The release of my 11th album, Friends, Old & New, in late 2022 broke a more than 8-year recording hiatus for me while simultaneously jump-starting a flurry of new releases and recording in the following year: a re-release of Paint a Picture, Tell a Story w/Delfeayo Marsalis and Don Byron (a studio date from 2007); Tokyo Live! & Yokohama Live! w/Gene Jackson & Hiroshi Tanaka (live dates from Japan never released before); A Place for Bass - Chamber Jazz Duets (a unique studio duo date of all-originals); and Christmas Time - Live in Izu Nagaoka (a live date from Japan never released before). Friends Old & New contained 10 original compositions of mine and was recorded in a Cincinnati-based studio called Great Wave Recording.
In the summer of 2023, my working trio of bassist Mason Daugherty and Michael Meloy began tracking Life After 40, a collection of 10 all-original songs I began writing the year before for some musicians based in Miami, Florida. All the songs have a Latin twinge. There is no 4/4 swing time or blues. It was my initial intention to perform that music with them in Miami, however I got antsy when “The Miami Project” concerts got delayed until Dec. of 2023, and by the time I did get to visit Miami, the music I'd written a year previous was already recorded and ‘in the can’!
Life After 40 is my 3rd all-originals studio recording from Great Wave Recording in Cincinnati, and I'm very proud of the music presented on this album (my 16th). I was overjoyed to be able to enlist the services of former Miles Davis percussionist Steve Thornton, who currently resides in K.L. Malaysia. He and I played and recorded together when I lived in Singapore from 1994 till 2003 (hear us together on my double-album called Integration). He graciously laid down all the percussion tracks after hearing what my trio had already done, and that added the perfect extra element to the trio music presented.
Hear or buy the music here: https://gregchako.bandcamp.com/follow_me
Guitarist Joe Finn and well-known writer Scott Yanow contributed to the following glowing press release:
