Donna Lombarda è un progetto condiviso du alcuniaritisti - musicisti che hanno partecipato ad una rassegna di incontri musicali che dal 2002 si tiene presso l’Hospice Casa Madonna dell’Uliveto a Montericco di Albinea durante i quali si sono realizzate delle sedute di registrazioni di arrangiamenti originali, da loro composti, ispirati alla musica tradizionale italiana degli Appennini. Per individuare il repertorio di questo cd essenziale è stata la collaborazione con l'Archivio Etnomusicologico «Giorgio Vezzani-Il cantastorie» . Una volta individuato il repertorio è stato naturale per Duck Baker, Bob Brozman, Ed Gerhard e Woody Mann adattarli e rifarli rivivere nella loro sensibilita'. Stiamo infatti parlando di artisti raffinati interpreti della chitarra acustica, che nel corso della loro carriera hanno intrapreso strade molto diverse sviluppando un proprio stile inconfondibile e originale di composizione ed esecuzione e di Massimo Gatti, uno dei migliori interpreti europei del mandolino, che ha affiancato ciascun musicista per un duetto. Grazie alla generosità di questi artisti il ricavato delle vendite verrà totalmente devoluto alla Fondazione Madonna dell’Uliveto che sostiene l’Hospice.
In the autumn of 2002, that same group of friends who two years earlier had founded the hospice Casa Madonna dell'Uliveto in Montericco Albinea, in the foothills to the south of Reggio Emilia, hit upon the idea of organizing a seires of events, musical and otherwise, which was to be called Phos Hilaron, meaning light of joy in Greek.
Our goal was to share not only with the sick and their families, but with whoever wanted to listen to us, our profound belief the sickness and pain should not necessarily become a barricade around those who suffer, a barrier of sadness, solitude and isolation. We were convinced, and are even more so today, that even at such difficult times, room can be made for moments of serenity, of enjoyment and peace with our own fragile and transitory nature.
Thus, over these last few years, one Sunday afternoon every month, this initiative has come to life, thanks to the generosity and enthusiasm of Italian and foreign musicians, artists, and intellectuals.
This was the context in which this project was conceived, then shared with a small group of American musicians who took part in Phos Hilaron. The concerts given at the Casa Madonna dell'Uliveto were followed by a recording session of original arrangements, composed by the musicians themselves, and inspired by the traditional music of the Apennines, the very area in which the hospice is situated.
The majority of the chosen songs were made available by the Ethnomusicological Archive "Giorgio Vezzani - Il cantastorie" thanks to the help of Bruno Grulli. The musicians approached this traditional music as novices from different cultures, but inspired by curiosity and with an extraordinary ability to listen and capture the similarities of differing musical worlds.
Duck Baker, Bob Brozman, Ed Gerhard and Woody Mann, sophisticated interpreters of the acoustic guitar, have all taken different directions in the course of their carriers, each developing his own unmistakable and original style of composition and performance.
Duck favoured free jazz and Celtit music, Bob, with his resonators, old time music and blues, Woody original blues and contemporary jazz, Ed the melody through open tunings and acoustic slide guitar.
They were asked to listen to ancient and more recent melodies, typically played ( although less and less frequently ) at weddings or village fairs in the Apennines and to choose freely the pieces they found most inspiring and to create a totally free arrangement without any philological intent.
Donna Lombarda was the only exception right from the very beginning. As this song is symbolic in Italian folklore, we decided, as jazz players tend to do, to take this as our standard: a piece well enough known to be at once common ground and a means of comparison.
Over the past five yers, in the silence of a house on our mountains, we have explored, listened and recorded the same tune many times over in order to achieve for each musician virtually identical technical and emotional recording conditions. Thanks to the generosity of the artists involved, the proceeds o this cd will go entirely to the Madonna dell'Uliveto Foundation, which maintains the hospice.
The melodies on this record will remain for us a joyful reminder of the extraordinary experience it has been to have had the opportunity to create a bond between human and musical sensitivity, intense yet diverse, united not only by common enthusiasm and love of music, but also by a true sense of human solidarity.
Questa è la seconda collaborazione tra Touré and Diabaté dopo l’incredibile “In The Heart Of The Moon”, datato 2005 e può essere considerato a tutti gli effetti una sorta di testamento musicale del grande artista africano visto che si tratta delle sue ultime registrazioni fortemente volute nonostante la il notevole sofferenza causata dalla malattia. Il seguito del Grammy Award winner sopra citato ripropone le stesse magiche atmosfere di incontaminata bellezza dove ancora una volta si rinnova l’ispirata collaborazione tra i due più importanti artisti del Mali. Nonostante inizialmente la loro collaborazione fosse pianificata solo per un brano, la creatività di questi artisti non è di quelle che si possono contenere e dalle session è scaturito per nostra fortuna questo nuovo materiale che ha permesso la realizzazione di un intero album. Non ci sono state prove e le performance sono state improvvisate sulla base di un repertorio familiare ad entrambi gli artisti con un' atmosfera familiare quasi palpabile.
This self-titled album is a fitting tribute to Toure's and Diabate's genius and friendship and is a beautiful farewell.
All Music Guide
It's a simply formula but it works brillanty. One reason why it is that Diabate adds more than the dazzling cascades of notes that first catch the ear...an album of spellbinging
Uncut
So just what makes Ali & Toumani stronger and wiser than its predecessor ? Perhaps it's simply the diversity and intensity of the musical fantasia the two men create
Songlines
This is a deep, darkly beautiful work. The interplay between these two men is exceedingly rare in any type of music. Ali and Toumani is profound and powerful, with a soft
Pop Matters
"Ali and Toumani" is the seminal meeting of musical greats and the exquisite marriage of varying genres spenning continents and generations
Blues And Soul
Ali and Toumani is a document of friendship and a deeply personal statement that's intemational in scope. It's also effortlessly soulful.
Metro
It's as easy to get lost in telepathic interplay between Toure and Diabate as to let the songs wash over you in shimmering transcendent waves.
Philadelphia Inquirer.
Intoxicating and seductive tracks that we all should consider a privilege to add to our record collections
Vanity Fair
A lovely monument
Independent on Sunday
5 stars
Financial Times
This is a magnificent and poignant farewell
Guardian
It represents the last, precious testament of a hugely influential musician who helped reassert the African roots of blues guitar, captured here alongside his country leading
Independent
To quote The Small Faces, the music on this album really is "all too beautiful"
Daily Mirror
To their admirers, the union of Malian superstars Ali Farka Toure and Toumani Diabate is comparade to Jimi Hendrix jamming with Eric Clapton
The Sun
Ali's vocals a reminder of an African great no longer with us
Evening Standard
Throughout, there is a light as a breeze quality to the music-making but also a timeless depth, a gentle profundity, it's irresistible.
New Jersey Star Ledger
To put it simply, Ali and Toumani is a quite, intimate, timeless record; a trascendent expression of cultural pride, deep friendship, and above all, breath-taking musical
Dusted Magazine
Buy without fear, then , and figure it out for yourself
The Times
When you're listening to this album it's like you're reading a book about Ali
AOL Shoutcast
These brillant, beautiful albums are the very opposite of musicianly duets; anachronous in the best possible way.
Observer
Beaufitully recorded, Ali & Toumani lives up to and perhaps exceeds expectations.
BBC Music Online
You get the feel of two of the world's greatest musicians in a room togegher, having a conversation and crating a document that will carry their legacy into the future.
Pitchfork
Catch it in the night mood and you'll fall blissfully in love
Dazed and Confused.
The pair's obvious.communication produces some of the richest music in Mali in these albums.
Arts Desk
Another mesmeric tribute to Ali's legacy
Observer Music Monthly
The 11 tracks weave a binding spell
Q Magazine
While the younger man's kora solos still dazzle, what Toure is doing in the other speakers is never less than mesmeric, his riffs and curlicues suggesting a wide smile across his...
