A singer at the busy crossroads of soul and jazz

January 24, 2013 By

Boston Globe, January 24, 2013

The singer José James grew up in Minneapolis and studied jazz in New York, but he’s made his career mostly out of the American mainstream eye: recording for overseas and indie labels, living a few years in London, working with recherché producers like Gilles Peterson and Flying Lotus.

His recordings, spanning jazz and soul on a spectrum that stretches from Nat King Cole to J. Dilla, have earned him a cadre of committed fans on both sides of the Atlantic but no breakout commercial success — not least because his work has not fit neatly into any of the genre designations that regiment the US music industry.

Now, however, a new synthesis of jazz and soul, driven by musicians shaped by hip-hop and myriad other influences, is under way, and James, who is 35 and now lives in Brooklyn, finds himself in the center of it.

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Nona Hendryx balances soul, conscience

July 8, 2012 By

Boston Globe, July 8, 2012

NEW YORK— Let’s say you formed your first band as a Trenton, N.J., teen in the ’50s. You helped invent funk in a trio, LaBelle, that found cult status in the ’70s. You pioneered sci-fi themes before George Clinton. Later, you forged ahead as a solo artist and in collaborations with everyone from Yoko Ono to the Talking Heads.

You might be forgiven, at 67, for resting on your laurels. But that isn’t the Nona Hendryx way.

“Rust never sleeps,” says Hendryx. “I enjoy using my energy. What else are you going to do on this planet?”

In the cool of her midtown Manhattan studio, the singer strikes a naturally edgy elegance, clad in a form-fitting gray ensemble accessorized with silver jewelry. Gold records and industry memorabilia adorn the wall.

To the world at large, Hendryx is known as one-third of LaBelle, the band with the 1974 hit “Lady Marmalade.” (The one with the saucy French chorus, “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?”) But here in New York, she’s appreciated for all she’s done since, as a songwriter, creator, mentor, and activist.

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For singer-songwriter Morley, it’s all about connections

May 11, 2012 By

Boston Globe, May 11, 2012

NEW YORK — There are lots of birds in the lyrics of Morley, the singer-songwriter who’s found an original place for herself at the intersection of the jazz, folk, funk, and world-music scenes here, and who flits between these worlds with the grace and ease of the winged creatures that her songs often describe.

The brand-new “Undivided” — her fourth album, and the first she’s made entirely independently, financing and producing it herself, with a lavish roster of top-flight New York musicians participating — has birds passing overhead early and often.

On the first track, “On My Way,” a love song both contemplative and swelling with energy, “silver birds fly into the sun/ while one man grabs a paintbrush, the other grabs a gun.” “To Begin Again,” a meditation on death and renewal, addresses a “little bird on high/ you are wise.”

Morley imagines herself as the bird in flight on “Wild Bird.” “Thought by now I’d have found a safe place to land,” she sings. A stunning video accompanies the song. Filmed in Morocco by Damani Baker, who made the documentary “Still Bill,” it shows Morley playing guitar in a verdant valley, ascending dunes, disappearing into a rugged landscape aboard a decrepit flatbed truck.

Much of Morley’s lyrical imagery is naturalistic; her themes are confessional and concerned for humanity; her energy is personal, earnest. Over breakfast at a coffee shop in Greenwich Village, she reminds one of the folk singers of the 1960s who once thrived on Bleecker Street and in Washington Square Park, just blocks away.

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No masking his minimalist approach

March 30, 2012 By

Boston Globe, March 30, 2012

It’s never a bad idea to strip the clutter away. Valid from home upkeep to personal relations, the principle holds equally true in pop – particularly electronic music, where layers of effects and flurries of adornments threaten dissipating the signal into noise. This has been an issue of late, as the ramshackle genre called dubstep has colonized the club scene; apt music for anxious times, maybe, but lacking clarity and mostly lacking soul.

In England, though, dubstep has run its course and its decay has opened up space. That’s where SBTRKT comes in. The London producer’s self-titled LP, a pared-down gem with a rainbow shimmer, was one of last year’s notable releases. Song-driven, with vocalists on most tracks, it harks back to the time when dance music had lyrics. Attentive to quiet as much as to house and drum-n-bass fundamentals, it places SBTRKT in the genre-blurred UK stream of moody electronica that runs from Massive Attack to the xx.

SBTRKT, who plays the Paradise Wednesday, is on a minimalist mission down to his moniker, which is pronounced “subtract’’ and stands relieved of extraneous vowels. His tour band consists of just himself and singer Sampha. On stage, where he plays drums and manipulates a laptop and accessories, SBTRKT wears one of his collection of neo-tribal masks, which assert his anonymity as well as confer a sacramental vibe to the proceedings. The masks are made by a designer known only as A Hidden Place.

