In 1992 Don Breithaupt started his project Monkey House with himself as the only permanent band member together with his musician friends as guests of his one-man-band: Drew Zingg, Elliott Randall, Michael Leonhart could be won for the first album Welcome to the Club. This is worth mentioning because this configuration not only characterizes the first Monkey House album Welcome to the Club, but also the following albums. Melodic pop à la Steely Dan, refreshed with jazz and refined with horn arrangements, has been on Monkey House's agenda from the very beginning. Don Breithaupt recorded the second album True Winter together with Feat's Richie Hayward on loan from the band Feat and David Blamires from the Pat Metheny Group. For the third Monkey House album Don Breithaupt engaged Kevin Breit (Norah Jones), Mark Kelso (Gino Vannelli) and Hayward and Blamires. A fourth album followed Headquaters with guitarists Kim Mitchell and Rik Emmett Drew Zingg and Michael Leonhart. Two albums later (Left) a core team for Monkey House was established with drummer Mark Kelso, bassist Pat Kilbride, guitarist Justin Abedin and of course Don Breithaupt on keyboards. Three years later, for the current album Friday, this core team was joined as guests by guitarist Mark Lettieri, trumpeters William Sperandei and Tony Carlucci, saxophonists Vern Dorge and John Johnson, as well as trombonist William Carn and Lucy Woodward as background vocals. Special guests included The Manhattan Transfer, Drew Zingg Guitar, Michael Leonhart Trumpet and François D'Amours Tenor Saxophone.
The special sound of Steely Dan characterizes the Monkey House album Friday to a not inconsiderable extent, without Monkey House however taking up an original song of the seventies band. Rather, all the songs on Friday come from Don Breithaupt, who also handled the arrangements for his band with great skill: each song is perfectly arranged and the members of the band give it no less perfect, even subtle polish. The target group of this album will clearly be the followers of Steely Dan, and of course the loyal following of Monkey House, which has grown considerably over the last twenty years and is currently preparing for its first American tour, after Don Breithaupt has succeeded in establishing a stable core band, leading Monkey House out of the stage of the one-man event and developing it into a veritable permanent band.
The formidable recording technique, which only comes into its own with the high-resolution download, should not only make die-hard fans of Monkey House buy this album.
Don Breithaupt, keyboards
Justin Abedin, guitar
Pat Kilbride, bass
Peter Cardinali, bass
Mark Kelso, drums
William Carn, horns
John Johnson, horns
Perry White, horns
Christian Overton, horns
Vern Dorge, horns
Michael Leonhart, trumpet
William Sperandei, trumpet
Donny McCaslin, saxophone
Elliott Randall, guitar
Drew Zingg, guitar
David Blamires, vocals
Lucy Woodward, vocals