Multifaceted Harpist Ashley Jackson Signs To Decca Records, US Announces Label Debut Album Take Me To The Water - Set For Release On March 21

 First Songs Off The Emotionally Stirring Collection “Deep River Pt. 1” and “Deep River Pt. 2”

Decca Records, US is honored to announce the signing of award-winning harpist, Ashley Jackson, whose evocative artistry fuses traditional classical music with the rich heritage of Black spirituality.  Ashley’s label debut album, Take Me To The Water, will launch globally on March 21, with the first two tracks, “Deep River Pt. 1” and “Deep River Pt. 2” available now across all digital service providers. Pre-order the album and listen to the tracks here.

Take Me to the Water is a masterful exploration of the transformative and spiritual power of water, featuring Jackson’s unique interpretations of iconic works by Margaret Bonds, Alice Coltrane, Claude Debussy, and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Through this deeply personal and creative project, Jackson takes listeners on a musical journey that connects cultural heritage, spiritual reflection, and universal themes of renewal and freedom.

“Water is celebrated in lots of different cultures, but, despite that, you find recurring themes in those celebrations,” Jackson shares. “So I wanted to hone in on those ideas—ideals—such as love and rebirth and hope.”

In “Deep River,” originally adapted by composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor in 1905 - through her harp’s fluid, celestial tones, Jackson breathes new life into this iconic spiritual. “In playing ‘Deep River,’ I’m transported to a place where I can access that kind of cultural memory,” Jackson explains. “Just imagining my ancestors singing that, and what the words would have meant.  So as to tell their oppressors that they're singing about one thing, but really, they're communicating something else. Tapping into that ingenuity is so humbling.” 

Take Me to the Water not only celebrates music’s ability to connect cultures and histories but also raises awareness of global water inequities, with 2.2 billion people still lacking access to safe water today. This dual focus amplifies Jackson’s belief in music’s power to inspire and heal. 

 With Take Me to the Water, Ashley Jackson establishes herself as a bold and visionary voice in and beyond classical music, elevating the harp as an instrument of deep emotional resonance and limitless possibilities. The album promises to be a replenishing and immersive experience, creating a sonic experience that is both grounded in history and forward-looking. 

Vital and sacred, water is the essence of all life on Earth; an elemental force spiritually intertwined with freedom, transformation, purification, and renewal. For her second album Take Me to the Water, award-winning harpist Ashley Jackson distills her instrument into a fluid sonic language that meditates on these themes and metaphors, drawing from African mythology and the antebellum spiritual tradition while recognizing the 2.2 billion people who are still denied safe access to clean water today.

“Water is something that is celebrated in lots of different cultures, but, despite that, you find recurring themes in those celebrations. So I kind of wanted to hone in on those ideas—ideals, perhaps—such as love and rebirth and hope,” she explains of the follow-up to her 2023 debut Ennanga, which garnered acclaim for its consideration of American music and its roots in Black spirituality. “I really wanted the album to speak to those ideals that we all experience or strive for. And music is a beautiful way to remind us of those things.”

From the start of Take Me to the Water, we are guided towards a place of warmth. Arranged for harp and strings by Jackson, the soul-nourishing opener puts a fresh spin on Alice Coltrane’s 1977 Transcendence standout, “Radhe-Shyam.” Jackson first began digging deeper into Coltrane’s work while she was pregnant with her daughter in 2018, later finding common ground in their experience of motherhood. On “Radhe-Shyam,” she leans into the song’s central messages of love and devotion while introducing her new vantage point, carved from significant personal milestones such as parenthood, which allowed her to re-frame several “seasoned” pieces in a new light.

Accordingly, Debussy’s “Danse Sacrée” has formed part of Jackson’s repertoire since her days as a high school harpist. Here, it is woven into the album’s thoughtful narrative with a chant-like melody in thrall to the West African goddess Yemaya, and by virtue of its influences; Debussy was rumoured to have been inspired by a watercolour painting about water. Adding to these strands, on “Yemaya” (pts 1 & 2), Jackson works like a collagist, applying a “snippet” of a 2020 harp concerto by her colleague João Luiz Rezende to a piece that ushers in another of the album’s throughlines: the honouring of Yemaya, who is celebrated across the diaspora and often depicted as the goddess of the ocean.

