Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Musical friends reunite for Mystic Note Café show

By Pegasus News wire

When David Howard takes the stage at Mystic Note Café on November 10, he’ll be joined by several collaborators on his 2007 CD release, Spark. One in particular will be deeply missed, however. Carter Albrecht contributed signature, tone-setting piano tracks to seven songs on the CD last October, and Howard had hoped he might be able to come and play at the Mystic Note show.

In honor of Carter, Howard will be donating 10% of Spark sales during the month of November to the Carter Albrecht Music Foundation. “Carter was a phenomenal force in making the project come alive the way it did,” Howard said. “His genius and easygoing nature ignited – if you’ll forgive an intentional play on words – a ‘spark’ in the studio that can’t be manufactured or explained. It was like two days of magical telepathy between all of the players, and I can’t imagine being so happy and proud of the record without him. I’m so honored I got to meet Carter and work with him, and I’ll always treasure his contribution to this project.”

Some might find Carter’s tracks on a New Thought minister’s CD an unexpected place for his some of his last studio work to show up, but, as one friend noted in the videos shown at his memorial service, Carter was naturally cool and inclusive. “I think one of the most inspiring things about Carter is that he was so passionately devoted to discovering where his music could take him next,” said Howard. “His approach to living his dreams remains a gift to all of us.”

Like Carter, early Deep Ellum scenester Sara Hickman also performed on Spark, contributing vocals and guitar to a cover of her own “Comfort’s Sigh” (from 2006’s Motherlode) and Howard’s “Cicadas” (released, as it happens, just as a once-every-17-years emergence of cicadas was swarming across much of the Midwest this year.)

Hickman and the International African Refugee Choir of Dallas, under the direction of Lucy Mashua of Kenya, will be joining Howard for a performance of “Comfort’s Sigh” at Mystic Note. Other Spark collaborators will also be part of the evening: co-producer J Kendel Johnson on piano and vocals, studio engineer Steve Browne on guitar, and Michael Gott on vocals.

This story was submitted by a member of the Pegasus News community.

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