Neil Cavanagh was raised in Queens and Long Island, and his first radio airplay came with a local rock band at age 13. Later, he went to NYU to study classical music composition, then to Boston to learn film scoring at Berklee College of Music. While in college, he took bass lessons from session legend Jerry Jemmott (Aretha Franklin, B.B. King), studying the tabla with Pandit Ramsamooj, and sat in with bands on piano or drums.
Following college, Neil returned to New York where his chops and diverse musical vocabulary led him into a variety of situations, including sessions at The Hit Factory with pop legend Michael Jackson.
Neil quickly developed a reputation for wildly eclectic shows that blended beautiful acoustic songs with offbeat arrangements and hypnotic improvisations. He often appeared solo with a bass drum at his right foot and a guitar loop pedal with which he’d create devastating, virtuosic textures and punctuate the deep, funky rhythms of his live act.
Neil Cavanagh’s new album Short Flight To A Distant Star was released on September 11, 2007 through the Kindred Rhythm Music Group (KRMG), an eclectic Manhattan based label group that released vocalist Roberta Gambarini’s Grammy Nominated debut album, and jazz legend Jack DeJohnette’s first new age project (which was also Grammy Nominated). KRMG is distributing the album to all of the major digital retailers, and to traditional retail through its agreement with Koch Entertainment Distribution.
Cavanagh began Short Flight two years ago, which doesn't seem so long considering he did most of it on his own. Neil played all of the instruments (vocals, guitar, bass, keys, drums, harmonica, etc.), he handled all of the production and most of the engineering, and he wrote and arranged all but one song ("The Kiss" by the late Judee Sill, a haunting, classically inspired folk singer from the 70s). The recording began at The Hit Factory in New York, and was completed in Los Angeles, where Neil currently resides.
