Sting, Carlos Santana, and Jeanie Tracy to appear on livestream event celebrating new Narada Michael Walden album…

On Saturday, September 19 at 7PM PT/10PM ET, three generations of legendary artists will unite to celebrate the release of Narada Michael Walden’s 18th solo album, ‘Immortality’ on Quarto Valley Records (QVR). Presented by Laudable Productions, the livestream event features a lineup of conversations with Sting, Carlos Santana, Cindy Blackman Santana, Jeanie Tracy, Billy Amendola, Larry Batiste, and others who reflect on their long-standing relationships with Narada.

Narada Michael Walden has produced music royalty like Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Aretha Franklin, Patti, Labelle, Diana Ross, Gladys Knight and Barbra Streisand, and worked with world-class musicians like Sting, Carlos Santana, Herbie Hancock and Lenny Kravitz.

Producing hits for artists as diverse as Aretha Franklin (including the platinum ‘Freeway of Love’), Ray Charles, Whitney Houston, George Michael, Mariah Carey, Barbra Streisand, Patti Austin, Lionel Ritchie, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock, Gladys Knight, George Benson, Angela Bofill, Al Jarreau, Nathalie Cole, Regina Belle, Stacy Lattisaw, Steve Winwood, Wynonna Judd, Tom Jones, Clarence Clemons, Kenny G., Pointer Sisters, Sister Sledge and The Temptations, the Emmy and multi-Grammy winner (Producer, Album and Song of The Year) has been at the helm of hit music that spans decades. His music flows freely from soul, pop, and rock, to the rarified realms of jazz, fusion and world music. Walden was an integral part of introducing Whitney Houston (producing six of her seven #1 hits to break Michael Jackson’s record) and mega-star Mariah Carey to millions of fans worldwide, producing and writing the breakthrough hits that first brought these divas to the spotlight. Billboard Magazine honored him as one of the Top Ten Producers of all time.

Before he became a mega-successful producer with hits constantly dominating the R&B and pop charts, Walden burst on the music scene as a virtuoso drummer with the groundbreaking jazz-rock fusion band Mahavishnu Orchestra. Soon after, his impeccable rhythmic chops and inveterate creativity made him a first-call drummer and collaborator for other instrumental heavyweights such as Jeff Beck, Tommy Bolin, Joe Zawinul, and Weather Report.

On August 7, 2020, the multiple award winner released his dynamic new solo album, ‘Immortality’, via Quarto Valley Records. The album represents a change of direction for Narada, one that brings him back to his roots in Dance and Club Music, Funk and Soul. The superb musicianship and masterful production of ‘Immortality’ are fueled at every beat by Narada’s abundance of amazing energy. He is a true artist, in a class by himself

“‘Immortality’ is an album for that part of my fan base”, Walden explains. “I love pop music, but I come from a world in which we mix it all up together – jazz, rock, pop, funk, soul and R&B. That’s what fusion is all about. A lot of my early fans still want to hear me stretch out and fly, so this record is me drumming and singing and putting my heart out to them. People can hear the love that’s inside of me when they listen to this record”.

Walden, who plays both drums and keyboards on ‘Immortality’, produced and recorded the album at his own Tarpan Studios in San Rafael, California, with his longtime engineer, Jim Reitzel, and his astonishingly gifted band Thunder (keyboardist Frank Martin, bassist Angeline Saris and guitarist Matthew Charles Heulitt).

‘Immortality’ makes good on Walden’s goal of making ‘a killer jazz-fusion/progressive-rock record’, but it’s also an album that was made to be performed live.

I was always thinking, ‘We’re going to take this music out to the people. I’m looking forward to playing with the band in the spring. It’s going to be a love fest. My thing has always been to shake, rattle and roll with good spirits and electricity. I can’t wait to get out there, play my drums and bring good times to all of my fans.

Narada Michael Walden

“This is one of the best bands I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing with”, Walden says. “The joy they bring to music is remarkable, and there’s literally nothing they can’t play”. Guesting on the record is guitarist Jackson Allen, whom Walden calls “a sensation. He played on a session with me, and I really enjoyed the sounds he got. Bringing him in on the album felt natural to me”.

