Steve Cole - Gratitude

Steve Cole is one of the most popular musicians in contemporary jazz today.

- Keivu Knox

Not only has he carved out a successful solo career with nine albums, but is is a charter member of The Sax Pack, a saxophone super group that has toured all over the world. Steve has released his 9th solo album, entitled “Gratitude” on July 26th, and it cracked the Top 10 on the Billboard charts for Jazz albums and Contemporary Jazz albums. On the heels of this success, Steve talked with us to discuss the album, his career, and more!

SJM: Hello Steve , how are you?Steve: I’m awesome!

SJM: Great! So with the new album being released, give usa little background about it if you don’t mind.

Steve: Well, it started without any idea in mind; it was morelike “hey I get to make another record.” I started writingsome music and putting it together and get inspired, and Isaid “you know what? I like it, but I don’t love it.” At thesame time this is going on, one of my family members gotsick, and I basically had to drop everything, rally around andtake care of them. It was horrible, but curable, and it tookalmost a year to resolve. Throughout that process, you startthinking about a lot of things and come in contact with people…and I found thisentire new outlook on people….who are miraculous and are dedicated with helpingpeople and healing people, and then people coming out of the woodwork askingwhat they can do to help. It was transformative.

All of a sudden, it founds its way into the music I was making. That positivity and gratitude that I had for those people that were helping my family to get better, it gave an amazing energy, it infiltrated the music, and the music began writing itself.