Mojo
Discografia Ali Farka Toure
WC 007 ALI FARKA TOURE Same WC 017 ALI FARKA TOURE The River WC 030 ALI FARKA TOURE The Source WC 040 RY COODER WITH ALI FARKA TOURE Talking Timbuktu WC 044 ALI FARKA TOURE Radio Mali WC 053 AFEL BOCOUM & ALI FARKA TOURE Alkibar WC 054 ALI FARKA TOURE Niafunke WC 070 ALI FARKA TOURE Red & Green WC 075 ALI FARKA TOURE Savane
Discografia Ali Farka Toure e Toumani Diabate
WC 072 ALI FARKA TOURE & TOUMANI DIABATE' In The Heart Of The Moon WC 083 ALI FARKA TOURE & TOUMANI DIABATE Ali And Toumani
Discografia Toumani Diabate
WC 074 TOUMANI DIABATE'S SYMMETRIC ORCHES. Boulevard De Indipendence WC 079 TOUMANI DIABATE The Mandè Variations
ALI FARKA TOURE: 1939 - 2006
Ali Farka Touré was born in 1939 in the village of Kanau on the banks of the River Niger in the north west of Mali. He was his mother's tenth son but the first to survive infancy. '' I lost nine brothers of the same mother and father. The name I was given was Ali Ibrahim, but it's a custom in Africa to give a child a strange nickname if you have had other children that have died.'' The nickname they chose for Ali was 'Farka' meaning donkey, an animal admired for its strength and tenacity. ''But let me make one thing clear'' he said, ''I'm the donkey that nobody climbs on!''
When Ali was still an infant his father died while serving in the French army, and the family moved south along the river to Niafunké, the village Ali called home for the rest of his life.
With a population of over twenty thousand, Niafunké is one of the larger villages which scatter this sparse, arid semi-desert region. The fact that they have only recently installed telephone lines and electricity contributes to the tranquil atmosphere and there is always the cooling breeze from the river. People make their living by farming, cattle herding and fishing.
Ali was Niafunké's most famous citizen. Although internationally known as a musician he regarded himself as a farmer. In Mali, music is largely the monopoly of castes of hereditary musicians, but Ali came from a noble background. There is no tradition of music in his family, but he had a calling early on in life, becoming he said "drawn to music by its power". He was a 'child of the river'.
In Niafunké, as in the most of Mali, the dominant religion is Islam and Ali was a devout Muslim. But in this part of the world Islam co-exists with a much older indigenous belief system connected with the mysterious power of the Niger. It is believed that under the water there is a world of spirits called Ghimbala - male and female djinns with their own character, history, symbolic colours and ritual objects, all vividly portrayed in the local mythology. These djinns control both the spiritual and temporal world. Those who have the gift to communicate with the spirits are called 'children of the river'.
Ali had no formal schooling and his childhood was taken up by farming, followed by an apprenticeship as a tailor. But he was also mesmerised by the music played at Ghimbala spirit ceremonies in the villages along the banks of the Niger. He would sit and listen in awe as musicians sang and played the favoured instruments of the spirits; djerkel single string guitar, njarka single string violin and ngoni four string lute. His family did not regard music as a worthy occupation and the boy's interest was not encouraged. He was, however, a fiercely independent and self-determined youth and at the age of twelve he fashioned his first instrument, a djerkel guitar.
Ali found it very easy and natural to learn to play. Early on however he suffered attacks caused by his contact with the spirit world. He was sent away to a neighbouring village to be cured, and when he returned a year later he quickly became recognised for his power to communicate with the spirits. Ali was greatly influenced by his grandmother Kounandi Samba who was famous in the area as a priestess of the Ghimbala. But after her death, he was dissuaded from becoming a priest. ''Because of Islam, I don't want to practise this type of thing too much.....these spirits can be good to you or bad, so I just sing about them, but it's our culture, we can't pass it by.'' Many of his songs are about the spirits and he always travelled with his njarka violin as well as recordings of spirit music which he listened to whenever possible.
As a teenager Ali found work as a taxi driver and car mechanic and he also spent some time as a river ambulance pilot. He travelled widely in these jobs and continued to play music in ceremonies and for pleasure, with small groups and as accompanist to singers. By his early twenties he had learnt seven Malian languages fluently and had mastered the ngoni (traditional four string lute), njarka vioin and Peul bamboo flute. He was also well on his way to absorbing a vast repertoire of music and legend from the various masters he encountered on his travels.
'' I got to know music and to love it through so many heroes who passed on and who continue to live on the earth, because history remains. So it gave me the opportunity to get to know the culture of this music, its biography, legends and history.''
Ali was Sonraï, a people who form the majority of the population of Niafunké, but there are also many other peoples in the region speaking numerous languages - Peul, Bambara, Dogon, Songoy, Zarma, Bobo, Bozo and Tamascheq, the language of the Touareg. Touré sang in all these languages but the majority of his repertoire was in Sonraï and Peul.
In 1956 during his travels Ali saw a performance by the National Ballet of Guinea featuring the great Malinke guitarist Keita Fodeba. ''That's when I swore I would become a guitarist, I didn't know his guitar but I liked it a lot. I felt I had as much music as him and that I could translate it.'' He began to play using borrowed guitars and found it easy to translate his traditional guitar technique to the Western instrument. He said that his only problem was in keeping all six strings happy by touching them as he was used to only playing the monochord. At about the same time, he added percussion, drums (he made his own kit complete with cymbals and bass drum) and accordion to his musical skills (even making a few appearances performing Charles Aznavour repertoire!).
Upon Mali gaining independence from the French in 1960 the new government under President Modibo Keita initiated a policy to promote the arts and cultural troupes were formed to represent each of Mali's six administrative regions. From 1962 Ali worked with the Niafunké district troupe, which he co-led with Harbarie Labéré. He composed, sang, played guitar and rehearsed singers and dancers in a troupe numbering a hundred and seventeen people. He was extremely proud of the troupe which was successful in the biannual competitions held in Mopti throughout the 1960's. Ali also won numerous athletic prizes. ''I did this so my village wouldn't win zero. I'm very patriotic!'' In the sixties he also accompanied various singers and he had his own small group, a recording of which from the late 1960s includes a song sung in Sonraï to a Cuban salsa rhythm.
In 1968 (the year Modibo Keita was ousted in a coup by Moussa Traore) Ali made his first trip outside Africa when he was selected (along with the revered musicians Kelitigui Diabaté and Djelimady Tounkara) to represent Mali at an international festival of the arts in Sofia, Bulgaria. They performed arrangements of traditional music with Ali on guitar, flute, djerkel and njarka. It was in Sofia on 21st April 1968 that he bought his first guitar.
Also in 1968 a student friend in Bamako played him records by James Brown, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Jimmy Smith and Albert King. Ali remained a great fan of all these, partly he said because he heard so much of his own traditions in them. Of all this music, the one which struck him as most similar to his own, was the blues especially as performed by John Lee Hooker. He was immediately struck by the thought that "this music has been taken from here" and was surprised to hear singing in English.
In 1970 Ali's work took him from Niafunké to Mopti and later in the year to the capital Bamako. Here he began a decade working for National Radio Mali as a sound engineer. He also played as part of Radio Mali's orchestra until it was disbanded in 1973. Throughout the 1970's he brought his unique guitar style to the attention of the country via many radio broadcasts. On the advice of a journalist friend he sent a number of recordings of these broadcasts to the Son Afric record company in Paris.
In a matter of months the first Ali Farka Touré album (amongst the very first commercial records of Malian music) featuring Ali on guitar and vocals and Nassourou Sarre on ngoni was released. He continued to record in Bamako and send the tapes to Paris and a total of seven albums were released. Selections from the first five of these albums have been released by World Circuit as the CD 'Radio Mali'.
Throughout the 1970's Ali established a formidable reputation in Mali as a unique solo artist. He pioneered and perfected the adaptation of Sonraï, Peul and Tamascheq styles to the guitar. He remained uncompromisingly wedded to his traditional music, refusing to ''go commercial''. His songs celebrate love, friendship, peace, the land, the spirits, the river and Malian unity; all expressed in dense metaphors.
In 1986 one of his Radio Mali recorded albums (re-released on World Circuit as part of Red and Green in 2004), started to generate great interest amongst radio d.j.'s in London including Andy Kershaw and Charlie Gillett. It also came to the attention of Folk Roots magazine; with no information on the record sleeve the journal puzzled over this African musician who played the blues in such an individual way.
Anne Hunt from World Circuit travelled to Bamako to seek out this mysterious man. With the help of Toumani Diabate a broadcast was made on Radio Mali asking Ali to present himself. Ali had moved back to Niafunké four years earlier but at the time of the broadcast was visiting the capital. An invitation was made for Ali to perform in the U.K. and in 1987 for the first time since the Sofia Festival in 1968, Touré he played his first concerts outside Africa. Showing no signs of nerves or unfamiliarity with his surroundings, and with absolute and supreme confidence in his music, he played a masterful series of shows winning audiences everywhere. In the same year his first recording outside Africa was an instant success for the World Circuit label.
