This Penn Alum Singer-Songwriter Has Some "Best-in-the-Business Musicians" Backing Him Up

This Penn Alum Singer-Songwriter Has Some “Best-in-the-Business Musicians” Backing Him Up

Singer-songwriter Jay Matsueda (W’95, Good Cop Bad Cop Acoustic Music Group) has gone from eating his sad to releasing his second CD “Treat Love Kind” (For you Los Angelinos, Jay’s CD Release party is this Wednesday, 5/26 at The Mint, 8-10 pm).

And Jay has a whole bunch of “best in the business” musicians backing him!

Find out more after the jump!

Jay tells me that the debut “Eat Your Sad” album (2009) and this “Treat Love Kind” collection are complementary recordings:

“As a new solo artist, I couldn’t expect to debut with a double album out of the gate, so I put out the EAT YOUR SAD melancholy and sweet ones first, and this second set of more upbeat and faster tunes (the yang to EAT YOUR SAD’s yin, if you will) onto this new collection. TREAT LOVE KIND is overall a more rock-oriented CD, but it certainly has lots of eclectic variations and thick orchestrations that include jazz, folk and world music, just as did EAT YOUR SAD.

The opening track, “A Hope So Cruel,” is a somewhat tongue in cheek tune with lyrics intended as clever, e.g. “I can tell by the way you ignore me, you must adore me… a hope so cruel.” The song “Poison” is my attempt at creating a very Smiths-esque and danceable tune. Something like “Silence I Despise” is pure rock and features Matt Johnson (Jeff Buckley’s drummer on album Grace), Australian virtuoso guitarist Brett Garsed on lead guitar, and Devin Bronson, guitarist for Avril Lavigne and Pink. There are also two jazzy instrumentals; the title track with Brazilian guitarist Sandro Albert on lead guitar, and a song called “All My Mad Love” featuring John Tegmeyer on clarinet. Near the end of the CD is a sublime duet that features singer Judith Hill who had been rehearsing with Michael Jackson for the THIS IS IT tour and appears frequently in the movie of the same name.”

The band Jay assembled is made up of players who are the best in the music business who have been hired to be in the backing bands and recordings bands for Sting, Prince, Chick Corea, Dr. Dre, Rod Stewart, Diana Ross, John Densmore (The Doors), Andy Summers (The Police), Sheila E., The Yellowjackets, Michael Jackson and many, many more.