Take Me to the Water consistently demonstrates Jackson’s commitment to reinvention. One of the album’s standout moments, “Troubled Water”—based on the baptism spiritual “Wade in the Water”—finds her honoring an iconic piano piece by pioneering Black composer and pianist Margaret Bonds, blazing a trail with her own groundbreaking harp transcription. Awash with deep lows and cascading highs, “Troubled Water” is an expressive and virtuosic creation that deftly mimics the dynamism of water, transposed for the harp using a novel technique which aided the recording process; weaving a pair of socks through the lower strings to dampen the resonance. “I always like the extra sound because that's what makes the harp the harp. But that's what popped into my mind in that recording session. Oh, we can try this to make it clearer,” Jackson explains.

Similarly, Jackson orients her strings to do the talking on “Deep River,” wringing every drop of emotion from every note on a canonical African American spiritual adapted and composed in 1905 by the famed Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. “Deep River” evokes freedom and hope, the words rich with multiple layers of meaning (“Deep river, my home is over Jordan / Deep river, Lord, I want to cross over into campground”) while the song unfolds with a gentle nostalgic melody that gradually crescendos like a rising tide in a storm, rolled chords and arpeggios gushing with celestial energy.

“The way Coleridge-Taylor begins it, I’m transported to a place where I can access that kind of cultural memory. It's very easy for me to close my eyes and imagine, because I wasn't there,” she says of “Deep River.” “But just imagining my ancestors singing that, and what the words would have meant… So many spirituals are encoded with multiple layers of meaning. So as to tell their oppressors that they're singing about one thing, but really they're communicating something else. Tapping into that ingenuity is so humbling.” 

Jackson’s harp undeniably wields great solitary power, yet when fleshed out with vocals or percussive flourishes, as heard on the blues-inspired interlude “River Jordan” or transcendent closing track, “Take Me to the Water,” it opens a portal to an intimate new dimension. The backup strings from Jackson’s long-standing collaborators the Harlem Chamber Players—with whom she first began playing a few years after finishing her doctorate at the Juilliard School in 2014— showcase her collaboration while her rendition of the Brandee Younger’s politically potent 2022 track “Unrest” reminds again of her desire to forge connection through music.

Many of Jackson’s earliest musical experiences were shaped by her Nana’s Baptist church in Newark, New Jersey, and she draws on these for Take Me to the Water, most pertinently in the album’s fluctuating emotions and underlying journey towards a higher, holistic state of consciousness. “The continuous seamless weaving of music to take you to those different emotional states is very much part of my concept for the album,” she says, adding: “Because I would love for my audience to be able to stay in something and then to be pulled somewhere else but the music doesn't stop.”

The album finds its triumphant conclusion in “Take Me to the Water” (pts 1 & 2), an open-hearted epic built around heavenly glissandi and soaring voices that carry a profound sense of communion. Thematically, the song embodies a full-circle moment. “It's a theme and variations,” explains Jackson. “‘Take Me to the Water’ very consciously builds in complexity, to sort of evoke that sense of subversion during baptism. And then coming out, feeling ready to walk a new walk.”

These enduring sentiments are at the heart of Ashley Jackson’s new album. Replenishing and immersive, Take Me to the Water embraces the transportive heft of the harp, conjuring a radiant vision of a world anchored by hope and brighter days, thereby imbuing an ancient instrument with vivid new meaning.

Ashley Jackson website click here

Thank you to Crossover Media for sharing with us

Victoria Kirilova: Roots &Skies

Album release on 21st March

Purchase here

Victoria’s music is a mixture of various influences – from the diversity of harmonies and timbres in contemporary jazz and chamber music to the poetry and groove of traditional Bulgarian chants and odd rhythms. The album “Roots &Skies” aims to balance the common and different, the local and global, "me" and "us", East and West, creating a transcultural musical identity that resonates universally. Themes of peace, inclusivity, homesickness, and the joy of travel and encounters form a coherent mosaic.

