The Whole Music Experience

World Maria Ana Bobone Fado & Piano Arc Music I would think by now fado has become a household word around the world with the international fame of Mariza and Ana Moura.   If you’re searching for a queen of fado, you’ll find yourself wading through an ocean of talent.   While Amalia Rodrigues still inspires the Portuguese people and younger generations of fado singers, the younger singers realize that folk traditions live on through innovations.   Maria Ana Bobone though is the first fadista I have come across who plays piano while she belts out fados.   She’s not the first to innovate or to bring in new instruments to a traditional setting since Cristina Branco has included piano on her recordings while also bringing in jazz elements, and Mariza has performed with orchestras or ensembles featuring trumpet and keyboards such as on her album, Fado Curvo . Honoring her generation of singers, Bobone keeps her instrumental arrangements s...

World Perunika Trio A Bright Star Has Risen Arc Music In the late 1980s, Bulgarian choir music reached international audiences when Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares and Trio Bulgarka enjoyed popularity among world music fans.   Trio Bulgarka appeared on Kate Bush’s Sensual World which introduced Bulgarian vocal music to pop and rock audiences.   Further more, Philip Koutev, an arranger and composer also enjoyed popularity while western ears were introduced to open-throat singing and folkloric music of Eastern Europe.   Closer to home, San Francisco-based Kitka also includes Bulgarian folk songs in its repertoire that also includes Balkan, Russian, Ukrainian, and Hungarian songs. Bright, young and beautiful, the women vocalists who comprise Perunika Trio sing polyphony complete with the exclamatory whoop.   Lead by Eugenia Georgieva, the women hail from Bulgaria and Serbia originally and now make their home in the UK where they have won the ...

World Nilson Mattas Black Orpheus Motema Music The Greek myth featuring the love story about Orpheus and Euridice has captured the attention of music and movie makers.   In 1956, the Brazilian play, Orfeu da Conceicão hit the stages and the sound track, record players.   In 1959, French filmmaker Marcel Camus released the Academy Awards-winner Black Orpheus .   And the Brazilians hadn’t their last word.   Brazilian director Carlos Diegues brought us Orfeu in 1999 (which I have seen).   And this month, Brazilian bassist Nilson Mattas pays homage to the legend-love story with his CD Black Orpheus . Featuring 16 musicians performing both original songs, and Antonio Carlos Jobim, Luiz Bonfá and Vinícius de Moraes’ samba and bossa nova classics (from the Brazilian play and French movie) and it feels like Brazilian carnival has marched into my apartment.   Equal parts romantic, and effervescent, Black Orpheus feels like a spot of sun...

World Best of Buena Vista (An homage to Buena Vista Social Club) Arc Music In 1999 when I sat with my film colleagues and a film festival audience to watch Wim Wender’s documentary Buena Vista Social Club , I fell in love with Cuban son.   Coming from a background of youthful rock music, I felt in awe as I watched the octogenarian musicians that comprised Buena Vista Social Club perform sweet songs with total abandonment.   I realized that it takes multiple generations to preserve and perform music.   Since that time, several of the Buena Vistas died, including Compay Segundo, Ibrahim Ferrer, and Rùben Gonzalez.   However, the spirit of Cuban son and Buena Vista Social Club is alive and well, as it appears on Best of Buena Vista. This CD features Pio Leyva, Juan De Marcos (musician responsible for the formation of Buena Vista Social Club), Puntilitta   Licea, Ruby Calzado, Maracaibo Oriental, Josè Artemio Castañeda, Raul Planas an...

World Sērgio Tannus Son Brasilego Folmusica (Spain) When I received a parcel from the Galician label Folmusica, I wasn’t expecting a Brazilian multi-instrumentalist CD.   Yet, Sērgio Tannus Son Brasilego reminds me of the proximity between Galicia (Northwest Spain) to Portugal.   The Gallego language of the Galician people also shares roots with the Portuguese language so even though Brazil is across the world from Spain or Portugal, Brazilian music shares connections with Galicia.   Besides, some of Galicia’s hottest folk musicians teamed up with Tannus on this sunny recording.   And not only that, I was surprised to see two artists (Ceumar and Antonio Zambujo) whose CDs I reviewed in recent months, sing on the songs, Água Quentinha (Ceumar) and Bethoven Tinha Razão (Zambujo). No wonder their voices felt like a deja vu experience. I much prefer the slower, more sensual pieces, but the samba pieces have me wishing for time on a sunny So...