Unfortunately due to the Corona virus it is not possible to celebrate the launch of the album as Walden is used to, with family, friends, and everyone who has worked on the album. Then you have to come up with something else to celebrate the launch….

Artists set to take part in a virtual event this Saturday, September 19, celebrating the recent release of ‘Immortality’. The livestream gathering, which will be viewable on YouTube and Facebook starting at 10 p.m. ET, will feature conversations with Sting, Carlos Santana, Carlos’ wife Cindy Blackman Santana, good friend and singer Jeanie Tracy, and a number of other musicians chatting about their relationship with Narada.

The virtual retrospective will give viewers a behind the scenes look at his expansive career as a drummer and producer. The livestreaming event also incorporates the premiere of a new music video ‘We Can Live Forever’, the lead-off track from ‘Immortality’, and a screening of the recent video for new COVID-themed tune ‘The Quarantine Blues’ that Narada recorded remotely with Carlos and Cindy Santana and jazz-fusion legend John McLaughlin.

‘The Quarantine Blues’ was written by John McLaughlin with Cindy Santana Blackman and Narada Michael Walden. The song was socially distance recorded and filmed in Monaco, Hawaii, Detroit and San Rafael in a collaboration to raise money for Musicares Coronavirus Relief Fund to help struggling musicians who have been hit hard by the shutdown of all live music. ‘The Quarantine Blues’ features John McLaughlin, Cindy Blackman Santana, Carlos Santana, Narada Michael Walden and Ralphe Armstrong and Narada’s dancing kids, Kelly, Kayla and Michael with mom Katie.

Narada, who plays drums and keyboards on Immortality, notes that the album is geared more toward jazz fusion and progressive rock than pop music.

I love pop music, but I come from a world in which we mix it all up together – jazz, rock, pop, funk, soul and R&B. That’s what fusion is all about. A lot of my early fans still want to hear me stretch out and fly, so this record is me drumming and singing and putting my heart out to them.

Narada Michael Walden

As previously reported, Walden also recently produced several tracks for Cindy Blackman Santana’s upcoming solo album, ‘Give the Drummer Some’, which will be released this Friday, September 18. Among the songs is the cover of John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’, on which Cindy collaborated with Carlos.

Come into the beautiful world of Narada Michael Walden.

Divas Week: Celebrating The Birth of Diana Ross, Chaka Khan, Aretha Franklin & Mariah Carey

America loves it’s holidays. There is literally something to celebrate every single day of the year. From National Pancake Day to National Punctuation Day, we do it all here in the US of A. This week, March 23 -30, we are in the trenches of the holiest time of the year (sorry Jesus), for Divas Week! Somehow, Chaka Khan (23rd), Aretha Franklin (25th), Diana Ross (26th), and Mariah Carey (27th) were all born within these five days!

To honor this week properly, let’s get into the best and deepest cuts of our divas’ catalogue.

Chaka Khan

Before making it on her own, Chaka Khan was the lead vocalist of one of the hardest bands of the 70s, Rufus. Decades later, there are few people that can stand next to Chaka.

Aretha Franklin

Live at the Fillmore has to be one of the best live albums of all time. If we’re being honest, Aretha Franklin taught the world what real singing sounds like. She offered up those receipts by dropping an album of covers that make you never want to listen to the originals ever again. Sorry Adele!

Picture: Aretha Franklin performing at McGlohon Theater in Charlotte, NC on February 13, 2012. Franklin performed a tribute to her goddaughter, Whitney Houston, who had passed away two days before. Photo by Daniel Coston

Diana Ross

Diana is the boss! What else needs to be said?

 

Mariah Carey

Her… She is Mariah. The elusive chanteuse and next star of a sure to be sold-out Vegas run.

Elizabeth Arden

Florence Nightingale Graham (December 31, 1878 – October 18, 1966), who went by the business name Elizabeth Arden was born in 1878 in Woodbridge, Ontario, Canada. Her parents had emigrated to Canada from Cornwall, United Kingdom, in the 1870s. Her father, William Graham, was Scottish and her mother, Susan, was Cornish and had arranged for a wealthy aunt in Cornwall to pay for her children’s education. Arden dropped out of nursing school in Toronto.