Since then he has undertaken extensive tours of Europe, U.S.A, Canada, Brazil and Japan and has recorded a further five albums for the label, including 'The River', 'The Source', and the GRAMMY Award winning 'Talking Timbuktu', a collaboration with Ry Cooder which served to confirm Ali's status as an artist of international repute.
Despite his amazing international success, Ali became increasingly reluctant to leave his farm in Niafunké. World Circuit's Nick Gold decided that the only way the make another record with him was to bring the studio to Niafunké. The studio was set up in an abandoned agricultural school, and the recording had to be fitted in between tending the land, with the crops always coming first. The resulting album 'Niafunké' was released in 1999.
After that, Ali returned to what he saw as his main role in life, looking after his farm and being with his family. Ali was actively involved with ongoing irrigation projects to better the agricultural situation in the Niafunké region and this culminated in his election in 2004 as Mayor of Niafunké.
Although choosing to retire from music as his full time career, and rarely playing live, Ali stated that should he feel suitably inspired, or have an issue that needs to be addressed he would record again. In 2003, he participated in the documentary 'Feel Like Going Home'. Directed by Martin Scorsese, the film traces the history of the blues from the banks of the Niger to the Mississippi Delta, and would bring Ali to an even wider audience. Ali had also been researching his local music and culture, with the aim of preserving it for future generations, and this had inspired him to play and record again. In 2004 after turning down endless lucrative offers to perform, Ali accepted an invitation to play at the tiny Privas festival in France for no fee. Ali began 2005 with his first major concert in Europe for five years, his show at the BOZAR in Brussels, which featured a guest appearance from Toumani Diabaté, was greeted with frenzied excitement from fans and press alike.
In 2005 the first of a trilogy of albums recorded at Bamako's Hotel Mandé was released. 'In the Heart of the Moon' a duet album with Toumani Diabaté won a GRAMMY award making Ali the only African to have received two such prestigious honours. Shortly following the album's release Ali played a series of brilliant European concerts with his unique down-home ngoni band featured on his new album, 'Savane' the third in the Hotel Mandé series. Toumani accompanied Ali on those live dates, prior to which they spent 3 days in a London studio recording the follow up to 'In the Heart of the Moon'. Featuring contributions from Orlando 'Cachaíto' López on bass, the album 'Ali and Toumani' is released in February 2010.
Sadly, Ali would not see the release of 'Savane'. Just a few weeks after winning his second GRAMMY and approving the album's final master, Ali succumbed to the bone cancer with which he had suffered from for the preceding two years. He died in Bamako on March 7th 2006 and was buried in Niafunké.
In Mali, Ali was accorded a posthumous Commandeur de l'Ordre National du Mali (the country's highest honour) and a state funeral attended by all the country's senior politicians and major music stars as well as thousands of ordinary people. The worldwide media coverage of his death was unprecedented for an African musician and messages poured in from fans around the world. All this for a musician who considered himself first and foremost a farmer.
Ali Farka Touré was a true original. An exceptional musician, he transposed the traditional music of his native north Mali and single-handedly brought the style known as desert blues to an international audience. He was a giant of African music and will be missed by fans throughout the world.
Original text by Lucy Duran (updated by Nick Gold & Dave McGuire)
TOUMANI DIABATE
Toumani Diabaté is one of the most important musicians in Africa. Toumani plays the kora, a harp unique to West Africa with 21 strings; and more than any other kora player it is Toumani who is responsible for bringing this instrument to audiences around the world. He is a performer of truly exceptional virtuosity and creativity - someone who shows that the kora can rival the world's greatest instruments.
Toumani was born in Bamako, the capital of Mali, in 1965 into a family of exceptional griots (hereditary musician/historian caste); his research shows 71 generations of kora players from father to son. The most notable was his father, Sidiki Diabaté (c. 1922-96), a kora player of legendary fame in West Africa - dubbed King of the Kora at the prestigious international Black Arts Festival Festac in 1977, and a continuing inspiration to all kora players to this day. Sidiki was born in the Gambia of Malian parents. He settled in Mali after the second world war, where he became famous for his virtuoso "hot" and idiosyncratic style of playing (echoes of which can be heard in Toumani's style). After Mali became independent in 1960, Sidiki was invited to join the Ensemble National Instrumental - a government sponsored group formed to celebrate the richness of Malian culture - along with his first wife, Toumani's mother, the singer Nene Koita. Sidiki and Nene were much favoured by the first president, Modibo Keita - who gave them the land on which the family house now stands, underneath the presidential palace in Bamako.
This was the musical environment in which Toumani was raised - though in fact, he was self-taught, never learning directly from his father except by listening. In the 1960s, and more so the 70s, the Bamako music scene was being influenced by sounds from further afield, especially black American music: soul music was particularly popular as was Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Smith, and British rock acts such as Led Zeppelin. Exposure to these sounds, and Bamako's modern ensembles, would both be important to Toumani's musical development.
A child prodigy, Toumani began playing the kora at the age of five, and at that time, the Malian Government was engaged in an active programme of encouraging regional ensembles to represent local traditions. Toumani was recruited to the ensemble from Koulikoro (some 60 kms east of Bamako) with whom he made his public debut at the age of 13 to great local acclaim. In 1984 Toumani joined the group of brilliant young musicians who accompanied the great diva Kandia Kouyate, the best known and most powerful female griot singer in Mali, with whom he toured Africa extensively, still only 19 years old.
Although not learning directly from his father Toumani took from him the idea of developing the kora as a solo instrument, and then took it to another level. Toumani discovered a way to play bass, rhythm and solo all at the same time on the kora, a method which would take him to the world stage. Toumani first came to the Europe in 1986 to accompany another Malian singer, Ousmane Sacko, and ended up staying in London for seven months. During this period, at the age of 21, he recorded his first solo album 'Kaira'. This was a groundbreaking album - it was the first ever solo kora album and it still remains a best seller and one of the finest albums of kora music to date. In 1986 Toumani also made his first appearance at a WOMAD festival at which he made a significant impact.
During this period in the UK he met and worked informally with musicians from many different fields of music and encountered traditions that he had not previously known, such as Indian classical music, from which he derived the "jugalbandi" idea (musical dialogue between two instruments) that has since become one of his trademarks.
His first major recorded collaboration was with the Spanish flamenco group Ketama. When he first met them they immediately began doing "palmas" (interlocked flamenco clapping) to his music. Toumani couldn't believe that that they could have such an understanding of the rhythmic complexities of his music; it was as if they had always been listening to each other's traditions. The resulting album 'Songhai', with pieces like Jarabi, was a perfect synthesis of kora and flamenco.
For Toumani experimentation is simply part of the job of a modern griot, "The griot's role is making communication between people, but not just historical communication. In Mali I can work in the traditional way, elsewhere I can work in a different way. Why not?" In 1990 Toumani formed the Symmetric Orchestra. For Toumani the name evokes a perfect balance - a symmetry - between tradition and modernity, and between the contributions of musicians from a number of closely related countries. Senegal, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, and Mali itself, were all part of the medieval Mandé Empire. Toumani had the idea of recreating the cultural equilibrium of the Mandé Empire in a modern musical context - offsetting traditional and electric guitars with hard-edged sabar drumming; praise-singing and lute-riffing alongside pounding kit drums, with Toumani's own rippling kora phrases through it all. The orchestra name was first used on CD with the elaborate 1992 project, 'Shake The Whole World', released only in Japan and Mali. Maintaining a weekly residence at the Hogon in Bamako throughout Toumani's career, the group continued to evolve and grow over the years culminating in the release of the acclaimed album 'Boulevard de l'Indépendance' in 2005, and the extensive international touring that followed.
In the early-mid 1990s, in Bamako, Toumani began to gather around him a number of exceptionally talented musicians such as the brilliant Bassekou Kouyate on the ngoni, and Keletigui Diabaté on balafon, cultivating a certain sound and approach to his music -with a type of jazz-jugalbandi-griot instrumental ensemble which can be heard on his album 'Djelika' (as in the piece Kandjoura) released in 1995. In the same year Toumani travelled to Madrid to record 'Songhai 2'.
