CrystalTop Music


	Ryan Scott Bred in the hills of California's Monterey Bay, Ryan Scott has been handling the world of jazz guitar since he was a kid. Ryan moved to NYC in 2001 and quickly became one of the city's most sought after sidemen and session players. Along with straight-ahead jazz, Ryan's steady accompaniment alongside singers and songwriters began to influence his own music. Ryan is sometimes described as a combination of Jeff Buckley, John Scofield, and Marvin Gaye. He is a virtuosic guitarist of the highest degree, a soulful, unique vocalist, and a sophisticated songwriter. He melds a technical jazz background into pop structures with honest, pitch-perfect lyrics to create funky, emotional tunes that ooze heart and soul and head right for your chest. ...................................................................................		Ryan Scott on MySpace
	Luz Mob Growing up throughout the States, Luz Mob drew from surroundings in urban San Francisco, Oakland and Brooklyn and rural Libre, Colorado. Studying under musical heavyweights such as Reggie Workman and Bill Dixon, Luz was influenced not only by improvisation and performance, but also by the hip-hop that surrounded his younger days in San Francisco's Mission District. This all seeps out in various guises in Luz's music; from his alto and baritone saxophone and bass clarinet constructions, to more dub and hip-hop rooted electronic production, you'd be hard-pressed sometimes to find where the Too $hort stops and the Eric Dolphy begins. ...................................................................................		Luz Mob on MySpace
	Mega Bass Mega Bass is the latest collaboration between San Francisco-based singer and songwriter Aidan Hawken (Highwater Rising) and Brooklyn-based producer Jacob Bronstein (Modern Sleeping), a team that has been making music together in one context or another for more than 15 years. Crafted around Hawken's smooth, sweet chord structures and infused with Bronstein's restrained drum programming and sound design, the two make songs that gravitate between Bay Area R&B-flavored soul tunes touching on Shuggie Otis and Marvin Gaye and the electronically altered indie-rock of Radiohead and The Postal Service. In 2007, Mega Bass's "Blind" was featured as the theme song to the CW's teen drama series, Hidden Palms. You can watch the intro to Hidden Palms, featuring, "Blind," at YouTube. ...................................................................................		Mega Bass on MySpace
	Jahto Born in Kingston, JA to a musical family that includes percussionist Irvin Jarrett of reggae icons Third World, producer/percussionist Sajato Jarrett started his label, Mad Dog Records, in 1994. He studied piano and percussion at the Edna Manley School of Arts in Kingston. Producing artists for Mad Dog with UB40 engineer Richard Elliott such as Roundhead and Sean Paul, Jahto later pulled up roots for Toronto and expanded production and composition techniques. Touching down in NYC in 2001, Jahto hooked up with famed dance music production team Hex Hector and Mac Quayle and assisted on numerous tracks by dance luminaries including Madonna and Deborah Cox. Linking with CrystalTop folks including Cousin Jacob and Pyeng Threadgill shortly after, Jahto got put down officially in early 2004. Jahto's sounds bubble up from the hardest times of Sade all the way to the roughest riddims of Mad Cobra. ...................................................................................		Jahto on MySpace
	Cousin Jacob Three-time Grammy Award-winning producer Cousin Jacob was grown in the S.F. Bay but has been burroughing in the Rotten Apple for more than 10 years. Approaching music like a shave and a haircut, Jacob leaves the length and just cleans it up around the ears. He blurs the lines between live playing, self-sampling, and sound design to create some music that is more personal than performative and more jack than cheddar. Influences in Jacob's head range widely, from the tropicalia sensibilities of Tom Ze and Gilberto Gil, to American R&B of the 60s and 70s, to modern performance and production such as Madlib's Yesterday's New Quintet and Mike Patton's Fantomas. He is a frequent collaborator with Pyeng Threadgill and Aidan Hawken and in his free time Jacob enjoys public radio and audiobooks. ...................................................................................		Cousin Jacob on MySpace
	Sam Champ DJ/Producer Sam Champ hails from the wiles of Pittsburgh, PA but nowadays holds it down table-wise in Good Lookin’ Brooklyn at such mainstays as Moe’s in Ft. Greene and Soda in Prospect Heights. He pretends like he can play his vintage keys, but mostly runs them through samplers and synths to fabricate beats of the dope type in the vein of the greats. When Sam took the stage recently with Large Professor, LP turned to him and said, “I heard that beat you made for [unintelligible] and beat-wise, that ish was funky!” So you heard it from one of the greats: his production is flavor, his beats produce their own milk, and pleasure-wise, Sam Champ will be delivering through the early portion of this new century. ...................................................................................		Sam Champ on MySpace
	Ivan Joseph Although Joseph joined the CrystalTop fold in 2003, his The Good Get Nathan was released by CrystalTop in 2002 and Joseph has long been a Bay Area associate. Joseph's previous band was the reggae-drenched trio, Mango Season, which released an eponymously-titled local favorite and went on to tour the Northwest extensively throughout '93 - '97. After lead-singer Aidan Hawken left to form the more rock-oriented Highwater Rising, Joseph retuned and returned to the Brazilian music he always loved, bossa nova. Extended stays in Altamira in 1998 and both Rio and Salvador in 2003 cast Joseph's skills in iron. ...................................................................................		Ivan Joseph on MySpace
	The Cockpit The Cockpit consists of rhymer Sho-nuff and DJ Look Behind. Creating unorthodox hip-hop is an easy and inaccurate way of describing their approach to music making. Sho-nuff's vocals navigate Look Behind's beats with as much attention to the spaces between the notes as Lee Morgan navigating Art Blakey's swing. But Sho-nuff manages to draw the audience into his words rather than creating the dense, impenetrable wall of lyrics most left-of-center rhymers feel is their duty to erect. Look Behind's soundscapes will make you check your pockets. The Cockpit is based in the Bay Area and has been known to collaborate with such outfits as The Nameless and Faceless and The Bay Area Art Collective. ...................................................................................
	The San Andreas Fault Emilio Salvador woke up one morning in 1999 in his bedroom overlooking Folsom St. in San Francisco and realized something: he was tired of making music alone. For 10 years he had been gigging and recording in NorCal with a rotating lineup of various tuba players, vibraphonists and congeros, and that autumn morning told Emilio he needed to take his guitar noodlings and free rhythm drum experiments to a new level, to a place of collaboration and a juncture that no longer depended solely on his one brain, but a reciprocal meeting of brains, a meeting of musicians. Barely 2 months later, The San Andreas Fault was born. With Tito Caminez on percussion, Bart Bankman on drums, a horn section comprising the Bay Area's finest, Jorn Hallstrom, Gary Gates and Lance "Pepper" Washington, and Cindi Grace on bass and backing vocals, Emilio formed an ensemble that dives so effortlessly between the Latin, Jazz, and Heavy Metal genres of the Bay Area, that Tito Puente was quoted as exclaiming, "Que lio...if only I was around today."