Jazz Catherine Russell Strictly Romancin’ World Village/Harmonia Mundi (2012) A follow-up to her World Village CD, Inside This Heart of Mine Catherine Russell’s Strictly Romancin’ sizzles with nostalgia.   Opening with New Orleans jazz, Under the Spell of the Blues and then following that with the sultry ballad, I’m in the Mood for Love , why not revisit the album this Valentine’s Day? I admit, I’m reviewing the album a year after its release, but that just proves the staying power of this recording.   Russell has style to burn and she seems equally at ease belting out a bluesy piece as she does in conveying heartfelt emotions with the soulful ballads.   She kicks up dust with Wake Up and Live , which will cause listeners to wake up and dance. I enjoy watching Russell’s videos on YouTube too.   Check out her version of the saucy Kitchen Man or any of the promotional pieces from her World Village recordings.   On Strictly Romancin’...

World/ Classical Ballaké Sissoko At Peace Six Degrees Records West African kora, cello, guitar, and balafon (a West African xylophone) comprise Malian kora player Ballaké Sissoko’s At Peace .   After the success of his duo project with French cellist Vincent Segal, Chamber Music , the musical partnership remains strong.   However, At Peace is clearly Sissoko’s spotlight recording with Segal, Moussa Diabate (guitar), Aboubacar Diabate (guitar) and Fassery Diabate (balafon) coming aboard as guests.   During a time when Mali experiences war and oppression, At Peace comes as a sweet breath of air.   During a time when the brightest stars of Mali (the country’s musicians) have been shut out, this music ripples throughout the world.   To put it mildly, the warring factions banned music and musicians in Mali.   However, that hasn’t prevented the musicians from gathering and recording CDs and videos which you can find on YouTube. The...

Quantum Music (Frequency = Attraction) So many times I listen to online spiritual radio shows and webinars and I rarely hear a radio host or spiritual teacher make the connection between a person’s experience and their musical choices.   I understand that this is my piece of the puzzle.  However, Gregg Braden has made this connection in his programs and I’m sure he’s not a lone wolf. However, the usual scenario goes like this.   A person calls in or lands in the “hot seat” for the Abraham/Hicks teachings, for example, and they wax on about how they have used all of the tools offered by Esther Hicks and the Abraham spirit collective, but they keep attracting situations only to end up feeling disappointed when those situations disappear into thin air.   And yes, getting in touch with beliefs and patterns, pivoting negative to positive thoughts, and “softening resistance” are key pieces to magnetic attraction also known as the Law of Attraction.   Howev...

My article on animal communication, music, and spirit animal guides appears in the February 2013 issue of the New Spirit Journal . http://www.newspiritjournal.com/an-animal-carnival-the-music-animal-connection/

Classical Andrea Oliva Angela Hewitt Bach Flute Sonatas Hyperion Records   I feel pleased to start out a new year with the enchanting Bach Flute Sonatas performed by pianist Angela Hewitt and flutist Andrea Oliva.   Out of all the Bach recordings I have heard, I don’t recall hearing tranverse flute (at least not in a sonata setting), but I have heard plenty of recorders.   Towards the end of Bach’s life, the tranverse flute replaced recorders, even though recorders of various types still exist in our time.   As always, questions revolve around the compositions, whether or not Bach co-composed them or if they were written for transverse flute or oboe as in the case with the Sonata in G minor , which might Bach might have co-composed with his son C P E Bach.   Whatever the history is behind the flute sonatas, Oliva and Hewitt breathe a fresh of new air into them.   The original musicians would have played the sonatas on piano and ...

In a previous post I spoke about the noise level with many businesses.  I have reached the point where I wouldn't even want to work for business or organization where I must listen to music all day long.  Don't get me wrong, I love music and I feel passionate about it.  However, too much music is hardly a good thing and can lead to fatigue. As this topic has occupied my brain for some time, today when I was placed on hold for a company I called and had to listen to the company's advertisements and music blasts, I decided to write this post for businesses who still don't get the concept of silence.  And then they wonder why 15 minutes later (hold time) they deal with irate customers.  I would like to see the psychological studies that prove that customers enjoy staying on hold while having advertisements blasted in their ears along with music they might have never liked in the first place.  And who decides the best music for the diverse customers or...

Classical Julian Cochran Extracts From Romanian Dances, Animation Suite and Mazurkas Independent release English pianist virtuoso/composer Julian Cochran gazes fondly at Eastern European folk dances and 19th and 20th century composers who composed mainly for piano.  While Cochran has a good ear for delightful and playful melodies, his compositions don't stray far from piano works by Liszt, Ravel, and Prokofiev.  In fact, my first impression of the opening piece, Russian Toccata  (on the CD Extracts from Romanian Dances...) reminded me of Prokofiev from the first quirky piano phrase, and since I like Prokofiev, I mean "quirky" as a compliment.  While the pieces here are obviously finger-twisters, in their complexity and speed, Cochran plays with these pieces with gleeful abandonment. The folkloric dances appear on tracks 3 through 7 and for this section, I'm reminded of Chopin's dreamy piano works.  The only problem I have with this recording is ...