In 1998 he recorded a kora duet album with Ballake Sissoko; their two fathers released the 1970s classic Cordes Anciennes (Ancient Strings), so the new album was called 'New Ancient Strings', it was their tribute to the original record and an attempt at bringing such material to a modern audience.
The connections between the blues and West African music are well known. Taj Mahal had listened to, and played with, many great kora players, and what most struck him as bearing an uncanny resemblance with the blues was the plucking techniques of the kora and other Malian string instruments. "They say that blues and jazz came from Africa" says Toumani." "The kora and ngoni, they're very old, many centuries old. So maybe the blues were once being played on these instruments. Making the album with Taj is like bringing the old and new together." The album 'Kulanjan' was released in 1999.
Constantly looking to evolve and innovate, Toumani's next album 'MALIcool' with American free jazz trombonist Roswell Rudd saw him take another step out on the edge. The arrangements on this album are sparse, leaving everybody room to improvise, and there are a few unexpected pieces such as an interpretation of Thelonius Monk's 'Hank', a swinging version of a Welsh folk song, and a leftfield take on Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy'.
Toumani has participated in many other recording projects both at home and abroad: he appears on Ali Farka Touré's eponymous debut album for World Circuit; he toured with Salif Keita and appears on both his acclaimed album "Papa" and his latest release 'Mbemba'; he was part of Damon Albarn's 'Mali Music' project; he is featured on Kasse Mady Diabaté's 2004 Grammy nominated album "Kassi Kasse", and in 2007 he featured on the track 'Hope' on Björk's album 'Volta' leading to an inspired guest appearance on her set at the Glastonbury Festival.
In recent years Toumani has been enjoying recognition for his contribution to the development of the kora, and as a key figure in African music. In 2004 he received the Zyriab des Virtuoses, a UNESCO prize awarded at the Mawazine Festival organised by King Mohammed 6th of Morocco. He is the first black African ever to be given the prize. Toumani is an active and dynamic member of the Malian musical community, and influential to the new generation. He has been taking steps to help preserve the legacy of traditional kora music in Mali, and to educate future generations of their rich musical heritage, whilst encouraging them to also explore the creative possibilities within music. He is President/Director of Mandinka Kora Productions, who actively promote the kora through workshops, festivals, and various cultural events. Toumani is also a teacher of the kora and of modern and traditional music at the Balla Fasseke Conservatoire of Arts, Culture and Multimedia, which opened in Bamako at the end of 2004.
2004 also saw Toumani begin working with World Circuit for a trilogy of albums recorded at sessions in the Mandé Hotel in Bamako. The first release from these sessions was the duets album 'In the Heart of the Moon' recorded with the great Ali Farka Touré, which won the Best Traditional World Music Album GRAMMY Award. Second in the trilogy was 'Boulevard de l'Indépendance' by Toumani Diabaté's Symmetric Orchestra, packing the fruit of ten years of experimentation into some of the densest, punchiest, most richly textured music to have come out Africa (the third part being Ali's final solo album 'Savane'). Toumani accompanied Ali on his last concert tour in the summer of 2005 during which they spent 3 days in a London studio recording the follow up to 'In the Heart of the Moon'. Featuring contributions from Orlando 'Cachaíto' López on bass, 'Ali and Toumani' further demonstrates the magic bond between the two masters, the album sees its long awaited release in February 2010.
The Symmetric Orchestra proved to be a revelation on the international touring scene. Taking time out from their weekly residency at Bamako's Hogon club (recently moved to Le Diplomat), the band have been building a reputation for themselves at their own headline concerts at venues such as New York's Carnegie Hall, and festival appearances such as Glastonbury, Nice Jazz Festival, and Montreal Jazz Festival.
In addition to this hive of activity, Toumani was also busy working on his new album 'The Mandé Variations', released in February 2008. Having spent years refining and perfecting his technique to an unparalleled level Toumani's career comes full circle. 'The Mandé Variations' is all-acoustic, Toumani's first album of solo kora since his groundbreaking debut album 'Kaira' released over twenty years ago.
Both the album and subsequent solo recitals were met with universal critical acclaim, with the return to a more intimate setting also proving extremely popular with the listening public. Toumani would also go on to perform a special concert with the London Symphony Orchestra which may prompt further explorations in classical music; and the year came to an exciting end with Toumani being nominated for another GRAMMY Award and an NAACP Image Award for 'The Mandé Variations'. Toumani was appointed UNAIDS Goodwill Ambassador in December 2008, using his music to spread awareness on HIV and AIDS, and he has already participated in various outreach projects in Mali.
Following the release of the album 'Ali and Toumani', Toumani Diabaté and his band will play his interpretations of the music of Ali Farka Touré in a series of special concerts starting in April 2010.
Throughout Toumani's career, each of the albums he has released are distinctly unique and highlight his diversity as a musician. This is indeed what Toumani is so good at - bringing together the old and new in timeless beautiful music, the very best that Africa has.
Based on original text by Lucy Duran; adaptation and additional text by Dave McGuire
Four-time Academy Award® nominee Jeff Bridges stars as the richly comic, semi-tragic romantic anti-hero Bad Blake in the debut feature film from writer-director Scott Cooper. Bad Blake is a broken-down, hard-living country music singer who's had way too many marriages, far too many years on the road and one too many drinks way too many times. And yet, Bad can’t help but reach for salvation with the help of Jean (Maggie Gyllenhall), a journalist who discovers the real man behind the musician. As he struggles down the road of redemption, Bad learns the hard way just how tough life can be on one man’s crazy heart.
Crazy Heart: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack includes 16 songs from the film. A deluxe edition of the soundtrack featuring all 23 songs from the film, sequenced in their running order, is also available. The soundtrack was co-produced by 10-time Grammy® Award winner T Bone Burnett. Burnett, who co-produced the soundtrack with guitarist/songwriter Stephen Bruton, earned past Grammy Awards for his work on the 8-times Platinum release, O Brother Where Art Thou? and Platinum soundtrack to the Johnny Cash biopic, Walk The Line.
The film is dedicated to Bruton, a lifelong friend of Burnett who passed away in 2009. In a long and distinguished career, Bruton excelled as a musician, songwriter and producer. He played guitar with Kris Kristofferson since the early 70s, had songs recorded by Bonnie Raitt, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash among others, and released five records as a solo artist, the last three for New West. Just before passing, Bruton was working on Crazy Heart both musically and in a consultation role for Bridges. Bruton was able to see the completion of the project before his death.
Stephen Bruton
Renowned, Texas musician, Stephen Bruton had a long and distinguished career as a musician, songwriter and producer. He released five records as a solo artist, the last three for the New West Records label. As a lead guitar player Bruton was in high demand among legendary contemporaries including Kris Kristofferson and Bonnie Raitt. He recorded with Delbert McClinton, T Bone Burnett, Elvis Costello, Carly Simon, The Wallflowers, Sonny Landreth, Peter Case, Ray Wylie Hubbard and a slew of others. He produced records for Alejandro Escovedo, Marcia Ball and Jimmie Dale Gilmore to name a few. Bruton's songs have been widely covered as well, by artists including Raitt, Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Jimmy Buffett, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Martina McBride and Patty Loveless.
Tracklist
Hold On You ( Performed by Jeff Bridges
Hello Trouble Performed by Buck Owens
My Baby’s Gone Performed by The Louvin Brothers
Somebody Else ( Performed by Jeff Bridges
I Don’t Know Performed by Ryan Bingham
Fallin’ & Flyin’ Performed by Jeff Bridges
I Don’t Know Performed by Jeff Bridges
Once A Gambler Performed By Lightnin’ Hopkins
Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way Performed by Waylon Jennings
Fallin’ & Flyin’ Performed by Colin Farrell & Jeff Bridges
Gone, Gone, Gone ( Performed by Colin Farrell
If I Needed You Performed by Townes Van Zandt
Reflecting Light Performed by Sam Phillips
Live Forever Performed by Robert Duvall
Brand New Angel Performed by Jeff Bridges
The Weary Kind (Theme From Crazy Heart) Performed by Ryan Bingham
Matthew Shipp’s new solo piano CD, "4D" is the complete synthesis and culmination of all of his past Thirsty Ear releases, with the added wrinkle of standards reinterpreted as only he could muster, while combining his own brand of composition to the mix. His musical language, having been as refined, and mutated as has his career, (notably alongside Thirst Ear’s own genre defying sensibilities.) continues to grow at exponential rates, allowing Mr. Shipp to fully explore the hidden aspects of jazz.