She then joined her elder brother in Manhattan, New York, working briefly as a  bookkeeper for the E.R. Squibb Pharmaceuticals Company. She then worked, again briefly, for Eleanor Adair, an early beauty culturist, as a ‘treatment girl’. While there, Arden spent hours in their lab, learning about skincare.

Florence Nightingale Graham, who went by the business name Elizabeth Arden, was became a businesswoman who founded what is now Elizabeth Arden, Inc., and built a cosmetics empire in the United States. At the peak of her career, she was one of the wealthiest and well know women in the world!

Elizabeth Arden: “every woman has the right to be beautiful.” With that philosophy, she launched advertising campaigns to help normalize the use of makeup across the country.

In 1909 Arden formed a partnership with Elizabeth Hubbard, another culturist. When the partnership dissolved, she coined the business name ‘Elizabeth Arden’ from her former partner and from ‘Tenneyson’s poem ‘Enoch Arden’. With a $6,000 loan from her brother, she then used the shop space to open her first salon on 5th Avenue.

In 1912 Arden traveled to France to learn beauty and facial massage techniques used in the Paris beauty salons.She returned with a collection of rouges (blushers) and tinted powders she had created. Arden was, in 1914, the first to introduce modern eye makeup to North America after her formal training in Paris.

In 1915 Elizabeth Arden married Thomas j. Lewis, an American Banker. By this marriage, she was automatically a naturalized American citizen. In the same year started to operate and Arden international she opened salons around the world, all with a red door, her trademark. Arden collaborated with A. Fabian Swanson, a chemist, to create a ‘fluffy’ face cream. The success of the cream, Venetian Cream Amoretta, and corresponding lotion, Arden Skin Tonic, led to a long-lasting business relationship. This revolutionized cosmetics, bringing a scientific approach to formulations.

Elizabeth Arden’s most famous, ’till today: Eight Hour cream. Here in a new re-edition .

And by the 1930s, yes, in the middle of the Great Depression, her company was bringing in roughly $4 million a year! In 1934, she opened the Maine Chance residential spa in Rome, Maine, the first destination beauty spa in the United States.It operated until 1970. Ardens passion in her work led in 1934 to a divorce. A second marriage to a Russian Prince lasted only thirteen months.

Elizabeth Arden, 1930’s. By the end of the 1930s it was said; ‘There are only three American names that are known in every corner of the globe: Singer sewing machines, Coca Cola, and Elizabeth Arden’.

1935 saw the launch of Blue Grass fragrance. It quickly became one of the most successful Elizabeth Arden scents.

Elizabeth Arden Blue Grass

Around 1940 Arden launged ‘White Orchid’ perfume. Other makeup innovations included creating foundations that matched a person’s skin tone; creating the idea of the “Total Look” in which lip, cheek, and fingernail colors matched or coordinated; and the first to make a cosmetics commercial shown in movie houses. During the second World War, Elizabeth Arden saw that market changed.  She saw the changing needs of the American woman entering the work force. She showed women how to apply makeup and dress appropriately for careers outside the home. She developed and brought a lipstick on the market in the ‘Montezuma Red’ color, a color that is applied at the red in the uniforms of the female soldiers.

Elizabeth Arden Pink Violet, 1950’s (Click photo to enlarge).

Marilyn Monroe on the way to shopping at Elizabeth Arden Salon (Click photo to enlarge).

In the years Elizabeth Arden has many famous clients like Marilyn Monroe, the Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan III, Nina Dyer Aga Khan and Martine Carole. Elizabeth Arden wasn’t only famous for her salons and Spa’s. She offerd a lot more! For (vèry) special clients, she offered treatments at home. She also sended ‘her’ hairdressers when they where needed….

HH Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan, signed for Roger Flor 1er Coiffeur Elizabeth Arden, 1959 (photo signed by Sam Levine)(Privat Collection) (Click photo to enlarge).

Nina Sheila Dyer Aga Khan signed for Roger Flor 1er Coiffeur Elizabeth Arden (photo signed by Tony Armstrong John, Pimlico Road studio )(Privat Collection) (Click photo to enlarge).

