November 2009 Archives

I am pleased to announce that I have finally put up my first live performance video on YouTube!!  It's "The Nearness of You," also the title track of my first CD.  Joining me on this selection are David Cook (piano), Eric Halvorson (drums), and Jeff Hanley (bass).  It was recorded at the Metropolitan Room in July with lights and sound by Michael Barbieri.

If it is not obvious by a quick glance at the embedded video, I was very pregnant at the time.  In fact at 7:30pm exactly five weeks after this video was recorded, I was in the triage room at the hospital!!  In spite of all the physical challenges involved when singing in the last trimester, I'm very happy with the way this video turned out.  It will certainly do for now, until the time when I can make a non-pregnant video!!  I hope you enjoy it!!

ps - I will be publishing the second video from this performance, "No Moon at All," on December 7th.

Lately, I've been watching Soul Train reruns on Centric.  Most of the episodes I have seen date from when I was my children's ages.  It's amazing to hear the music and to see the fashions from that time, and realize that that's what people were listening to and wearing when I was a baby!!  It's also interesting for me to hear in that music so many musical ideas that I utilize today whether it's arrangements or instrumentation.  I have often considered that many people my age play what could be described as neo-soul or soul jazz, because when we were babies, funk and then disco were so popular.  I suppose I think about these things more because I have two children, but it's amazing the extent to which we, as babies, internalize what surrounds us, and then employ these ideas in some form in our work decades on.

I often wonder what music will influence my children the most.  I grew up listening to a lot of Top 40, and that music - country rock, singer-songwriter, r&b/funk/disco, punk - had a strong impact on what I do today, even though I sing a lot of standards.  My older son at almost three years old is already expressing his preferences for music, and not surprisingly, they reflect me and my husband's taste.  However, there are obviously things about his listening experience that are different from ours.  When we were kids, hip-hop was a nascent music, outside the mainstream.  Now, it's incorporated into tv children's shows.  I spent my childhood sitting around a record player, a radio, and a tape recorder.  My son watches videos on youtube and plays with Garage Band, although he doesn't know what he's doing yet!!  Someday, I'm sure he will look at me in disbelief as I explain how a record player worked with the needle and the grooves on the record, etc.