Matthew Shipp was born December 7, 1960 in Wilmington, Delaware. He started piano at 5 years old with the regular piano lessons most kids have experienced. He fell in love with jazz at 12 years old. After moving to New York in 1984 he quickly became one of the leading lights in the New York jazz scene. He was a sideman in the David S. Ware quartet and also for Roscoe Mitchell’s Note Factory before making the decision to concentrate on his own music.
Mr Shipp has reached the holy grail of jazz in that he possesses a unique style on his instrument that is all of his own- and he’s one of the few in jazz that can say so. Mr. Shipp has recorded a lot of albums with many labels but his 2 most enduring relationships have been with two labels. In the 1990s he recorded a number of chamber jazz cds with Hatology, a group of cds that charted a new course for jazz that, to this day, the jazz world has not realized. In the 2000s Mr Shipp has been curator and director of the label Thirsty Ear’s “Blue Series” and has also recorded for them. In this collection of recordings he has generated a whole body of work that is visionary, far reaching and many faceted .
Matthew Shipp is truly one of the leading lights of a new generation of jazz giants.
Rassegna Stampa Internazionale su 4D
Every aspect of music making sets off a calculation, in real time, for Matthew Shipp. “4D” (Thirsty Ear), due out on Tuesday, is his new solo piano release, described by its maker as an artistic culmination. (Mr. Shipp has also called it his last album, but he has said that before.)
With a track listing that puts “Prelude to a Kiss” alongside original themes like “Dark Matter” and “Equilibrium,” the album refutes hierarchy; every theme is subject to revision or recontextualization. (“Primal Harmonic,” Mr. Shipp’s oblique nod to Alice Coltrane, comes bracketed by stern readings of “Greensleeves” and “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”) The atmosphere is somber, thick, a little messy. But in the percussive nub and tangled undergrowth of his playing, and in his penchant for provocation, Mr. Shipp is finding success on his own terms.
Shipp's initial inspiration was Bud Powell, who to a great extent is the underpinning of his music. The unfettered approach of the formidable technician and free adventurer Cecil Taylor is a potent strain in Shipp's work, but no matter how far out he goes, Shipp's sense of chord and line movement puts him closer to Powell than Taylor ever was.
That is evident throughout the solo album 4D, nowhere more emphatically than in the roiling forward movement and occasional bebop phraseology of “Equilibrium," which also has hints of Thelonious Monk and Earl Hines. In its opening bars, “Teleportation" bows even lower in Powell's direction.
Throughout the album, Shipp glimpses other presences; John Coltrane in “Dark Matter" and “Stairs," Taylor in “Jazz Paradox," Ellington in “Prelude to a Kiss." But to dwell on evidence of his influences is to ignore Shipp's originality, which is bolstered by redoubtable technique. He sometimes holds his keyboard prowess in reserve, but when he unleashes it, as he does in a joyful “What is This Thing Called Love," it can be dazzling.
In addition to the two standards named above and his compositions (or spontaneous creations; it's difficult to be certain), Shipp applies his daring, ferocity and wit to “Autumn Leaves," “Greensleeves," “What a Friend We Have in Jesus" and “Frere Jacques." “Frere Jacques?" Yes. Shipp proves that it is possible to operate out there on the edge without losing sight of the fundamentals.
Jazz pianist, composer, and producer Matthew Shipp has been through many phases in his long career. Since he began his association with Thirsty Ear, he has curated its Blue Series. Through this endeavor, Shipp has not only stretched the definitions of jazz, but also exponentially advanced his own ideas about it conceptually and technically.
4D is divided roughly into halves: one is a series of original compositions; the other interpretations of standards and folk songs.
It sums up his musical sense, but more importantly, points to new horizons. The strident physicality of his early recordings has given way to a (somewhat more) nuanced touch and fluidity that relies heavily on counterpoint, expansive harmonics, and spaciousness. Dissonance still plays a necessary role in this work as it is heard in both aspects of the album, but it is heightened by a wonderfully complex lyricism that is now predominant.
The Monk-ish intro in “The Crack in the Piano’s Egg” offers a starting point for both harmonic investigation of theme, and a tonal pronouncement of rhythm and its relationship to his subtly expressed lyricism. He places large minor chords in the lower-middle register to push at the tune's time, contrasted by his quoting of Monk and Ellington with his right hand; then improvising with both.
The brief “Equilibrium” reveals classical notions of counterpoint and its relationship to the jazz tradition. “Teleportation” is an angular post-bop tune that nearly swings even in its labyrinthine dissonance and sophisticated technical facility.
In “You Don’t Know What Love Is” and “Prelude to a Kiss,” Shipp allows the original melodies to fully inhabit his improvisations -- especially in the left hand -- even as his movement of the tunes' architectures expands their margins with an elegant --if dissonant -- harmonic extrapolation. “Frere Jacques” becomes equal parts Bartók and a musical form of French rondelet, with startlingly forceful lower-register improvisation employed as a bridge.
A mysterious improvisation called “Primal Harmonic” (touching on Bach and Art Tatum) introduces an angular, yet lovely “Greensleeves” to close out this marvelous program. On 4D, Shipp nods to history with depth perception and articulates his new direction gracefully.
"The pianist digs deep, often bringing a molten motion to his work -- it's thick with ideas. On the upcoming 4d,you can hear this deliberate approach unfold; every left hand depth charge and right hand squiggle justifies their existence." -- Village Voice
The always searching vanguard pianist Matthew Shipp goes it alone on "4D" (Thirsty Ear, in stores Tuesday), offering an inventive and remarkably concentrated set of solo performances. Shipp has always connected the dots between the avant-garde and the maverick spirit of Thelonious Monk and others, but there is a special majesty and clarity in the synthesis here.
Working through a program of epigrammatic originals -- along with a few idiosyncratic readings of standards like "Autumn Leaves" and "Prelude to a Kiss" -- Shipp spins out discursive improvisations, balancing skittering and jabbing rhythms with stream-of-consciousness melody. Some pieces sway, some swoosh, some swing, some sigh. And the lyrical chords that open "Stairs" reach for the sublime.
"4D is a striking array of old and new allegories right and left with pianistics solely for the satisfaction immersion.It is flatly stunning." -- Brilliant Corners, a Boston Jazz blog
For a while around the turn of the millennium, avant-jazz pianist Matthew Shipp threatened to stop recording. One could understand why: he’s prolific beyond belief, and one could understand that an artist in the ‘out jazz’ realm might be fearful that an overly compendious catalog might be harmful to sales and recouping recording costs. Happily for those of us who wanted MORE from Matthew, he decided not to stay away from the studio, and has continued to record prolifically.
Shipp has also served as the curator of Thirsty Ear’s Blue Series, an imprint that has served to blur the boundaries of free and neo-trad jazz, and of jazz with other stylistic categories: electronica, hip hop, and even contemporary concert music. On his latest release, 4D, he’s continued in this vein. A solo outing, it presents both Shipp originals and standards. He even tackles venerable chestnuts such as “Prelude to a Kiss” and “Autumn Leaves,” as well as the gospel hymn “What a Friend we have in Jesus.”
"Shipp's playing is like some kind of inverted, dark-matter version of whatever you think a jazz pianist is going to sound like."
"The shape of the lines,the concept of melody,follows a strange original logic that is a tonic for so much else that deadens the ear." --Seattle Weekly
This is the third album on the Dixiefrog imprint from the First Nation, Tuscarora Indian poetess and folksinger, in the Wake of the remarkable Indian Rez Blues box that she recently used as an introduction to the works of her fellow Native American artists. Sailing from traditional melodies to scorching blues with her usual grâce and dedication, she adds a healthy sprinkling of rap and canoe chants to her music before leading us all the way to Southern America where the eagle meets the condor. Pure magic!
"This album is really a combination of electric and more grass roots. Because...I have so many expressions and genres and bloods within me.... I will never stop creating a little this and a little that. I feel everyghing and it is not intentional, it just ends up an indefinable find of music..." Pure Fe'
Pura Fe' is a founding member of the internationally renowned native women a capella trio, Ulali, and is recognized for creating a new genre, bringing Native contemporary music to the forefront of the mainstream music industry.
Pura Fe' launched her solo career with the album ‘Follow Your Heart’s Desire' on the Music Maker Relief Foundation label. Her soulful voice and acoustic lap steel slide guitar, carries the ancestral message of the “Indigenous World” and the missing history that unified and separated the blood ties of Black and Indian people of the South. With a fresh new take, Pura Fe resurrects and elegantly states the common bond and the indigenous influence on the “birth of the Blues”.
