The Gabe Dixon Band

The Gabe Dixon Band's new, self-titled album (Fantasy Records, August 26th) is in fact the group's third release, following the 2002 album On a Rolling Ball and the 2005 EP Live at World Cafe, but there’s good reason the writer/singer/pianist considers it GDB's debut. Formed nine years ago by Dixon—then a classical piano major at the University of Miami—and his two college roommates, bassist Winston Harrison and drummer Jano Rix, they added a sax player and spent several years specializing in jazz-inflected, heavily improvised excursions, showcasing the virtuosity of the players. Dixon’s elevated chops also led to some high-profile moonlighting: along with performing with Alison Krauss, O.A.R. and others, the talented youngster played keyboards on Paul McCartney’s Driving Rain, while also backing the great one at the internationally broadcast “Concert For New York City.” McCartney offered him the keyboard slot for his world tour, but Gabe respectfully turned him down to focus his energies on his band’s then yet to be released Warner Bros. debut. But after being dispirited and nearly derailed by cutbacks and regime changes at the band’s former label, Dixon shifted his focus to songcraft, and in 2006 the three longtime bandmates had a collective epiphany. “We realized when we were all living in different states that there was too much musical chemistry going on between us to give it up,” Dixon recalls. They reinvented themselves as a three-piece, song-based unit, putting the same attention to detail to arrangement and song-serving performance that the bandleader was giving to his writing. (more on gabedixonband.com)