In its first week of release, the new Monkey House album Remember the Audio has gone to #1 on the iTunes jazz chart in both the U.S. and Canada. “It’s a real shot in the arm,” says Don Breithaupt. “We had to sit on this music during the pandemic for over a year, and having it received like this makes it all worthwhile. It makes me feel like people were really waiting for it!” The album also went to #5 in Japan.
Monkey House’s Friday has been nominated for Jazz Vocal Album of the Year at the forthcoming Juno Awards. In addition, longtime Monkey House engineer John Bailey has been nominated for Recording Engineer of the Year (his sixth nomination; he won in 2007), partly on the strength of his extraordinary work on Friday, Monkey House drummer Mark Kelso has been nominated for Solo Jazz Album of the Year (his second nomination) for his The Chronicles of Fezziwig, and Marc Jordan, who co-wrote the Monkey House songs “Lebanon” and “Maybe None Of This Would Have Happened,” has been nominated for Adult Contemporary Album of the Year for Both Sides. The 2020 Juno Awards will be presented on March 14th and 15th in Saskatoon.
Don Breithaupt has co-written the new Chicago single, “All Over The World,” with Chicago vocalist Neil Donell. The track is the leadoff release from Chicago’s new Christmas album, and is currently riding high at #6 on the U.S. holiday airplay chart (the album debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Holiday Album Sales chart). “I don’t know what to tell you,” said an ebullient Breithaupt on October 4, 2019, the day the single was released. “I can’t believe it! I’m crossing ‘write a Chicago single’ off my bucket list. The most incredible part is that [hall-of-famer] James Pankow did the horn arrangement!” Breithaupt also co-wrote Marc Jordan’s new holiday single, “Every Time It Snows,” which features Randy Brecker.
Listen here:
“All Over The World”
“Every Time It Snows”
The highly anticipated video for Monkey House’s “Shotgun” single is directed by the Academy Award-winning producer of The Shape of Water, J. Miles Dale. Monkey House co-producer and ALMA Records chief Peter Cardinali goes way back with Dale, and, knowing he was a fan, invited him to Toronto’s Noble Street Studios to watch the band track horns for Friday. Dale hung out for the duration and, when he heard Cardinali express the desire to shoot a video for “Shotgun,” he offered to direct. “Miles directing is one of those wonderful things that just falls into your lap,” says Monkey House frontman Don Breithaupt. “His enthusiasm is genuine. He recently came out to our album release gig, and, before we took the stage, he said to me, ‘If you forget the lyrics, look at me, because I know every word!”
“Our music is carefully produced and engineered, and we record and mix at 192kHz, which is basically
the best possible resolution around right now,” says Monkey House founder/frontman Don Breithaupt.
“Our audience appreciates the finer points of the listening experience. It’s the same crowd that digs
Steely Dan, Pat Metheny, James Taylor and their ilk.” Accordingly, Alma Records has announced plans to
release Friday on vinyl. And not run-of-the-mill vinyl: the album will be a double 45-RPM 12-inch edition
on 180-gram virgin vinyl, direct metal mastered at half speed. “Our plan is for it to be the best sounding
record in your collection,” says Breithaupt. Buy direct from Alma here ($1 CAD = 74¢ USD):