Pura Fé has released two more albums including her solo album, ‘Hold The Rain’ on Music Maker Relief Foundation label and European distribution by Dixie Frog label (France) and her most recent album, ‘Full Moon Rising’. ‘Hold The Rain’ is a more personal collection of music where Pura Fé is joined by one of Seattle’s finest guitarist, Danny Godinez.
In 2006 after the release of this album, Pura Fe’ won a Nammy (Native American Music Award) for Best Female Artist. She also won a L’académie Charles Cros Award (France) for Best World Album.
‘Full Moon Rising’, released on the Dixie Frog label, ranges from traditional melodies to scorching blues with her usual grace and dedication. In this album, Pura Fe adds a healthy sprinkling of rap and canoe chants to her music before leading us all the way to Southern America where the eagle meets the condor.
Drummer and composer Matt Wilson describes his eighth record as a leader on Palmetto Records, That’s Gonna Leave a Mark, in terms of honesty and family. The first album by Wilson’s Quartet since 2003’s Humidity, Wilson views it as “getting a chance to have this great band record again!” Alongside Wilson, alto saxophonist D’Angelo, tenor saxophonist Jeff Lederer and bassist Chris Lightcap are all in fine form. All the members of the Quartet have played together since the late 1990s, though this marks Lightcap’s first recorded appearance with the group.
The intimate bond between all the musicians is palpable on the album. Recorded by Matt Balitsaris at Maggie’s Farm, with the band all in the same room, That’s Gonna Leave a Mark has a live and energetic sound. The air moving between instrument and microphone, and the sensation of musicians playing into the room and to each other, gives the tunes added momentum. “I think it really captures us as close to being live as you can be. You really get to smell, taste and see the sound that way. You feel it coming in your ears from the instrument, rather than the little speakers on your ears. I think it really helps with the dimensions of the sound, how people can react to the sound other than just through their ears. Like on a gig, you experience it totally differently. The decision to do that was really great and I’m so glad we did it.” Many of the tunes are first or second take, with no edits. Shouts of encouragement and enjoyment are audible throughout the record – almost as though the listener were a guest on the control room couch of Maggie’s Farm.
The album contains a wide spectrum of repertoire, with originals by all of the members. “To have everybody else contribute a song too, that makes it more special,” Wilson opines.
“I think it’s much like the player, they have distinct personalities, and we blend together, but you can always tell the personality. That’s the way the tunes work together too.”
Matt Wilson drums Andrew D'Angelo alto sax, bass clarinet Jeff Lederer tenor and soprano sax, clarinet Chris Lightcap bass The Swayettes vocals, track 11 The Wilson Family Singers vocals, track 11
Each soul has a voice that speaks to a mystery Well hidden in someone’s dark spirit Its song may well penetrate many an ear Yet only one truly can hear it To this one its meaning is poignant His heart can hardly hold it This pawn in the hand of this powerful poem Is exalted far beyond the poet
From…. "Let My People Go" by Eric Wood
The music of Eric Wood has been described as intense, compelling, intimate, provocative, poetic and personal by many critics in the U.S, Canada and Europe. An American amalgam of jazz, folk, country and rock meets Brazilian and Middle Eastern musical idioms in his music. Together, they weave the raiment for the poignant, lyrical writings rendered in Wood’s smoky, baritone voice on his new upcoming CD release. Simultaneously romantic & political, Wood occupies a never too far off, yet still somewhat isolated location in the American song-writing landscape. "This sounds too much like it’s really what Eric Wood’s music must be for it to be the result of some calculated gesture," a Music Reviews Quarterly writer reported. In another very recent review of Eric’s first CD, Letters From the Earth (Tangible Music TG129), in London’s MOJO magazine, Pat Gilbert writes; "As a 40something songsmith, Eric Wood ought to have some encyclopedic pedigree. But a 30-year career that started in Ohio’s coffee houses, took in Nashville in the early 70s and ended up in the bars of New York’s East Village has seemingly left an indelible blank on the pages of Guinness and Macmillian." He calls Eric’s first CD "an unhurried melt of folk, blues and wee-hours jazz, often operating over subtle Latin rhythms and unobstrusive strands of jazz instrumentation (vibes, marimbas, sax). It’s a belated solo debut that’s astonishing for it’s gleefully understated musicianship and emotional authenticity."
The new Eric Wood CD, to be released in September on Appaloosa Records /IRD, establishes his musical diversity and extraordinary lyrical prowess with a new band, in a context all its own.
Eric came from an austere background in the Appalachian foothills near the Ohio /West Virginia border. Factory workers that had migrated from mostly Eastern Europe, indigenous hillbillies, and Amish families shared both the turf and the troubles. Each group held tightly to their own beliefs, religions and types of folk music while to the dismay of them all, the radio blasted the new unholy, British invasion music to their kids. While the older music was marrow deep in Wood’s bones, it didn’t calcify until it was thoroughly saturated with the new. To the entire neighborhood’s dismay, Wood’s more than slightly "loosely wrapped" adoptive mother (as he refers to her) often listened to the music of Harry Belafonte, Ray Charles and early Bob Dylan at high volumes. These voices sounded so severe in this environment, even the most open-minded individuals in his home-town had great difficulty listening to them. Eric heard these sounds early on and never thought twice about them. They were just more music to his ears. But life with his mother’s volatile personality nevertheless proved impossible even for him. He left home in the late `60s at the age of 15 to establish a new life among the leftover Beats and newcomer Hippies in San Francisco’s Haight-Asbury district. There, more rhythmically compelling Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck and Thelonious Monk influenced music, brought to his ears by local bands who were mixing it all up, exposed Wood to new currents through which he’d learn to make all those previously diverse forms flow together freely.
Soon after this crucial point in his ever-more musically enriched life, Eric Wood suffered life-changing injuries from a severe car crash that left him hospitalized and without his own brain’s memory-forming functions for more than a year. It was during that time that he turned to writing songs as a way to capture the thoughts and emotions that would otherwise escape him. Songwriting became a kind of temporary memory and a road map out of the convoluted confusion the injuries caused. This is when the songs of one of his mother’s favorites, Bob Dylan, came back to his mind. Suddenly they were the only thing that made perfect sense to him. He began to search for the recordings of other Dylan contemporaries and subsequently came to hear and especially love Tim Buckley (who Wood’s music is sometimes compared to) and Joni Mitchell.
Recovery came slowly and left Eric with a singular new direction. Within another year, he was performing his own songs nationwide at college concerts and coffee-houses. While functioning as the opening act on a Pure Prairie League tour, Kris Kristofferson heard his music and offered him a publishing deal at Combine Music in Nashville. After moving there, Eric held staff writing positions at two other publishing houses and produced 2 recordings that the country music establishment found very difficult to swallow. They were never released. Wood’s rhythmic orientation, lyrics and melodies weren’t going to lead him to the stage of the Grand Ole Opry. He left for New York City in 1979. In the subsequent 20 years, Wood recorded & performed with top jazz players including Bobby Previte (Depth of Field) and Lindsey Horner (Koch Records) performing at the Bottom Line and The Knitting Factory to growing audiences. Subsequent U.S. tours with Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin and Richard Thompson brought more fans and critics to hear him. Finally in 1997, Eric was signed in New York to Tangible Music and his first CD was released. It garnered high critical acclaim from many publications including Entertainment Weekly, The New Yorker, The Chicago Tribune and Rolling Stone, as well as a front page, Giancarlo Susanna review in one of Rome’s largest newspapers, La Unite. More European acclaim in Musica, Late For The Sky, Muccio Selvaggio, JAM Magazine, MOJO, Rock ‘N Reel and many others soon followed. Buscadero rated it #8 in the top 10 albums of 1997. And Billboard Magazine rated Letters From The Earth #9 in a "Year End Critics’ Poll". This was quite an accomplishment for a debut record. One solo European tour and another with Wood’s entire band soon followed.
