David Crosby on the Jazz Influence on His New Solo Album
Out today (September 29) is Sky Trails, the sixth solo album by David Crosby and his third in four years.
This set has a slightly jazzier flavor than last year’s Lighthouse and 2014’s Croz, which Crosby tells us is as much a part of his makeup as other styles of music:
“It’s sort of a built-in thing with me. I’ve listened to too much Steely Dan, I think, is part of the problem. I listen to a lot of jazz. I listen to a lot of Steely Dan, so I’m tilted in that direction, anyway. One of the reasons I started writing in tunings so much is that let’s me do musically stranger stuff…Jazz music is really different. It’s more sophisticated, but if you let that tilt your singer-songwriter music it just makes it more interesting to me.”
Crosby wrote with several collaborators on Sky Trails, including his son James Raymond, Michael McDonald, Becca Stevens and Mai Egan. He also covers longtime pal Joni Mitchell‘s “Amelia” on the set.
Crosby returns to the road to promote Sky Trails on Oct. 30-31 at the City Winery in Chicago. He has no plans to return to CSN(&Y) in the near future, however, telling us that,
“Yeah. I quit…Same thing that happens with groups, all groups over the years. You start out being very much in love with each other and you love each other’s music, and you’re having a blast and you wind up 40 years later not liking each other and it’s down to just turn on the smoke machine and play your hits. And it’s no fun. It was stifling music for me. It was making music be no fun.”
Gary Graff is an award-winning music journalist who not only covers music but has written books on Bob Seger, Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen.
