Tampa Calling

It was not all that long ago that a self-imposed eight-year hiatus by an R&B singer was tantamount to quitting the game. Labels wouldn’t have it; fans would forget.

Singer Maxwell’s retreat for most of the decade into “pedestrian life” has done nothing to hurt his career. BLACKSummer’snight, his first release since 2001’s Now just entered the Billboard 200 chart at No. 1 with sales of 316,000.

Maxwell’s re-arrival happens at a precipitous time, amid a listless modern soul scene where hardly anyone can resist the Auto-Tune button. We’ll call BLACKSummer’snight a solid return, especially welcome considering contemporary R&B’s current state of affairs.

The 36-year-old Brooklyn-bred artist is a genuine singer in the classic mold of a Marvin Gaye. His stock-in-trade is smoldering restraint, but he can grasp for the rasp and turn up the passion when called for.

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This week, R&B artist Maxwell releases his fourth studio album and first new effort in eight years years, BLACKsummers’night, on Columbia. The release is available as a two-disc CD/DVD deluxe set that includes 5DAYSofBLACK, a film inspired by the making of the album. Maxwell recently released a series of excerpts from the film that take a rather interesting behind-the-scenes peek at the way he put it together. The featured tracks are “Cold,” (which features long-time Maxwell collaborator, producer/songwriter Hod David), “Pretty Wings,” “Stop the World” and “Help Somebody.” Check out all four previews after the jump; Maxwell plays Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater Thursday, July 30. Read the rest of this entry »

Two concert announcements came through while I was on vacation these past few days. The artists are as disparate as you can possibly get without being of entirely different species.

Neo-soul singer Maxwell, the Grammy-nominee with the passionate pipes who produces some pretty seductive, made-for-making-looove R&B serenades, will stop at Ruth Eckerd Hall on Thursday, July 30. The artist tours in support of his fourth studio album and first new effort in eight years years, BLACKsummers’night, out July 7 on Columbia. Tickets go on sale Friday today at noon. Check out the first single from the album, “Pretty Wings,” by clicking here. (I’d post it but the embedding function has been disabled. Obviously.)

The other new show on the Bay area concert calendar is The Airborne Toxic Event (pictured, photo by Kristi Sparrow), a rather new (three-year-old) gothic New Wave-flavored rock band from LA that’s been getting some pretty good press for their 2008 self-titled debut. The band stops at St. Petersburg’s State Theatre on Tuesday, October 6. Tickets are $16 in advance and go on sale Saturday, June 20.