In September 1999, the Eric Wood group’s 1998 summer tour will finally come to an end with the new release on Appaloosa /IRD Records. For Eric and the rest of his band (T. Xiques, Carlo DeRosa, Jeff Berman & Luis Perdomo), it actually began in the spring of `98 in the Brooklyn rehearsal space /apartment of string bassist DeRosa. The next two months were spent rehearsing and performing for audiences at The Living Room in NYC where they worked up new songs Eric planned to record as well as older material from Wood’s first CD for their scheduled upcoming tour dates in northern Italy. Then, during the Eric Wood group’s Italy `98 tour, an impromptu live recording session was arranged at B&B Production Studios near Ferrara, Italy. It was only a couple of days before their headline performance date at the Sotta Le Stella festival at Ferrara (Dylan headlined the year before). But the band had too little studio time left to listen back to the tracks before another band came in. The tapes were subsequently stashed in a gig bag and not heard until Eric later returned to the states. While still in Italy, Franco Ratti at Appaloosa /IRD Records suggested to Eric that he record his new CD for that label. Wood agreed, not knowing he was already carrying the crucial tapes in his bag. Later, the project was completed at World Studios in NYC. During one of his 1998 performances in Italy, singer-songwriter Cristina Dona’ ("Tregua" Mescal-Mercury) joined Eric onstage. The memory of her magic voice singing with him prompted Eric to send some of these newly recorded tracks back to Italy for Cristina to sing on.
Martial Solal is a nuclear physicist of the piano. He tinkers with the subatomic structure of compositions, moving elements around, pulling them apart, and smashing them together in ways that both surprise and delight. Solal was born Algiers in 1927, settling in Paris in 1950 where he worked with Django Reinhardt and American expatriates Sidney Bechet and Don Byas. He has maintained an impressive creative profile for the past 50 years that involves solo, small group, and big band formats. Solal has also been a successful movie soundtrack composer, producing music for Les Acteurs (2000) and Ballade a blanc (1983). Now in his 80s, his performances take on the aire of a grand event. As such, it is fitting that his October 12, 2007 solo appearance at New York City's Village Vanguard was captured and released as Live at the Village Vanguard: I Can't Give You Anything But Love. His previous live recording at the Vanguard, NY1: Live at the Village Vanguard (Blue Note, 2003) was met with much adulation as was the show that generated it in the wake of September 11, 2001.
Relaxed and amiable, Solal banters with the crowd in his French-accented English, explaining that they both must be good as he is making a live recording. He then proceeds to stroll through a recital of seven standards are two original compositions in what can only be described as in a very post-modern, deconstructionist manner. His command of the material is paradoxically dense and atomized with playing that betrays a knowledge of all styles of jazz piano, which he picks and chooses to employ at his creative whim. That "whim" is very informed. "On Green Dolphin Street?" he turns the familiar melody inside out, re- harmonizing and redefining the piece well beyond its early 20th Century origins.
Solal transforms the interrogative "Lover Man" into a declarative statement of fact and strains the brains of Thelonious Monk's "'Round Midnight" through modernity's defining sieve, exposing all of the soft underparts Monk didn't. Solal extends the language of Monk further than any other pianist. His two original compositions, "Centre De Gravite" and "Ramage" are no less compelling, acting as an extension of Solal's artistic command. Live at the Village Vanguard: I Can't Give You Anything But Love is as perfect a jazz recording as we could hope for. Few giants remain, so let us honor Martial Solal
All About Jazz
"Mr Solal returns to the Vanguard without a bassist or a drummer, becoming only the second pianist to headline a week at the club as a solo act. It will be an occasion not just for admirs but also for new converts. And as far as pianism goes, it will probably stand as one of the jazz events of the year"
New York Time
The Pianist Mortial Solal opened his week at the Village Vanguard on Tuesday night by rolling through tunes that jazz musicians have been amusing and sharpening themeselves with for 50 years or more... One of the world's most imposing jazz musicians - being 80 has not dimmed his agility or his imagination - he interpreted easch passing moment of the songs as a provocation : spinning out a quick cycle of chords from just one, or interrupting the shape of a melody to add on a whole new structure, invented at breathtakin speed... "
New York Time
Martial Solal's early set at the Village Vanguard tonight was as exuberant as expected. The ghost of Tatum was riding high, as the French pianist, celebrating his 80th brithday with only his third appearance in New York city in the past 44 years, mad-dashed through a dozen or so standards in ways that no one has ever heard them, carving up the scores like a cubist ( more braque than Picasso, with shards of Duchamp tassed in for wit ), stretching and squeezing bars, yet somehow sustaining the tempo and the melody with tenuous but seamless aplomb. His music might be a mere virtuosic lark, were it not for his harmonies - brooding, bristling, caramel-rich chords, clusters of them, alternately embellishing, paring down, or playing against the conventional changes. The Vanguard was as packed as I've ever seen it on a weeknight..."
Stereophile
It was appropriate that Mr Solal chose "Here's That Rainy Days" as his third number : As 9 p.m. approached during his opening set on Tuesday, the Vanguard was packed to the walls with clods like myself, who, in our unrestrained zeal to catch Mr Solal in a rare New York appearance, neglected to bring our Umbrellas of Cherbourg. The Room was so full that no one apart from Mr Solal Himself and a few slim waitresses could even move.... a great quality of some of the best musicians in that you can hear the whole history of the music in their playing, and while that's certainly true of Martial Solal, what's even more remarkable is that you can get a sense of the future of the jazz piano as well, and it's hard to image a brighter one"
The New Yorker Sun
To label Martial Solal the greates European Jazz pianist does him disservice, the cognoscenti know he's the world champ. The Algerian native, who moved to Paris when he was twenty-two, celebrates his eighteth birthday here, presenting his staggering virtuosity and proudly idioisyncratic style in a week of solo performances. A live reconding is promised, but you'll be pleased to tell your grandchildren you witnessed the Master in Action
It wasn’t that long ago that Ray Wylie Hubbard allowed to an acquaintance that he wouldn’t mind being a hybrid of Guy Clark and John Lee Hooker. Now, I’m no seer or mystic, but my instincts suggest that wish came true. And then some. A. Enlightenment, B. Endarkenment (Hint: There is no C) confirms it.
Ray Wylie Hubbard writes the kind of songs that make you want to ride along no matter where he’s going, because you know it’s gonna get strange somewhere along the way. The references to Muddy Waters being as deep as William Blake (“I really do believe it,’’ Ray says) and lipstick pickups, resonator slides, the dreams of drunken poets, deceased call girls, opium, wasp’s nests, clouds growing a tail, his ability to segue seamlessly from primal exclamations of carnal lust into songs about salvation without pausing for irony; and a craftsmanship that manages to rhyme mescaline and gasoline and Volkswagen with dragon while painting vivid portraits of characters both real and unreal, all evoke a sense of place that is larger than life but in no way made up.
Anyone who’s followed Ray Wylie Hubbard over the long and winding path he has traveled already knows he possesses the kind of exceptional gift for observation that any songwriter yearns for. His sense of wonder is tempered by an accumulated wisdom and knowledge that comes with experience that has elevated him into the Wylie Lama of Texas Music, freely imparting songwriting verities to all kinds of aspiring musicians, which allows him to lay all his cards on the table and let the listener decide what it all means.
In case you’re wondering where he’s been since his last album Snake Farm, Ray’s been writing, only he moved out of the song category to test his chops as a screenwriter, conceiving an outlaw western straight out of the Peckinpah school of blood and vengeance (“set in 1912 so we can have a Buick and a motorcycle and automatic weapons well as horses”). That his first screenplay actually got funded, filmed and slated for release is a testament to the caliber of his writing, the fact that Kris Kristofferson, Dwight Yoakam, and Lizzy Caplan appear among the ensemble of accomplished actors speaks volumes of the respect he has earned among his peers.
Besides the movies, a weekly Tuesday radio show and constant touring as well as producing other artists, his focus remains fixed on the song - constructing and performing stories set to music that resonate like no one else’s. Not for nothing is he the dark literary, cat daddy of Americana songsters who was outlaw long before it was cool.
But don’t take my word for it. Ray Wylie is far better versed explaining how the sacred and the profane, the yin and the yang, the eternal and the now, the hippies and rednecks, the saved and the damned are all part of the same conversation.“I like to look at both enlightenment and endarkenment,” he declares. “I feel comfortable observing each.
Now I really feel like I gave up the right to judge anybody a longtime ago. With my behavior back in my twenties and thirties, I don’t have that right. I really don’t.” That doesn’t stop him from taking note of what’s going on around him. “It’s so turbulent right now,” he says. “Like the idea of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. That’s pretty strong and scary stuff, especially since I try to stay here in this Pollyanna world of hope and idealism I’ve created, but I’m able to get in that mind set and look at it and write it from the point of view of one who believes it.”
