Many Rivers by Lauren Scales, Mike Flanagan, Chris Grasso

For their U.S. tour in winter of 2023, Scales, Flanagan, and Grasso selected music from classic jazz records where a vocalist and instrumentalist paired up for a co-led release. That mix of classic albums from jazz greats included: Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong, Nancy Willson & Cannonball Adderley, Sarah Vaughan & Clifford Brown, Tony Bennett & Bill Evans, Chick Corea and Flora Purim. Due to the band’s love of more contemporary collaborations in the Neo-Soul / R&B realm, they added in D’Angelo & Roy Hargrove (Voodoo album), as well as an original offering from Scales - one of which was a song, “Saving Grace”, which Flanagan fell in love with during their time in grad school together, where Scales penned the piece. Where each member of the trio picked music for the tour, they decided to approach the album the same way. And with each member having their own unique musical path, it felt appropriate to take the title “Many Rivers” from one of the tunes (“Many Rivers to Cross”). Scales, a prolific songwriter raised by two full-time-musician-parents, formally studied jazz vocals through college while singing many other genres. Flanagan focuses on saxophone as his primary performance instrument, but he’s also logged 10,000 hours playing piano on his own original songs and in various live settings, which fall into a R&B/Hip-hop/jazz hybrid category. Grasso, a first-call D.C. pianist, specializes in working with jazz vocalists, where his passion lies. The combination of the three make for an exciting exploration of a range of music.

The Revolution will be heard!

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