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About Lupita Records

My husband Bill and I founded Lupita Records to promote and distribute his jazz piano trio music. We both love dancing. We met dancing and continue to go out dancing regularly. We both also love the sound of the grand piano in all kinds of music. The Bill Jackman Trio has recorded outstanding jazz piano trio music that encompasses our love of dancing and our love for the grand piano, both for dancing and listening.

The CDs

Lupita Records is offering a series of six wonderful CDs recorded by the Bill Jackman Trio (Bill on concert grand piano, Terry Hilliard on bass, and Ron Marabuto on drums). The series is entitled "JAZZ PIANO FOR DANCERS & LISTENERS" and contains a nice balance of Latin, swing, and ballad rhythms and tempos. mp3 samples at Dance Video

The title of the series of CDs reflects feedback we received from many recipients of a demo tape of Bill's jazz piano trio music (See Testimonials). We both have been active dancers for many years so many of our friends to whom we gave a copy of the demo tape are also dancers. They love the music not only for its listening qualities, but also because they can dance to it. However, many of our other friends to whom we gave the demo tape are not dancers. However, they also love our music not only because it is great listening music, but also because it makes them want to tap their feet. Dance tempos are foot-tappin' tempos. mp3 samples at Dance Video

The Dance Video

Bill was a "late bloomer" as a jazz pianist, but an "early bloomer" as a dancer. Many of our dance friends, who have known him for years as a dancer, didn't even know he plays the piano. When they finally hear him play jazz piano, they are quite surprised and often say something like "I thought jazz musicians can't dance." (They sometimes qualify that some Latin, i.e., salsa, musicians can dance, but not "straight-ahead" jazz musicians.)

In an earlier era, jazz was associated with dancing but has become separated since the modern jazz era of the late 1940s and 1950s. Many current jazz musicians pay lip service to the idea that jazz should be danceable, but the tempos they select for their recordings belie their words.

Our goal in this project is to provide quality jazz piano trio music that you can dance to as well as listen to. To demonstrate that our music is danceable, we have done a dance video, entitled "Dancing to Jazz" to accompany our CDs. We selected six tunes - two Latin, two swing, and two ballads - from the 45 tunes Bill's Trio recorded. In this video, we show that 1.) you can partner dance to jazz, 2.) that "straight-ahead" jazz musicians can dance, and 3.) that they can dance to the very music they have created.

A Whole Lot of Music per CD

The music industry average for Total Playing Time** per CD is in the range of 40 - 60 minutes although 77 minutes of music will fit on a CD with no impairment in quality. Our six CDs have an average of 75 minutes and 31 seconds of music per CD, close to the maximum capacity of 77 minutes. Our number one goal at Lupita Records is to offer high-quality jazz piano trio music for dancing and listening. However, we also have the goal of offering you the most music for your money. I also can assure you that the level of quality is consistent throughout the tunes on our CDs, not like some CDs with just one or two good cuts.

(** Many CDs do not list Total Playing Time. The way to find this out is to put your CD in the CD player. The display will show the number of cuts and Total Playing Time. For example, if you put Herbie Hancock's classic recording Maiden Voyage in your CD player, the display will show "05 42:20," five cuts and Total Playing Time of 42 minutes and 20 seconds.)

Sincerely,

Lupita López Jackman
President and CEO
Lupita Records
Oakland, CA 94602