“In ‘Rise Up,’ I can go in there and see the need for that kind of Salvation and understand why that need is there but then read about Chet Baker and heroin and think, yeah, man, it does make the deep things appear (which he captures in ‘Opium). “I feel very fortunate, being able to see that, but not really go there.”
“Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” and “Rise Up,” two straight up gospel pieces that could be sung in a four square church are “straight, basic fundamental Pentecostal Bible,” Ray explains with a sly grin. “Then all of a sudden I write about a naked woman in ‘Drunken Poet’s Dream.”
So what’s up with the unusual title song? “It is my honoring Edgar Allen Poe’s ‘The Raven,’” he says, breaking into a conspiratorial smile. “That is my favorite poem of all time. It still is. I re-read it and as I was going to bed I thought, I should write something like this. I couldn’t use a raven so I used a black sparrow. And it started. It was so weird, just laying in bed thinking, OK, here’s Edgar Allen Poe, he’s drinking, he’s just lost the most precious thing in his life and all that. What would happen if I was in that frame of mind and suddenly this bird lands by my bed? What would it say? 'A. Enlightenment, B. Endarkenment (Hint: There Is No C).' ''
He continues “ Finally, a little bit later, came the line I’d heard my grandmother say when I was a kid, ‘Heaven pours down rain and lightning bolts’– that line kind of sums it all up for me as far as everything, really... Heaven is this beautiful place and yet it pours down rain and lightning bolts on both the just and the unjust. So being mindful of this, I was reminded of one of my wife Judy’s spiritualisms ‘the days I can keep my gratitude higher than my expectations, those are good days,"’
“When it’s all said and done and the record is released whether I ride through the streets in a chariot with rose pedals falling upon me and thousands cheering my name or I find myself standing against a wall being asked if I want a cigarette and a blindfold, I am extremely grateful for each of these songs. And if the truth be known, after every song I write I always say, 'thanks' '' With a keen eye of observation and a wise man’s knowledge, Ray Wylie Hubbard composes and performs songs that couldn’t spring from anywhere else but out of his fertile rock and roll bluesy poet-in-theblistering- heat southern noggin.
Hint: the answers are all within A. Enlightenment, B. Endarkenment.
"I always heard about a musical encounter between Jimi Hendrix and Miles Davis, which unfortunately never occurred. Likewise, I always wondered what may have resulted, happened, emerged, if it had really occured. Regrettably, due to the premature death of Hendrix, this meeting never took place. So, fascinated by these two musical icons and always having been intolerant of musical barriers, I decided to undertake a kind of imaginary journey around this "encounter" on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of Jimi Hendrix death, by creating and arranging an alternation of my compositions with those of Hendrix and Davis. For me, this project represented not only a way of satisying my great curiosity about music on a full scale, but also a different, alternative way of understanding the immense universe of Jazz, a musical genre that still retains that magic of continually metamorphosing its great wealth." Giovanni Falzone
Trumpeter and composer Giovanni Falzone began playing the trumpet at the Municipal Band School of Music in Aragona, at the age of 17. He then enrolled in the V. Bellini Conservatory in Palermo, where he graduated in a short period of time under the tutelage of G. Ciavarello. In addition, he graduated, with the highest honors, from the Jazz Studies Program (arranging, historical-formal analysis, and improvisation) at the G. Verdi Conservatory in Milan. He won first prize as "Best Talent at Umbria Jazz, 2000", earning a scholarship to the Berklee School of Music, in Boston. He also participated as a soloist in a workshop/concert held by Wynton Marsalis at the Morlacchi Theater in Perugia, and in a modern-jazz seminar held by saxophonist Dave Liebman.
Donna Lombarda è un progetto condiviso du alcuniaritisti - musicisti che hanno partecipato ad una rassegna di incontri musicali che dal 2002 si tiene presso l’Hospice Casa Madonna dell’Uliveto a Montericco di Albinea durante i quali si sono realizzate delle sedute di registrazioni di arrangiamenti originali, da loro composti, ispirati alla musica tradizionale italiana degli Appennini. Per individuare il repertorio di questo cd essenziale è stata la collaborazione con l'Archivio Etnomusicologico «Giorgio Vezzani-Il cantastorie» . Una volta individuato il repertorio è stato naturale per Duck Baker, Bob Brozman, Ed Gerhard e Woody Mann adattarli e rifarli rivivere nella loro sensibilita'. Stiamo infatti parlando di artisti raffinati interpreti della chitarra acustica, che nel corso della loro carriera hanno intrapreso strade molto diverse sviluppando un proprio stile inconfondibile e originale di composizione ed esecuzione e di Massimo Gatti, uno dei migliori interpreti europei del mandolino, che ha affiancato ciascun musicista per un duetto. Grazie alla generosità di questi artisti il ricavato delle vendite verrà totalmente devoluto alla Fondazione Madonna dell’Uliveto che sostiene l’Hospice.
Questa è la seconda collaborazione tra Touré and Diabaté dopo l’incredibile “In The Heart Of The Moon”, datato 2005 e può essere considerato a tutti gli effetti una sorta di testamento musicale del grande artista africano visto che si tratta delle sue ultime registrazioni fortemente volute nonostante la il notevole sofferenza causata dalla malattia. Il seguito del Grammy Award winner sopra citato ripropone le stesse magiche atmosfere di incontaminata bellezza dove ancora una volta si rinnova l’ispirata collaborazione tra i due più importanti artisti del Mali. Nonostante inizialmente la loro collaborazione fosse pianificata solo per un brano, la creatività di questi artisti non è di quelle che si possono contenere e dalle session è scaturito per nostra fortuna questo nuovo materiale che ha permesso la realizzazione di un intero album. Non ci sono state prove e le performance sono state improvvisate sulla base di un repertorio familiare ad entrambi gli artisti con un' atmosfera familiare quasi palpabile.
Matthew Shipp’s new solo piano CD, "4D" is the complete synthesis and culmination of all of his past Thirsty Ear releases, with the added wrinkle of standards reinterpreted as only he could muster, while combining his own brand of composition to the mix. His musical language, having been as refined, and mutated as has his career, (notably alongside Thirst Ear’s own genre defying sensibilities.) continues to grow at exponential rates, allowing Mr. Shipp to fully explore the hidden aspects of jazz.
This is the third album on the Dixiefrog imprint from the First Nation, Tuscarora Indian poetess and folksinger, in the Wake of the remarkable Indian Rez Blues box that she recently used as an introduction to the works of her fellow Native American artists. Sailing from traditional melodies to scorching blues with her usual grâce and dedication, she adds a healthy sprinkling of rap and canoe chants to her music before leading us all the way to Southern America where the eagle meets the condor. Pure magic!
Drummer and composer Matt Wilson describes his eighth record as a leader on Palmetto Records, That’s Gonna Leave a Mark, in terms of honesty and family. The first album by Wilson’s Quartet since 2003’s Humidity, Wilson views it as “getting a chance to have this great band record again!” Alongside Wilson, alto saxophonist D’Angelo, tenor saxophonist Jeff Lederer and bassist Chris Lightcap are all in fine form. All the members of the Quartet have played together since the late 1990s, though this marks Lightcap’s first recorded appearance with the group. 
Each soul has a voice that speaks to a mystery
Martial Solal is a nuclear physicist of the piano. He tinkers with the subatomic structure of compositions, moving elements around, pulling them apart, and smashing them together in ways that both surprise and delight. Solal was born Algiers in 1927, settling in Paris in 1950 where he worked with Django Reinhardt and American expatriates Sidney Bechet and Don Byas. He has maintained an impressive creative profile for the past 50 years that involves solo, small group, and big band formats. Solal has also been a successful movie soundtrack composer, producing music for Les Acteurs (2000) and Ballade a blanc (1983).
It wasn’t that long ago that Ray Wylie Hubbard allowed to an acquaintance that he wouldn’t mind being a hybrid of Guy Clark and John Lee Hooker. Now, I’m no seer or mystic, but my instincts suggest that wish came true. And then some. A. Enlightenment, B. Endarkenment (Hint: There is no C) confirms it.
"I always heard about a musical encounter between Jimi Hendrix and Miles Davis, which unfortunately never occurred. Likewise, I always wondered what may have resulted, happened, emerged, if it had really occured.