World Ana Alcaide La Cantiga Del Fuego Arc Music I heard about the Spanish traditional musician Ana Alcaide last December.   Alcaide interests me because the musician/culture preserver/composer/performer went from playing her nyckelharpa (a traditional Swedish keyed-fiddle) on the streets of Toledo, to producing the album La Cantiga Del Fuego which landed on the top of the World Music Chart in Europe. Alcaide’s journey has lasted over a decade thus far, and which also includes higher education in music conservatories in Sweden and Spain, studies in biology, and a fascination with both musical traditions of the Sephardic Jews of Spain and North Africa, as well as, the nyckelharpa.   If you want to know how all of that fits together, then you must listen to La Cantiga Del Fuego , an album filled with stories about love, tragic loss, exile and hope, brimming with the sounds of exotic European and Middle Eastern instruments. Journalists have compared Alca...

World / Jazz Ablaye Cissoko/Volker Goetze Amanké Dionti Motema (2012) The world music duo Ablaye Cissoko, a griot kora player from Senegal and Volker Goetze, a trumpeter originally from Germany returned with another masterful recording, Amanké Dionti .   After the duo’s critically-acclaimed Sira (2008), which married a trumpet’s clear tones with the delicacy of a kora (West African harp) and Cissoko’s Senegalese vocals, transformed both world music and jazz.   Not long after, Sira came into the world, another Euro-African duo, Vincent Segal (France) and Ballaké Sissoko (Mali) wed cello with the kora (this duo has an album out in February 2013). When I listen to Amanké Dionti I wonder what Miles Davis or John Coltrane would have thought of the musical marriage.   The recording fits easily and comfortably into jazz and world music.   I would even squeeze it into world classical and if a new ager didn’t reflect on the socio-political messages ...

Jazz Virginie Teychené Bright and Sweet Jazz Village Jazz and women musicians launched 2013 and already two weeks into the New Year, and I’ve featured several women jazz musicians.   French jazz chanteuse Virginie Teychené arrived in my life like a sweet fragrance.   The name of her latest album, Bright and Sweet tells just as much about the vocalist’s character as it does the sweet, sad, and rousing repertoire she performs.   It has taken me longer to review this recording since I wanted to learn more about Teychené and also the collection of songs chosen for this project. A self-taught vocalist, Teychené impresses me with her vocal style range and her natural instincts as she makes her way around songs by Peggy Lee, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Abbey Lincoln, Billie Holiday, Michel Legrand/Jacques Demy, and other jazz greats from both sides of the Atlantic.   The French vocalist shapes the songs and makes them her own leading listene...

Jazz/Big Band Asuka Kakitani Jazz Orchestra Bloom Nineteen-Eight Records My first musical glimpse of Japanese orchestra leader/big band composer Asuka Kakitani’s Bloom showed promise.   I admire a woman with musical ambition who leads men with horns through complex musical architecture.   However, I have had to listen to the recording in segments since I’ve not been able to sit through its entirety in one sitting.   The problem for me is not the soft wall of horns which includes a dozen or so flugelhorns, trombones, trumpet and saxophones and woodwinds thrown into the mix, but the bop saxophone solos that often ride over slightly dissonant passages, such as one-third of the way through Dragonfly’s Glasses or on the titular track.   However, I enjoy the mercurial opening of that song.   And the horn solo in Dance One with the orchestra playing lightly in the background sounds marvelous. However, Islands in the Stream , peppered by tr...

The Practice The Art of Choosing Background Sounds & Vibrations I had several conversations with an owner of a natural grocery store and the problems he ran into with choices of background music for the store.   Customers have complained about different types of music.   And from his assessment, the store owner came up with a list of types of music that annoy the customers--not something to take lightly in this competitive economy.   Latin music disturbed customers, and ditto for Southeast Asian music (no ragas please), high-pitched anything, guitars or trumpets received complaints, and the usual nostalgic rock/pop that plays in stores bothers me.   Who wants to listen to lyrical stories while shopping for groceries or trying to hold a conversation with someone they encounter while shopping?  I joined a new and fascinating LinkedIn Group on Music and Emotion around the same time I had the conversations with the grocery store owner.   An...