Saxophonist Vincent Herring Announces Tour in Support of “Hard Times”

Saxophonist Vincent Herring Announces Tour
in Support of Latest Album, Hard Times

Tour to Feature Dave Kikoski, Yasushi Nakamura, and Carl Allen

There’s no avoiding the hard times. Every human being that’s walked this Earth has had his or her share of the blues, from the personal to the political, the local to the global. But with another ominous headline coming every day, with news alerts constantly erupting from our various devices, with social media facilitating vitriolic shouting matches between friends and strangers alike, it’s not too much of a stretch to say that our present era offers more than its fair share of challenges and burdens.

Vincent Herring doesn’t have the answers to those issues anymore than the rest of us. What he can offer is a tonic to help calm the turbulence of modern life, at least for an hour. With Hard Times, his third release for Smoke Sessions Records, the master saxophonist supplies the perfect musical response to our troubled existence–part escape, part defiance; part lament, part laughter. Over the course of these 11 songs, Herring and his stellar band both sing the blues and shake them off in ways both healing and infectious.

Available now, Hard Times arrives just in time to serve as a fiercely swinging distraction for the first anniversary of last year’s dark election day. Though Herring was going through a rough patch in his personal life at the time of the recording, he had a much more wide-ranging vision in mind for Hard Times. “It’s the theme of the times that we’re going through,” he explained, pointing out that, at the time of this writing, the possibility of nuclear war suddenly seemed very possible thanks to the bluster of saber-rattling world leaders – including America’s own. (Substitute any one of what will surely be another dozen provocations current when you read this. 

“The obvious red elephant in the room would be politics,” Herring continued. “So it’s hard times not necessarily just from my vantage point, but from looking at world events. At the same time, I do realize how blessed and fortunate I am to be living the life I’m living. I have a lot of real fans that support me and a lot of great people in my life; I have wonderful kids. This album will hit people in different ways, but I offer it as an uplifting piece for the hard times in the universe.”

The selection of repertoire for Hard Times came down to a single principle: these are quite simply songs that Herring has loved over the years and have seen him through his own hard times–and he hopes his renditions will do the same for listeners. “All through my life, whenever I’ve had ups and downs, music has been the one thing that’s always kept it positive for me,” he says. “It’s always been something that I could come back to and dig into to lift my spirits. This record is meant to be fun, it’s meant to be uplifting, it’s meant to be something that people will want to listen to over and over again.”

“Hard Times” was produced by Paul Stache and Damon Smith and
recorded live in New York at Sear Sound’s Studio C on a Sear-Avalon custom console
at 96KHz/24bit and mixed to ½” analog tape using a Studer mastering deck.
Available in audiophile HD format.

Vincent Herring · Hard Times

Smoke Sessions Records · Release Date: November 3, 2017

For more information on Smoke Sessions Records,

please visit SmokeSessionsRecords.com