Lucinda Lane 
The wait is over. Summer is Over is out and about.
Lucinda Lane, Santa Barbara’s premiere self-described “IndieBossaJazzTwang” band, has been whittling away on its debut album for the past year and a half, in various Santa Barbara studios and with a friendly posse of musical guests and friends. The finished 11-track product is the fruition of a story going back a dozen years, when singer Nicole Lvoff and guitarist/songwriter Joe Woodard knocked heads and formed a new kind of hybrid style project.
Putting that style council down into album form was always part of the agenda, but interruptions–including the COVID-ized black hole–got in the way. Once in motion, a kind congregation of helpful friends in the GoFundMe club helped make things a reality. Fast forward to now and Summer is Over, on Household Ink Records, is public item number one in the Lucinda Lane discography.
See Santa Barbara Independent story here.
(Fetch sounds here):
Lvoff’s clear and warm voice is a staple in the Santa Barbara jazz community. She released her debut album, Here’s That Rainy Day, in 2010, and will soon release her long-awaited follow-up album. Guitarist/songwriter/situationist Joe Woodard’s musical projects have included the “hopelessly eclectic” Headless Household, the “rock ‘n’ droll” band flapping, Flapping and assorted solo wranglings. Together, the Lucinda Lane pair enjoy an empathetic connection and a mission, still unfolding.
In the album’s gently mixed-up mix, the twang song contingent—the title track, “I Can’t Fall” and “Pure Fun–” got sonic love from the likes of Zach Gill (Jack Johnson, ALO) on spinet piano and squeezebox, recorded in his funka-delicious Goletan studio, the Creativity Lounge. Pedal steel guitarist-to-the-stars Bill Flores and ace blues harp king Tom Ball also helped twang up the tracks.
In jazz news, ever-tasteful tenor saxist Tom Buckner lent his solo voice to “Make Believe” and the sly bossa “Mr. Saturday Night,” while fiery, hip and eminent alto saxist David Benny heated up the place on the quasi-Calypso “Bedeviled” and NYC-based trumpeter Nate Birkey glowed warmly on “soft as an Easy Chair (for KC).” Full circle trivia note: Birkey performed that song, a sincere tribute to the late great Karen Carpenter, on his own 1998 debut album Indelibly You, also on the Household Ink label.
Sublime Berlin-based pianist who shall be named Sebastian Morgenroth also supplied supple, slow-breathing piano parts on a few tunes, and got psychedelic-Wurlitzer-ed for the rangy “Bedeviled.” Accordionist extraordinaire Brian Mann contributes his taste treaties on “Mon Ami” and “Mr. Saturday Night.”
Holding down the rhythm section fort is the suitably versatile drummer Austin Beede, in cahoots with bassists Randy Tico and Jim Connolly, with a cameo by percussionist Lorenzo Martinez. In addition to Lvoff’s sensitive vocal treatments—suiting the genres at hand and glowing on the atmospheric, questioning moods of “Are You Back from Where you Were?” and the shoe-gaze-ish closer, “Where’s the Harm?”—singer Liz Barnitz flies in with warm harmonizing tones on “Pure Fun.”
The project was recorded in Santa Barbara’s Would-Be Studio, Spiral Studio, Connolly’s famed Piano Kitchen, and Carpinteria’s Beagle Studio, with valued guidance from engineers Jesse Rhodes, Jim Connolly and Emmet Sargeant.
Summer is Over is out there: The Lucinda Lane story begins, album-wise, and continues.
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(photos: Dana Welch)
Blast from the past: story from the Santa Barbara Independent, May of 2015, by Richie DeMaria link.
Summer is Over song list:
- I Can’t Fall
- Saturday Night
- Summer is Over
- Blame
- Soft as an Easy Chair
- Mon Ami
- Make Believe
- Bedeviled
- Are You Back from Where You Were?
- Pure Fun
- Where’s the Harm?
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To see lyrics, go to:
www.householdink.com/Lucinda_Lane_words
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contact: lucindalane@householdink.com
last updated: 12-7-24