“A fascinating journey between jazz, chamber music, and Bulgarian folklore... Kirilova understands how to interweave sonic worlds with artistic elegance and expressive strength.” — MICA (Austria)

“She lets the music float elegantly... a gently elegiac tone free of melancholy—rather, what one hears is exhilarating poetry. A surprise, a discovery.” — Der Standard (Austria)

The album’s title reflects Victoria’s vision of connecting her perception of Bulgarian traditional music to the "open space" of different musical impacts, with the aim to reframe these roots as living, dynamic forces within contemporary music.

Each piece tells a story, transporting listeners to exotic cities, vibrant landscapes, and mystical night train journeys. The compositions evoke a sense of magical realism, featuring narratives about rebellious young women, cross-cultural encounters, and the thrill of discovery.

Victoria Kirilova:A double bass player and composer, Victoria is an active musician in the Viennese and European music scene. Her music is a mixture of various influences – from the diversity of harmonies and timbres in contemporary jazz and chamber music to the poetry and groove of traditional Bulgarian chants and odd rhythms.

Victoria Kirilova website click here

All I Know is the 4th album from Scottish jazz vocalist and songwriter Louise Dodds. It blends contemporary vocal jazz with Louise’s love of songwriting and storytelling, and uses improvisation to elaborate on the emotion and story of each song.

Purchase here

Originally from Scotland, Louise Dodds was nominated for Best Vocalist at the Scottish Jazz Awards in 2022 and 2023. Louise previously released two critically acclaimed solo albums – Fly (2013) and The Story Needs an Ending (2022) plus the stunning jazz/folk duo album Two Hours After Midnight (2023) with pianist & arranger Elchin Shirinov. She has performed at the EFG London Jazz Festival, Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival and Glasgow Jazz Festival and into Europe. In 2020 she opened for Norma Winstone MBE.

The title of the album, All I Know, is a line from track 5, Educating the Heart, chosen as it also sums up the overall theme of the album - everything Louise has come to know about love, life and the people around her.

Each song has been inspired by either a personal experience or the experiences of those closest to her, with a raw honesty intended to help the listener feel a sense of connection and understanding. It touches on both the light and dark sides of these experiences, often within the same song.

‘I wanted to give a voice to these feelings and experiences not just to understand and release them, but to also help other people know that they are not alone in what they are going through, and to help them find what they need within themselves.’

The album covers themes such as friendship in difficult times, the highs and lows of relationships, the love and pain within loss, finding strength and courage in yourself, and even asks the question

- if you could go back in time and meet your younger self, what would you tell them? (Inside Story). The album also includes a homage to her hometown of Edinburgh (Holyrood).

Louise Dodds - vocals, compositions

Elchin Shirinov - piano, arrangements

Max Luthert - bass

Dave Hamblett - drums

TRACKLIST:

1. As Standard 4:51.
2. Home 3:59
3. Kindred Spirits 5:47
4. Hemispheres 5:56
5. Educating the Heart 4:52
6. Holyrood 4:53
7. Lifeline 5:18
8. Inside Story 3:23
9. Dark Night of the Soul 4:00
10. Wiser 3:47

www.ampmusicrecords.com

Louise Dodds website click here

PIANIST CAILI O’DOHERTY REVISITS AND HONORS THE GENIUS OF LIL HARDIN ARMSTRONG WITH BLUER THAN BLUE

OUT ON MARCH 7 VIA OUTSIDE IN MUSIC

The first single “Let’s Call It Love” available here

Lillian “Lil” Hardin Armstrong is a name most jazz aficionados recognize, having read it in the annals and footnotes of jazz history, but often mistakenly gloss over it in passing as a detail in the broader narrative. For pianist Caili O’Doherty, the story of Lil Hardin Armstrong became the caper of an unsung heroine of jazz history. While most will remember that Armstrong was the second wife of jazz icon Louis Armstrong who is often credited with spurring him forward to greatness, few may know the extent of her influence. For O’Doherty, what started as a few lines in a textbook at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College quickly turned into an enigmatic journey of discovery. Through research, study, and the music itself, O’Doherty discovered that not only did Lil Hardin Armstrong’s music become the staple foundation of her husband Louis’s career, but she went on to write hits for greats throughout history such as Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin. With Bluer Than Blue, O’Doherty goes directly to the source, drawing on beloved and deep works from Lil Hardin Armstrong’s and instilling them with new vigor and reinterpretations of O’Doherty’s own masterful devising.

