DooBeeDooBeeDoo is a cross-cultural on-line magazine, based on the view that music and community are indivisible, and that musicians, consumers and record companies are all part of one community. The basic thrust of the editorial content is that a social awareness can be fostered through music.
Just couldn’t help myself – had to send this performance from Jan 5, 2012 through to you. So inspiring. Just a glimpse of what Meshell has been getting into + a nice way to go through her latest gift to us, the album, WEATHER. Hope you enjoy as much as I did. – Love, Kim
A flurry of activity has reached us here in NYC from Dutch-based sound artist Pascal Plantinga. Three releases from the Ata Tak label have come out recently, featuring Platinga’s production and bass work, as well as vocals, with his moody pop sensibility the constant on all of these recordings. One features a collaboration with a traditional Japanese samisen player, another, a found-sound pop project, and the third is a live album, recorded at The Stone in NYC in 2009, with sax, and electronics. Bundled with this release is also a short film, entitled Learn To Speak Your Language, which is his visual and musical interpretation of what goes through a person’s mind in the seconds before they die.
A so-called “pop-eccentric”, Plantinga seems to be pretty damn busy right now, churning out these different recordings, showing off different sides of his approach to music. From Holland he seems to get around, working with a singer in Okinawa, Japan, downtown scene musicians in NYC, and his hometown crew in the Netherlands. What remains constant though, is his ability to capture the feeling of a moment and craft it into a slow-boiling song that rides out the emotion, checks through a number of possibilities, and eases into the most appropriate vein of expression.
Date: Thursday, January 5, 2012 Venue: Le Poisson Rouge (NY)
Review by Matt Cole
On Thursday, 5 January 2012, the Jessica Lurie Ensemble opened up a 4-band pre-2012 NY Winter Jazzfest concert at La Poisson Rouge with a very strong set, which was dominated by selections from her upcoming album, Megaphone Heart. Naturally, this band is led by multi-instrumentalist Jessica Lurie, who is known for her saxophone pyrotechnics in Living Daylights and The Tiptons Saxophone Quartet. In addition to Ms. Lurie on the saxophone, flute, and vocals, the band consisted of longtime JLE stalwarts Allison Miller on drums, Erik Deutsch on keyboards, along with frequent collaborator Will Bernard on guitar and a (so far) rare appearance by Chris Lightcap on double bass.
It is very hard to pin down the JLE with regards to genre or style. The band can go from Balkan sounds, to avant jazz, to rock, to gentle ballads and back again in the space of a set (and sometimes within the space of one song). All of the musicians are virtuoso players on their respective instruments, and have excellent listening and communication skills.
Line up: Anders Nilsson – guitar, Brahim Fribgane – oud and percussion, Daniel Kelly – piano and synth, David Ambrosio – bass and Satoshi Takeishi – drums and percussion
Guitarist Anders Nilsson moved from his native Sweden to New York in 2000 and has made an impression as a versatile guitarist and band leaser. He performs regularly with singer Fay Victor as well as with William Parker, Sabir Mateen, Paquito D’Rivera, Eugene Chadbourne and many others. Read More
Now in it’s 8th year, NYC’s Winter Jazzfest sent out an impossible dare to city jazz fans this time in 2012: “Pay the low price of $45 for two nights and we dare you to try to see over 60 acts in four venues around the West Village”.
The clubs that featured bands are some of the oldest, and smaller, rooms in the city: Le Poisson Rouge, Sullivan Hall, The Bitter End, Kenny’s Castaways, and Zinc Bar. In trying to manically beat a path from spot to spot hoping to catch a favorite act, over 4000 music lovers made this year’s festival probably the most successful yet, thanks to the hard work of founders Brice Rosenbloom and Adam Schatz and the promotion efforts of Boom Collective and Search and Restore.
Since the closing of many of the more avant-garde downtown venues like Tonic and the original Knitting Factory, the city has felt a loss in the jazz scene; sure there’s always Lincoln Center, but what about the emerging artists, hungry to push boundaries? At times it’s felt like maybe the old “Jazz is dead” cliche is actually starting to ring true, with so much shifting sand under the feet of those in the scene, so to speak, and everything spreading out to Brooklyn. Here in NYC, that would be unbelievable, unacceptable.
