This week's special guest on the Power Hour is Alan Palanker founder of The Jazz Holdouts. Alan's has performed at various points in his career as music director, pianist, writer, arranger, for some of the top pop & jazz musical act’s like Peaches & Herb Melba Moore, Donna Summer , Vanessa Williams, Deodato, Angela Bofill, Roberta Flack , Freddie Jackson ,Lenny White , Edgar Winter , Chaka Khan and many others. He has composed and performed music for the films "Beat Street" "Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins" ‘Bossa Nova” and "Valentines Day" ,
Alan co- composed the iconic theme for the TV series “Forensic Files”. Alan co wrote the song ‘Let Me Be The One for Angela Bofill, composed one of the early smooth jazz hits “Two Way Street” for Eliane Elias, produced by Eumir Deodato.
His keyboards have been featured on the #1 hit ‘Shake You Down” by Gregory Abbott, and album tracks for Larry Graham, The Dazz Band. After moving to South Florida Alan began working with pop hit makers Dennis Lambert & Charles Calello on various projects. Through Dennis ,Alan accompanied in concert and taught phenom Ariana Grande , served as Musical Director for Mr. Lambert’s “The Man Behind The Music Show) with Natalie Cole, Player, Mickey Thomas, Tavares, The Commodores and others.
Eumir Deodato and Angela Bofill had significant influence on Alan, both playing and writing. Alan met Eumir when Peaches & Herb performed opposite Kool & The Gang, giving Alan a chance to write and play sessions for artists he was producing. Alan met Angela in college (Manhattan School of Music) and joined her touring band from 1983-1985, co-writing her single “Let Me Be The One”
Jazz Holdouts formed in 2014, releasing the “Intuition” album. Re-tooling the sound by adding Saxophonist ,composer Louis Cortelezzi, and creating new elements within smooth jazz “Simple Things was released in 2016 and stayed in Billboards Top 20 smooth Jazz songs for weeks. The “Holdouts” next single “Summer Nights” reached #1 on Billboardin 2017 and subsequent singles from the “Summer Nights” album including “Morning Breeze” , Port Boulevard” and “Nothing To Complicated” all charted in the top 5 during 2018 & 2019..
Post Pandemic release “Workin “ was the # 1 streamed smooth jazz song in 2022 with subsequent releases “Piermont Nights” and Ya Never Know” making the top ten on Billboard and # 1 on Mediabase smooth AC chart
Jazz Holdouts performed a 90 minute set of their songs at the “Catalina Island Jazz Trax festival Oct 2023 . The group led by Alan Palanker opened for Keiko Matsui and featured Larry Williams (sax, keys) Michael Thompson (guitar)
Bobby Watson (Bass) Jonathan (Sugarfoot) Moffett on drums. Recent singles have been “Room To Breathe” & their latest “Holding On”