sábado, julho 14, 2007

Cassandra Wilson



Isto hoje tem sido demais, um verdadeiro saque ao YT e ao MS. De repente, apeteceu-me partilhar estas minhas grandes fixações musicais, género: sempre que publicam alguma coisa, lá estou caída. Que o mesmo é dizer que tenho em casa quase tudo o se publicou desta, como das duas anteriores grandes figuras, dentro da cultura musical afro-euro-americana.
Acrescento que Cassandra Wilson é considerada, já há alguns anos, das melhores, quando não a melhor, cantora de jazz da actualidade.
Zap Mama



Marie Daulne, the founder and fronting member of Zap Mama since the early 1990s, has lived a life that rivals Homer’s Odyssey. Filled with peril and triumph, globe-spanning quests, and a series of personal achievements that seem almost heroic in scope, her story is one of epic proportions in the annals of world music. She stands with one foot firmly planted in tradition and the other in the progressive sounds and sensibilities of a new century, and she consistently merges the two with an effortless grace that never fails to mesmerize. Born in the Congo, but raised in Belgium, Daulne made a pilgrimage in her late teens back to the land of her birth. In doing so, she reconnected with the pygmy culture, and discovered that the African music of her early childhood was still very much alive within her. The resulting experience, she recalls, was nothing short of an epiphany – one that changed the course of her life. “That was when I became a musician,” she said. “When I went to the Congo, I hadn’t thought of being a musician. Not at all. But I was there, and I was standing in the middle of the forest, hearing the music that had been a part of my earliest memories, and it was like an illumination, like a light.” In 1990, Daulne assembled four other vocalists and created the first incarnation of Zap Mama, an all-female a cappella quintet, or as The New York Times called it, “a utopian multicultural dream.” Adventures in Afropea I became the biggest selling non-compilation album in the history of the Luaka Bop label and reached #1 on the Billboard World Music Charts. The sophomore album Sabsylma came a year later and earned Zap Mama a Grammy nomination in the Best World Music Album category. 7 (Virgin Records), A Ma Zone (Narada) and Ancestry in Progress (Luaka Bop) which landed the #1 spot on the Billboard World Music charts, followed shortly after. Marie Daulne opens a new chapter of this continuously unfolding story with the August 7, 2007, release of Supermoon, Zap Mama’s debut recording on Heads Up International. An engaging blend of world, jazz, pop, funk, reggae and soul, the album includes guest appearances by stellar figures from around the globe: drummer Tony Allen; bassist Meshell Ndegeocello and Will Lee; guitarists David Gilmore and Michael Franti; pianists Leon Pendarvis and Robbie Kondor, percussionist Bashiri Johnson and many more. “With Supermoon, I reveal the way I chose to live when I started my career,” says Daulne. “It’s very intimate…You’re seeing me very close up. I hope that’s a kind of intimacy that people will understand. I’m opening a door to who I am.”
Meshell Ndegeocello - Outside your door

Meshell Ndegeocello Outside Your Door LIVE

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Description: July 13, 1996 performance of "Outside Your Door" at the North Sea Jazz Festival in Holland. Band includes Michael Neal, Allen Cato, Daniel Sadownick, Federico Gonzalez Pena, Gene Lake, Arif St. Michael and Biti Strauchn. While Brian McKnight may claim to have written “Anytime” before Meshell Ndegeocello had a recording contract, you do the math. Six years before Brian plagiarized “Outside Your Door” and released “Anytime” on September 23, 1997 without giving any credit to the person who wrote the song - Voyceboxing released an early version of “Outside Your Door” on their self-titled 1991 album. “Talk To Me” is an early version of “Outside Your Door,” and the words & music for the song were correctly credited to Meshell Lynn Johnson in the liner notes. Although the album is now out of print, it can still be found occasionally on eBay. “When that song came out—you know, I used to beg my record company to put out, “Outside Your Door.” It’s like, ’that’s the single man, put it out.’ But they ignored me. Then brother Brian—just straight up took my shit. You can’t cry over spilled milk—you just let it go—’cause I—I’ll keep writing and I’ll write many other songs, so that’s cool.”—Meshell Ndegeocello, Luna Park, West Hollywood, May 13, 1999

(http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.channel&ChannelID=19493755)