
feature Duke's guitar solos. and emphasized strong grooves to complement
Al's trademark lyrics and soulful snging, and again enjoyed lots of
airplay both nnationally and internationally, reaching #14 on the Living
Blues chart.
Great songwriting, singing, and playing -The Tinge puts it all
together, as Al adds generous helpings of his cornet playing to a batch
of songs which span Kansas City swing to soul-jazz to the classic blues
material he first did with Roomful of Blues.
With Roomful's Rich Lataille in the horn section along with Doug James
and Duke, half of the original Roomful lineup is at work here, and Al
has written blues songs like "Not the Wrong Woman" and "Too Slow" which
celebrate their shared past (the latter is sung and played in the manner
of Eddie Cleanhead Vinson, with whom Roomful first played in
1973).
Bruce Katz is brilliant on piano, organ, and Wurlitzer, and along with
mainstays Marty Ballou on bass and Mark Teixeira on drums, the rhythm
section nails every stylistic challenge thrown at them, from older style
jazz like "While We're Dancing" and "Give Me the Rainbow" to brooding
plunger muted blues to bubbly workouts reminiscent of sixties
soul.
With the addition of his rich open tone and relaxed, lyrical solo work
to his highly crafted songs, unique storytelling, and strong, personal
vocals, The Tinge is Al Basile's statement record. The books and
literary magazines which publish his poetry identify him as a poet, but
that's only half the story. His recordings prove that he's a bard of the
blues.
Al guested as a featured cornet player on Dave Gross' Take the Gamble
in 2006, and he continues to work with Duke on his own projects - he
played on Blue Mood, Duke's T-Bone Walker tribute record nominated for a
Blues Music Award in 2004, A Specal Evening with Duke Robillard and
Friends DVD released in 2005, played on and wrote for Guitar
Groove-a-Rama, and co-wrote the title tune on Duke's 2007 release World
Full of Blues.
NEW!
1998-Down On Providence Plantation @FLAC+
2008-The Tinge @FLAC+
2009-Soul Blue 7 @FLAC+
2010-The Goods @FLAC+
2015-B's Expression @FLAC
2016-Mid-Century Modern @FLAC
2017-Quiet Money @FLAC
2019-B's Hot House @FLAC+
2020-Last Hand @FLAC
2022-Through With Cool (Feat. Kid Andersen) @FLAC
2023-B's Time @FLAC
2025-Blues In Hand @FLAC24-48