Best known as one of the major contributors to the soundtrack of HBO's SEX AND THE CITY, Boston's FOUR PIECE SUIT has created its own musical universe. The FOUR PIECE SUIT highball is a mix of sea-foam-soaked guitar and squalling tenor sax, shaken--not stirred--with surf tangos, Battista-era mambos, beach blanket boppers, spy music, crime jazz, and movie themes. Romance, humor, and sophistication with a big beat are the watchwords of this mainly instrumental band. In addition to SEX AND THE CITY, the sexy, sophisticated, yet tongue-in-cheek music of FOUR PIECE SUIT is featured on NBC's series, Ed, as well as many reality shows, America's Top Model, Keeping up with the Kardashians, Run's House, and others. The band has also been heard in many independent films, including Sundance Festival Winner Blue Vinyl.
The Four Piece Suit Story
FOUR PIECE SUIT are David Sholl, sax, Milt Reder, guitar, Dean Cassell, bass, Andy Plaisted, drums. The band originally spun off from 90s R&B roots rockers Barrence Whitfield and the Savages, and have gone on to be one of America's most highly respected instrumental bands, best known for their soundtrack work on HBO's Sex and the City. The FOUR PIECE SUIT highball is a mix of sea-foam-soaked guitar and squalling tenor sax, shaken--not stirred--with surf tangos, Battista-era mambos, beach blanket boppers, spy music, crime jazz, and movie themes. Romance, humor, and sophistication with a big beat are the watchwords of this mainly instrumental band.
Truly beyond category, their eclectic instrumental, sometimes jazz, sometimes rock style, brings forth a unique blend of long forgotten musical influences and can range from a film noir feeling to what has been called "Slapstick Jazz".
FOUR PIECE SUIT derives its strength from a number of influences, featuring everything from instrumental artists of the 1950s and 60s (The Shadows, The Ventures, The Champs, Duane Eddy) to classic R&B, to John Lurie, to modern Acid Jazz. It is not unusual to hear adventurous mixtures of Isaac Hayes and Henry Mancini, with dashes of Perez Prado and Xavier Cugat. For new fans with less musical foundation, they would envision the likes of Medeski, Martin, and Wood, collaborating with the Art of Noise to create a soundtrack for a new David Lynch or Tim Burton film.
The sexy, sophisticated, yet tongue-in-cheek music of FOUR PIECE SUIT is frequently featured on the highly acclaimed HBO series Sex and the City, NBC's Ed, Dexter on CBS, and cable shows such as Keeping Up with the Kardashians, America's Top Model, Run's House, and many others. Film work includes Our Lips are Sealed (Olsen Twins), In the Weeds (Molly Ringwald), Stag (HBO films), Psycho Beach Party, Along Came Polly (Jennifer Aniston), and others. The band has also been heard in many independent films, including Sundance Festival Winner Blue Vinyl. They have also done a full score for an HBO claymation film, Real Men Wear Hawaiian Shirts, an award winner at the San Francisco Film Festival.
Four Piece Suit have released three CDs: Ready to Where?, Matinee Idylls, and Spirito, available on itunes and CDbaby.com.
Four Piece Suit new CD out now
For immediate release:
Four Piece Suit (www.fourpiecesuit.com), best known for their extensive work on HBO's Sex and the City, announce the release of their long-awaited third CD, Spirito (Swang Records). Now in their tenth year, this quirky Boston Instrumental combo have created their own musical world, swirling with cinematic echoes of their favorite styles.
Impressions of Spaghetti Western, Bollywood, Cartoon music, and what the band calls "faux latinesque" are all here as only Four Piece Suit can deliver them, but on Spirito the group goes deeper. The snaking grooves and melodies of tracks like Village of the Jammed and Cuyahoga Crawl bring the music into uncharted territory, where David Sholl's sax can tell us something it was not letting on before.
Of note is the new addition of master drummer David Mattacks, whose credits include Fairport Convention, Richard Thompson, XTC, and five CDs with Paul McCartney. The great percussionist Eguie Castrillo (of the Arturo Sandoval band) was originally brought in as a "ringer" on a few of the Latin tracks, but the grooves he created with Mattacks and drummers Davey Roy Kulik, Craig McIntyre, and Lorne Entress were so addictive that Eguie wound up all over the album, and often appears live with the band. With the Motown-steeped foundation of bassist Dean Cassell, the Four Piece Suit rhythm section has never grooved like this.
Like their music for Sex and the City, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, NBC's Ed, Along Came Polly, cult fave Psycho Beach Party, Sundance winner Blue Vinyl, and many other films and television shows, Spirito was recorded at guitarist/producer Milt Reder's Rear Window Recording Service (www.rearwindowstudio.com) by Nate Dube, Sean Carberry, and Ducky Carlisle. Guitar enthusiasts will note that Milt continues to combine mildewed guitars and hazardous amplifiers to create amusing tones, still salty though perhaps less seafoam-soaked than previously.
Contrary to common belief, the name Spirito is not the name of the wonderful horse on the cover, photographed by Wild Bill Melton, but is derived from the album's final track, a cover version of a psychedelic Klezmer number by the mysterious Van Lynn, from a record discovered years ago at a yard sale by Lorne (whom no one has ever seen in the same room as Van Lynn).
Reviews are just starting to come in: Derek Sivers, president of on-line retailer CD Baby (www.cdbaby.com), called it one of the best CDs they have heard. New England radio personality Perry Persoff says "Four Piece Suit does with a warm breeze what Dick Dale did with sea water...Â"
CONTACT: tel. 617-901-2441, fax 617-730-5611
www.fourpiecesuit.com
email: milt4ps@aol.com.