artist info

After four decades of featured background singing with icons like Luther Vandross, The Rolling Stones, Chaka Khan, Tina Turner, and Nine Inch Nails, MS. LISA FISCHER set out to take center stage with her own humble, heartfelt song. The 2013 Best Documentary Oscar winning film “Twenty Feet from Stardom” altered the course of Lisa’s musical journey, telling her story, with clips of her legendary duets with Sting or with Mick Jagger on “Gimme Shelter”, left audiences eager to see and hear more, so Lisa took the chance to set out on her own reinventing classic songs with her co-conspirators JC Maillard and Grand Baton. Their organic fusion of Caribbean psychedelic soul and jazzy progressive rock ignited Lisa’s flexibility and freedom of expression, awakening her lifelong desire to make music that heals but still rocks the house.

While Lisa’s range is legendary, her greatest gift is the ability to connect, to reach the hearts of her listeners. Raised in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn, she emerged from New York’s fervent studio scene in the early 1980s, sang for two decades with legendary vocalist Luther Vandross, and released “So Intense”, earning her first Best R&B Performance Grammy with “How Can I Ease The Pain”. She joined the Rolling Stones for their 1989 Steel Wheels tour, and continued to grace their stage for the next 26 years. Lisa’s passion for constant growth and experimentation with different styles invited recent collaborations with jazz pianist Taylor Eigsti, Sting, Bruce Springsteen, Michael McDonald, Eric Krasno, Talib Kweli, Billy Childs and YoYo Ma, the BBC Proms / Jules Buckley and the Metropole Orkest, Alonzo King LINES Ballet, Anna Deavere Smith’s “Notes from the Field” for HBO, and especially her full evening program The Classic Lisa Fischer with Grand Baton and Seattle Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony and the National Philharmonic.

Grand Baton was founded by French composer, arranger, guitarist, pianist, singer and songwriter Jean-Cristophe Maillard, (aka Mbutu, aka Grand Baton), a native of Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe. Blending Afro-Caribbean, progressive rock and jazz fusion, Grand Baton opens doors to a new world-music by extending the vocabulary of the traditional music from Guadeloupe, through a deep reflection on rhythm pattern combinations, melody lines, sound experimentations and modern recording production, as well as focused attention on the use of genuine creole language.

His precocious professional career kicked off in Paris, France at the age of 20, touring and recording with Grammy Award-wining artist from Benin, Angelique Kidjo, later followed by artists from all over West Africa like Toure Kunda, Koffi Olomide, Monique Seka, Omar Pene.

Following the interest for Grand Baton specifically coming from the USA, JC Maillard relocated to New York City, in 2009, and started touring around the world with Grammy nominated artist Richard Bona, and other artists from the jazz and world music scene such as percussionist Mino Cinelu, harmonica virtuoso GregoireMaret, drummers Harry Hoenig and Omar Hakim, pianist Rachel Z., as well as an ongoing collaboration with Argentinian singer Sofia Rei. JC Maillard was also part of the last US tour of Kora All-Africa Music Awards winner Chiwoniso Maraire from Zimbabwe.

Following in 2013 the vision of manager and producer Linda Goldstein, Grand Baton, after touring in North America and the Caribbean, teamed up to create a new entity with Grammy Award and Academy Award winner, singer Lisa Fischer (of the Rolling Stones and Twenty Feet From Stardom). Mrs. Lisa Fischer & Grand Baton have been touring continuously since then in the USA, Canada, Japan, Korea, China, Australia, UK, Spain, and Sweden.