Jazz News: More mountain studios for sale, Deborah Liles coaching youth, Shemekia Copeland release

This is Jazz News, a look at what’s news in jazz, music, and the arts.

We told you a couple of weeks ago that the once-famous recording studio property Caribou Ranch was for sale. Now we’ve learned that Mountain Star Studio at Moosetique Ranch in Black Hawk is on the market. A few of the artists to record there: Ian Neville, Nahko & Medicine for the People, and Natalie Cressman.

$5.9 million will get you the three-bedroom, four-bath 4,400 square-foot house with passive solar and off-grid capability, a 4,000-square-foot barn, and 120 water-fed acres between the Continental Divide and Golden Gate Canyon State Park. Sorry, the recording equipment is gone. (SOURCE: Sothebys Realty/Sales)

John Denver’s studio and guest house that inspired his hit “Starwood in Aspen” is for sale too. The five-bedroom, five-bath music studio and guest house is asking $8.5 million dollars.

(SOURCE: Christie Real Estate/sales)

Congrats to jazz singer Deborah Liles, the incoming executive director of the Colorado Springs Youth Symphony Association. She’s been on the big stage herself – Jazz at Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center. But more recently she’s been coaching and training young singers, and some of her students have become finalists on the big TV talent shows.

She’s got her work cut out for her. The Springs Youth Orchestra has nine performing ensembles playing classical and jazz, with hundreds of junior high school students in the Pikes Peak region auditioning every year.

Liles told the Colorado Springs Gazette she discovered singing as a child when she snuck out into her parents’ car to listen to a Janis Joplin 8-track tape.

“My parents were so mad I started the car, but they introduced me to Ella Fitzgerald and Manhattan Transfer. It was over, I knew what I wanted to do.”

(SOURCE: Gazette.com/Arts Entertainment/Colorado Springs)

Scheduled for release this Friday, August 30, Shemekia Copeland’s “Blame It On Eve,” on Alligator Records. She’s called in a few friends to help with the 12 tracks, including Luther Dickinson, Jerry Douglas on dobro, sacred steel player DaShawn Hickman, and roots-rocker Alejandro Escovedo. She sings a French ballad, she covers a Stevie Wonder track and one of her father’s compositions.

Never shy about commenting on hot topics, Copeland says, “Issues are always important, but so is rocking, dancing and just having fun. And that’s something we all can agree on.”

“Blame It On Eve” will be available Friday on CD, gold vinyl LP, and at all digital services. (SOURCE: Alligator.com/Blame It On Eve)

Stay connected to KUVO’s programs and our community! Sign up for the Oasis E-News today!