Bluer Than Blue was born, like so many great discoveries, inventions, and works, by questioning what is taken for granted. While studying a course entitled “The Music of Louis Armstrong” under Ricky Riccardi, the Director of Research Collections for the Louis Armstrong Museum, O’Doherty thought it was odd that while Hardin was credited with pushing her husband toward fame, generations of jazz historians simply dismissed her role in Louis’s career. Some, such as Gary Giddins, went so far to state that even though Hardin’s name appears in the credits of many of her husband’s works, that it was because Louis “allowed” her to claim credit. Bold assumptions without factual evidence did not sit well with O’Doherty, and she struck forth to begin researching the matter herself.

O’Doherty’s research continued through correspondence with Riccardi, and began to culminate in practice when her project highlighting Hardin’s music and influence earned a week-long residency at Dizzy’s Club at Jazz at Lincoln Center in 2018, and a grant-funded, high-profile performance of Hardin’s music at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, where Bluer Than Blue was recorded in 2021.

Historically, Hardin was a firm believer in forward motion in jazz. When visited in her home by jazz journalist Chris Albertson in the 1960s, Hardin pointed out her stacks of Thelonious Monk and Dr. Billy Taylor records, stating, “This is what I like to listen to. I only wish I could play that well.” When shown the Gil Evans arrangement of “Struttin’ with Some Barbecue” (which Hardin co-wrote) featuring Cannonball Adderley in that same interview, Hardin was “ecstatic”, leading to her musical taste being described as “thoroughly modern”. The performances of Hardin’s music heard on Bluer Than Blue are all uniquely arranged by O’Doherty, and lean into both the musical sensibilities of the time in which Hardin lived and the modern mode of composition that Hardin adored. In summation, Hardin’s love for the “thoroughly modern” would be met with great enthusiasm in how her music is being honored on Bluer Than Blue.

Part of the beauty of Bluer Than Blue is in the curation of the music. O’Doherty shows wisdom not only in her arrangements of the music, but in her selections from Hardin’s repertoire in such a way to tease audiences with what they know and enrapture them with that which may be wholly unfamiliar. “Let’s Call It Love,” the album’s first single, is a prominent example of the latter. A lesser-known work composed by Hardin in 1937, O’Doherty’s arrangement takes a 12/8 bembe twist on the piece, and spotlights engrossing bassline, which is doubled between the upright bass and the piano’s left hand. The track also features vocals and scat singing by Michael Mayo. Due to Hardin’s fame in contributing to Louis Armstrong’s oeuvre, O’Doherty features perhaps two of Hardin’s most beloved pieces on this album: “Struttin’ With Some Barbecue” and “Two Deuces”. O’Doherty’s arrangement of “Struttin’ With Some Barbecue” in particular highlights her nod to and love for jazz history, as she showcases her dynamic stride piano playing, which brilliantly incorporates an iconic lick from Louis Armstrong’s performance of “Tears”, which was co-written with Hardin, and then later made famous in his recording of “Potato Head Blues”. Bluer Than Blue features a distinctive, and arguably now definitive, arrangement of “Just For a Thrill”. Often regarded as Hardin’s most beloved standard, “Just For a Thrill” features the prominent vocals of Tahira Clayton on O’Doherty’s reimagining of the piece. 

With a project spearheaded by such a distinct vision, O’Doherty required a highly dedicated team of musicians who would not only pour their soul into these arrangements, but would take the time to steep themselves in the music and history of Lil Hardin Armstrong from which all these works take their root. When one listens to the end result achieved, it is unequivocally evident that O’Doherty achieved exactly that. The central trio at the core of this album comprises the bandleader Caili O’Doherty on piano, bassist Tamir Shmerling, and drummer Cory Cox. Throughout the album, the various featured personnel rotates per track, and consists of a stellar cast of Nicole Glover on tenor saxophone and vocalists Tahira Clayton and Michael Mayo. 

Bluer Than Blue is more than a retelling of jazz history; it’s more than a love letter to the music of a late genius; and it’s more than a masterwork of informed arranging. At its core, Bluer Than Blue is a profound monument to an unsung hero that captures not only the spirit of the music but the ebullient character of the composer herself.