Elizabeth Arden, circa 1960 (Click photo to enlarge).

In recognition of her contribution to the cosmetics industry, she was awarded the ‘Lègion d’Honneur by the French government in 1962. Later in her life, Arden was one of the first women to appear on the cover of Time magazine, and one of her horses won the Kentucky Derby (can you imagine the parties she must have thrown?!), but it’s undeniable that the greatest accomplishment of her lifetime was her legacy of breaking barriers and making the world a more awesome place.

Arden died at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan in 1966; she was interred in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York, under the name Elizabeth N. Graham. Her company was at that time worth between $35 and $45 million, and they possessed more than a hundred beauty salons all over the world.

Elizabeth Arden is now still a reputable name, but had some different owners. Acquired by Eli Lilly & Co in 1971; bought by Faberge in 1987, merged into Unilever in 1989. Later the Company split into two smaller companies: Elizabeth Arden and Parfums International. The Elizabeth Arden side, looked after all of the Arden cosmetics and fragrances, while Parfums International created fragrances for Nino Cerruti, Valentino, Karl Lagerfeld and Chloe.

Elizabeth Arden’s bestseller and Holy Grail: Ceramide Capsules. It moists and restores. Perfect to take with you on holydays! Unisex and easy to use: One capsule for the whole face, neck, and whats left… for the back of your hands! (Click photo to enlarge).

On 31st October 2000, Unilever sold it’s Arden business, to US company, FFI Fragrances for $225 million, as part of Unilever’s program to shed operations that ‘don’t meet the company’s strategic needs’.

FFI is based in Miami Lakes, produce fragrances by Bogart and Halston. On completion of sale, FFI decided to trade under the Arden name., included in the sale was the Elizabeth Taylor brands of Passion and White Diamonds. Unilever kept control of the Parfums International brands (Cerruti, Valentino, Lagerfeld and Chloe). The current company name is still Elizabeth Arden.

In 2002, Catherine Zeta-Jones became Elizabeth Arden’s ‘face’ and corporate spokesperson. Catherine said; “I have read masses about Elizabeth Arden. She was a visionary, and I am proud to be a part of the company she created,” and; “As Miss Arden said, ‘to be beautiful and natural is the birthright of every woman,’ and I wholeheartedly agree with her philosophy, and dare I say, conviction to her dream.”

In 2003, Elizabeth Arden acquired the license for Gant USA fragrances from Romella.

In 2003, Elizabeth Arden Graham was posthumously inducted into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame.

After Ardens death the company founded itself partly, next to their skincare and makeup, on the development of perfumes. With classics like ‘White Orchid’, ‘On Dit’ and ‘Blue Grass’, a new Elizabeth Arden perfume was marketed under the name ‘Red Door’, named after her famous trademark (all her salons were equipped with a red front door). Furthermore, the company brought perfumes out for celebrities as Elizabeth Yaylor, Hilary Duff, Britney Spears and Mariah Carey.

Elizabeth Arden actif on African market (Click photo to enlarge).

Elizabeth Arden Flawless Future Ceramid Moisture Cream Complex, Serum and Eye Gel (Click photo to enlarge).

Today, the company she founded brings in over a billion in sales and gives generously to causes including New York City’s public schools, Save the Children, and the Look Good…Feel Better campaign, which helps boost the morale of cancer patients.

by Jean Amr

Mariah Carey Dreams

This year, Mariah Carey launches a new perfume for women, Dreams – a fragrance to awake even the most daring feelings. It is a sensual, feminine, flowery perfume that will draw any wearer into a world of seduction with its captivating notes. Mariah Carey Dreams promises to be fresh, pure yet sophisticated and elegant.

Mariah Carey Dreams opens with strong delicious aromas of salty caramelized apple and star mixed with bergamot and roasted almond scent, while the honeysuckle is mixed with delicate freesia and lily of the valley embodying a radiant, bright, and youthful impression. The base is made of musk, patchouli, tonka bean and vanilla from Madagascar – a perfect combination of the final notes to evoke the impression of warm skin.

Mariah Carey Dreams will be available as 50 and 100ml Eau de Parfum.