CAT#: ULY021
ARTIST: Craig Peyton
TITLE: Overflight
DATE: 10/06/2023
FORMAT: Cassette
PRICE: $25
Craig Peyton is a vibraphonist; a pop producer; the Flight Ambassador to the Bahamas, whose innovative aerial cinematography has been used in Beyoncé videos; and a cancer survivor (by the skin of his teeth!). Active in the NYC scene right at the time disco was mutating into house and hip-hop, he's written, produced, and programmed for the likes of James Brown, Levon Helms, and The World’s Famous Supreme Team. He scored jingles and underscores aplenty for TV, including PBS’s ‘Nature’ and NBC’s own cult wildlife series ‘Friends’. In ’94 he was the special guest on BET’s ‘Jazz Central’ (he later hosted the program for a week) by Lou Rawls and flutist Sherry Winston. He flew himself to D.C. for the BET appearance in the middle of a fairly serious snowstorm and was greeted on the tarmac by a stretch limousine. He is, by all accounts, a True American Wildass™, though he would surely demur from such a title.
Selections spanning his vast and winding career, some never before released, are collected for the first time here on ‘Overflight.’ It's a two-years-in-the-making project for ULYSSA but it contains a lifetime's worth of mid-70s Soul-inspired fusion; amphetamine-fueled prog; pop-n-lock R&B; house-adjacent smooth jazz; and echoes of trip-hop and baggy. This limited double-cassette is now open for preorders and will be released October 6, 2023.
Read more about Craig in our 4 part series on ULYSSA TV:
Episode 1: The Fusion Years 1975-1981
Episode 2: The NYC Producer Years 1981-1987
