Maxwell to tour U.S.

With his long awaited fourth studio album, BLACKsummers'night, slated for release by Columbia Records on July 7, the contemporary soul artist Maxwell will return to the concert stage for first leg of a major North American tour kicking off June 17 in Grand Rapids, Michigan and finishing July 31 in Miami (please see Maxwell tour itinerary following).Along his 2009 tour route, Maxwell will headline the main stage of the Essence Music Festival in New Orleans on July 4, appear at the BET Music Awards in Los Angeles on June 28, and perform on the CBS "Late Show with David Letterman" on July 10. Tickets for Maxwell's 2009 summer concert tour are available via Ticketmaster www.ticketmaster.com).  Tickets for Maxwell's Milwaukee performance are available at Ticketmaster now with Grand Rapids and Vancouver going on sale Friday, May 22 and Las Vegas going on sale Saturday, May 23.  Please visit Ticketmaster.com for on-sale information for all shows.Maxwell's 2009 summer tour dates mark the artist's first extended run of evening's length concerts since breaking a six-year hiatus from live performance with his standing-room-only US tour in October 2008.  When all 144,000 tickets for that tour sold-out within minutes of going on sale, the itinerary was extended from 26 to 33 cities.   Maxwell's live performances were met with unanimously positive critical responses.  The New York Times praised Maxwell's Radio City Music Hall concert as "exquisite" and "powerful" while the Boston Herald lauded his "awesome talent."  Maxwell premiered new songs from BLACKsummers'night during his 2008 fall tour, among them "Pretty Wings," "Bad Habits," "Help Somebody," and "Cold." BLACKsummers'night is the first full-length Maxwell release since Now, his critically-acclaimed third studio album, debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 in August 2001. BLACKsummers'night is the sensuous opening installment of the artist's monumental BLACKSUMMERS'NIGHT trilogy.  (The trilogy's subsequent chapters, blackSUMMERS'night and blacksummers'NIGHT, are slated for release in 2010 and 2011 respectively.) "Pretty Wings," the first single from BLACKsummers'night, became available through digital service providers on Tuesday, April 28 while a video for the song premiered that same day on BET's "106 & Park" and on musze.com, Maxwell's website. BLACKsummers'night reunites Maxwell with long-time collaborator Hod David, who serves as co-producer and co-writer of the album.   Striving for an emotional authenticity and real world sound for the album, Maxwell and Hod recorded the entire album live in the studio with an a-list ensemble of elegantly sympathetic musicians.