Thank you to Lydia Liebman from Lydia Liebman Promotions for sharing with us

Website: Caili O’Doherty

British composer/pianist Claire Cope vividly expands the scale and vision of her Ensemble C on the band's sweeping and dramatic second release. Out March 7, 2025, Every Journey celebrates International Woman’s Day with gorgeous compositions inspired by pioneering women and the courage to embark on life’s adventures.

Pre save by clicking here

“Claire’s music is beautiful; imaginative, uplifting, thoughtful and reflective. The beauty is the subtlety; of the journey of a melody, the gently shifting sands of texture and the control of form, energy and dynamic.”  – Andy Scott, award-winning saxophonist and composer

An oft-repeated Chinese proverb states, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Looking back from a vantage point several steps along her own proverbial journey, British composer and pianist Claire Cope came to discover that no matter how daunting a venture may become, it’s always taking that first step that requires the most courage. That realization provided the inspiration behind Every Journey, the gorgeous second album by Cope’s Ensemble C.

Every Journey will be released on March 7, 2025, to coincide with International Women’s Day on March 8. The occasion is significant given the fount of inspiration that Cope found in the stories of intrepid women pioneers who undertook their own daring journeys. The books of writer and explorer Jacki Hill-Murphy were key resources – specifically

Adventuresses, a compendium of stories of 18th and 19th-century female explorers, and The Extraordinary Tale of Kate Marsden, about a Victorian nurse who trekked across pre-Revolutionary Russia to find a possible cure for leprosy. Musically, the groundbreaking compositions of Maria Schneider provided a luminous north star for Cope’s own writing.

Arriving five years after Ensemble C’s acclaimed debut, Small World, Cope’s follow-up represents significant evolutions in both the composer’s life and her musical vision. Where Small World offered Cope’s introductory statement as a composer, a path she arrived at only gradually, Every Journey is a remarkably assured expansion of that mindset. Significantly, Ensemble C has bloomed from a septet to an 11-piece group, allowing for a wealth of new colors and possibilities, of which Cope takes bold and vibrant advantage. The intricate music she’s devised for the ensemble reflects her existence in both the jazz and contemporary classical music realms. Closer to home, Cope became a mother in the interval between albums, a development that can’t help but deepen one’s insight and empathy.

“Discovering that I am a composer and becoming a mum were both turning points in my life,” Cope says. “Then I found myself reading these stories about these inspiring, real-life characters and the music took on a sense of adventure. All of this fused together in my mind and led to my wanting to write something that was about not having limits.”

Cope seized on the idea of expanding her ensemble immediately after recording Small World. “As a composer I really wanted to push myself,” she explains. “Then when I started writing this music about adventures and journeys, the pieces naturally felt like they required a more substantial force. Also, an eleven-piece ensemble is a bit unusual – this idea of something that is not quite a big band but something towards it was really appealing to me.”

With the Maria Schneider Orchestra as one pillar of inspiration, Cope also looked to the mercurial sound of the early Pat Metheny Group and, closer in scale to the newly imagined Ensemble C, Michael Brecker’s Grammy-winning 2004 Quindectet album Wide Angles. While Cope’s music was inspired by these composers, it is not confined to them: her musical voice is distinct and singular. The human voice is a vital element of her writing, courtesy the typically wordless vocals of Brigitte Beraha, who also contributes lyrics to the moving song “The Birch and the Larch,” which recounts a fable called “Leprosy in Love” that Hill-Murphy incorporates into her biography of Kate Marsden.

The album opens with the atmospheric “Every Journey (Has a Beginning),” which sets the tone for the sonic expedition to come, culminating in a quicksilver solo by guitarist Ant Law. The set is bookended by the tender “Home,” highlighted by a captivating duo between Beraha’s  and Mike Soper on flugelhorn. The soaring groove of “Flight” pays homage to Bessie Coleman, the first woman of African American and Native American descent to earn her pilot’s license in the US. “Isabel” is named for one of the subjects of Adventuresses, Isabel Godin des Odonais, the first known woman to traverse the length of the Amazon River, and features percussionist Jack McCarthy along with baritone saxophonist Rob Cope, trombonist Anoushka Nanguy, and trumpeter Freddie Gavita.

