Try This!

You’re about to listen to one of the best-kept secrets of jazz: Try This, Marty’s first album in the digital age, features his music, his way. He wrote and composed every song. The Napoleon family scoured through a trove of original recordings to find the perfect songs to represent this album, with Marty’s blessing of course. In this album, you’ll hear a combination of two recordings. Tracks 1 and 12, The Preamble and Sign Off, are songs Marty wrote as an intro and outro for his live gigs. Songs 2–11 are from a demo Marty recorded at Gary Chester’s Edison Recording Studio with musicians Ron Odrich on clarinet, Joe Cocuso on drums, Gary Mazzaropi on bass and Marty Napoleon on piano. We believe this is a great introduction to Marty’s original music and the first of its kind, so listen carefully. If you’d like to learn more about Marty’s life on the road, keep your ears to the pavement—Marty’s first book, The Jazz Napoleons, is in the process of being published. The book is a first-hand story of Marty Napoleon’s musical lineage and his personal experiences while traveling with music legends ranging from Chico Marx and The Marx Brothers to Billie Holiday, Les Paul, Buddy Rich, Lionel Hampton, Henry “Red” Allen, Coleman Hawkins, Chubby Jackson, Charlie Ventura, Cozy Cole, Mickey Sheen, Charlie Shavers, Ray Mosca, Bill Crow, Georgie Auld, James Stewart, Arvell Shaw, Gene Krupa, Trummy Young, Babe Russin, Benny Goodman, Nat Cole, Louis Armstrong, Velma Middleton, B.B King, Ella Fitzgerald, Fran Warren, Count Basie, Phil Napoleon, Teddy Napoleon and… the list goes on. The first volume is due at the end of 2014 and more volumes are on the way. The series will take the reader from 1888 (when the first Napoleon arrived in the U.S. from to from Italy) to the present; a brief history of the Napoleons of jazz. We’d like to extend our appreciation of your support and, as Marty would say, “Straight Ahead!”