Jazz goes Hollywood!

Greetings from the desk of your old buddy Cameron!

Well this time Smooth Jazz TV goes Hollywood… well kinda… as Kyle Eastwood (you may have heard of his father Clint Eastwood) has released my new favorite CD titled “Paris Blue”…it’s a new project on Rendezvous which is Dave Koz’s label. Now we all know Clint Eastwood is a cinema superstar but he’s also a ferocious fan of Jazz and it’s rubbed off on his son Kyle who is emerging as a bonafide rising star as an acoustic and electric bass player, songwriter, producer and composer.

I checked out Kyle Eastwood a few weeks back at the Viper Room in LA with Dave Koz as my chaperone and was blown away by the performance, so was Dave, it was his first time seeing the band live too.

The sextet is full of young cats who look like rock movie stars (imagine that) including the bands brilliant Michael Stevens who produced the CD. It’s edgy and very fresh and yes, Kyle Eastwood is the spitting image of his dad!

Well I was back in LA last week and headed to the set of Steven Spielberg’s new epic film “Flags of our Fathers” which is being directed by…you guessed it - Clint Eastwood. I was invited to see Clint Eastwood in action along with 900 actors and extras on the Universal film lot which in itself was amazing. But to have Clint Eastwood take some time out to visit with me on the set and vibe on his great love for jazz was totally cool…there was actually a jazz band on set as part of the film that was laying down great classic grooves in between takes, they were taking requests from Mr. Eastwood himself...only in Hollywood!

Clint is so cool and laid-back that you would never know he was a huge star, but unless you've been living under a rock somewhere you can’t help but know. His command and presence is undeniable and yet he was gentle and soft spoken to everyone…with a cast of at least a thousand on the set hanging on every word.

I even spent some time at Clint’s Bel Air mansion after the set visit complete with a driveway full of cars from his latest films that included the Boston Police car from Mystic River and Morgan Freeman’s characters’ car from Million Dollar Baby. I guess Clint just likes to have ordinary cars around from extraordinary Oscar winning movies. Now that’s deep.

Kyle Eastwood has made a conscious decision to go it on his own without his famous dad by living and recording in Paris where the paparazzi are virtually non existent. It’s allowing him a somewhat normal life which is a rare gift for someone with his Hollywood pedigree. He wants to be sure that it’s about his music and not his celebrity, after all that’s what jazz is all about isn’t it?

As the old saying goes “like father like son” so it’s only a matter of time before Kyle Eastwood becomes a contemporary jazz super star here in the U.S. (Paris Blue is currently #1 on the Paris Jazz charts).

With a name like Eastwood emerging stardom can include the good, the bad and sometimes the ugly.

In the case of Kyle Eastwood’s approach to life, music and his new release…it’s all good.

His dad does make an appearance on the project but you have to get the new CD to be in on the secret!

Next week we’re headed to New York to shoot Chris Botti then to Detroit for a date with Take 6…

I LOVE THIS JOB!

Stay safe, we’ll talk next week!

Stay tuned next week for more of Cameron’s Jazz Journals.

Read last week's Jazz Journal