The four-piece horn section could threaten to overwhelm the balance of the ensemble, but Cope employs it nimbly, often using flugelhorn in one of the trumpet chairs and tending toward the lush rather than the powerful – as in the stirring, Kenny Wheeler-inspired chorale “The Light of the Dark.” The horns can swell and ascend when needed, however, as they do to provoke the dramatic tenor extemporizations of Matt Carmichael on “Amboseli.” The through-composed piece is named for a national park in Kenya set against the backdrop of Mount Kilimanjaro, the contrast of immense heights and vast plains is breathtakingly captured in Cope’s piece. The simmering rhythm laid down by Cope’s left hand, bassist Gavin Barras and drummer Jon Ormston on “That Nabongo Feeling” paint a vigorous portrait of modern-day explorer Jessica Nabongo, who recently became the first documented Black woman to visit all of the planet’s 195 countries.

Cope describes the album as being about “courage, overcoming anxiety and finding inner peace. Everyone can relate in some way to that moment of taking a step forward in life. For me, it was about feeling comfortable in my choices as a musician and deciding to identify as a composer. Once you get past that first step, you’re on your way to where you want to go.”

Ensemble C – Every Journey

clairecopemusic.com

ensemblec.bandcamp.com

Thank you to Ann Braithwaite for sharing the press release with us.

Never-Before-Released Ella Fitzgerald Live Concert Album 
Latest single Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall In Love) is out today and available to listen to here

Never-before-released album recorded at 1967 concert featuring members of The Duke Ellington Orchestra was recently unearthed in the private tape collection of Verve Records founder Norman Granz

The Moment Of Truth: Ella At The Coliseum - Album Release Date: February 28th 2025

February 7, 2025 — Today, Verve Records is proud to release Ella Fitzgerald’s “Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall In Love),”the second singlefrom her never-before-released live concert album, The Moment of Truth: Ella At The Coliseum. “Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall In Love)” offers a sinfully playful twist on the highly esteemed Cole Porter classic from the 1928 Broadway show Paris. Ella adds her own sprinkle of magic by not only extending the chorus of the track, but by switching up the original melody and mixing in pop culture references of the time. Listen to the new single here. Watch the visualizer here. 

The full live album, The Moment Of Truth: Ella At The Coliseum was recorded at the Oakland Coliseum on June 30, 1967, and was recently unearthed in the private tape collection of Verve Records founder Norman Granz. The album spans nine tracks, most never heard before, and features Ella accompanied by members of The Duke Ellington Orchestra at its prime.  

Listen to the first single and title track “The Moment of Truth” here, watch the animated music video directed by Sharon Liu here, and pre-order the album here.

Ella’s band includes the rarely heard but hard-swinging trio of Jimmy Jones, Bob Cranshaw, and Sam Woodyard, while the Ellington band captured here at its peak, featured Cat Anderson, Cootie Williams, Harry Carney, Paul Gonsalves, Jimmy Hamilton, Johnny Hodges, and Russell Procope. Ella alongside her band was a sight to behold. There was never a moment when she was not doing her absolute best work. The first lady of song strikes again with a song that makes you want to move to the sweet rhythms and melodies she seamlessly weaves together. “Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall In Love) is sure to be food for the soul and a treat for your ears. 

THE MOMENT OF TRUTH: ELLA AT THE COLISEUM

1. The Moment Of Truth - 2:52

2. Don’t Be That Way - 4:33

3. You’ve Changed - 4:37

4. Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall In Love) - 4:43

5. Bye Bye Blackbird - 5:02

6. Alfie - 5:43

7. In A Mellow Tone - 4:41

8. Music To Watch Girls By - 3:56

9. Mack The Knife - 4:53 

Recorded at The Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena, Oakland, CA on June 30, 1967.

BAND DETAILS:

Ella Fitzgerald – vocals

The trio:

Jimmy Jones – piano

Bob Cranshaw – bass

Sam Woodyard – drums

Members of Duke Ellington’s Orchestra:

Trumpets: Cat Anderson, Mercer Ellington, Herbie Jones, Cootie Williams 

Trombones: Lawrence Brown, Chuck Connors, Buster Cooper

Reeds: Harry Carney, Paul Gonsalves, Jimmy Hamilton, Johnny Hodges, Russell Procope

Thank you to Joe Baxter for sharing with us