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Soul is heavy, wisdom is sweet: Unraveling the mysteries of Nneka

March 1, 2012 By

MTV Iggy, March 1, 2012

It’s been three years since Nneka Egbuna moved back home.

At 19, she had moved away from Nigeria to Germany, her mother’s country, where she studied anthropology and began her music career. But after releasing two albums and getting a little shine on the European circuit, she knew it was time to return.

Now 31, Nneka makes her permanent home in Lagos, Nigeria’s turbulent metropolis.

Lagos is where she gets her energy, where she engages in politics, where she composes songs that weave in and out of the rich Pidgin patois. It’s a place where the power goes out and the police are corrupt and vast amounts of money are made, legally and otherwise, while migrants pour in from the hinterland to scoop up the crumbs.

It’s a raw place, and it’s very Nneka—blunt, vibrant, uncompromising.

The city lends itself to metaphor, and so, given all this, it’s no surprise that Nneka finds a life lesson for humanity in the epic traffic jams that infamously snarl circulation in Lagos, turning the simplest errand into a multi-hour ordeal, breeding frustration and aggressive behaviors of all sorts. As she sees it, the futility of those maneuvers in gridlock tells us something about our souls.

“It could move,” Nneka says. “But we are all rushing, rushing—and then we get to the bottleneck. And then we are all standing still and asking ourselves questions. And that’s our biggest problem. We don’t listen to one another, we don’t complement one another. Because we are stubborn, we are egocentric.”

Is she speaking of Lagosians? Nigerians? All human beings? Or about herself? The best answer is “Yes.”

Because Nneka’s songs toggle back and forth between the personal and the political, the local and the universal, in a way that only the rawest, most self-searingly lyrical artists can pull off. Everything is in play—God, government, love, sexuality, aspiration, self-doubt. It’s all in the title of her new album: Soul is Heavy.

Read the full story at MTVIggy.com

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George Clinton gets to the bottom of funk with Berklee students

February 10, 2012 By

Boston Globe, February 10, 2012

He started in doo-wop, then went psychedelic. Throughout the 1970s, his bands Parliament and Funkadelic carved out bold, crazy new spaces in rock and funk, deploying a cast of loopy, absurdist characters fresh off the Mothership – the UFO that for many years throned above their concerts.

Samples of their music saturate hip-hop, and you don’t have to master the whole catalog to have danced a few times to classics like “Aqua Boogie,’’ “One Nation Under A Groove,’’ or the perennial “Flashlight.’’

What’s more, George Clinton is still at it, delivering at age 70 on a busy tour schedule with his P-Funk All-Stars, funking it up for audiences that invariably blend all generations and backgrounds.

So you would think that with this 50-plus-year track record of innovation and influence, someone would have thought to award Clinton an honorary doctorate by now.
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Best of 2011: Siddhartha Mitter

December 23, 2011 By

Soundcheck, WNYC Radio, December 22, 2011

This week’s year-in-review special continues with Siddhartha Mitter, a music journalist who contributes to the Boston Globe, MTV Iggy, MTV Desi and other outlets.

Siddhartha Mitter’s list:

Three Great Songs:

  • Frank Ocean, “Novacane”
  • Musiq Soulchild, “Yes”
  • SBTRKT featuring Sampha, “Hold On”

World Music that Isn’t “World Music”:

  • Chamber Music (album) – Ballake Sissoko & Vincent Segal
  • Tirtha (album) – Vijay Iyer, Prasanna, Nitin Mitta
  • Zuciya Daya (song) – Bez
  • Karibu Ya Bintou (song) – Baloji

Music for Upheaval:

  • Rayes Le Bled (song) – El Général
  • Into the Fire (song) – The Bant Singh Project
  • Obama Nation Pt 2 (song) – Lowkey ft. Lupe Fiasco, M-1, Black the Ripper

Rest in Peace:

  • Pandit Bhimsen Joshi
  • Cesaria Evora
  • Gil Scott-Heron
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Si*Se’s small output yields big following

July 29, 2011 By

Boston Globe, July 29, 2011

It feels like less is more for Si*Se.

Ten years ago, the New York band broke out with a self-titled disc of downtempo grooves with lyrics in English and Spanish, foregrounding lead singer Carol C. and the production work of cofounder Cliff Cristofaro. It offered an artsy, bilingual sound at a time before the combination of Latin rhythms and loops became a recognized international trend. The record appeared on David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label and earned Si*Se the chance to tour worldwide with the former Talking Heads maven.

That was 2001. Since then, Si*Se has put out exactly one album – “More Shine,” in 2005, on the obscure Fuerte Records label – and one EP, last year’s “Gold,” which the band released independently. Yet despite the slender output, Si*Se enjoys something of a cult following. Its Facebook page and online reviews brim with declarations of love from fresh fans smacking themselves on the head for only just now discovering the band.

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Meklit Hadero, keeping it real and varied

July 10, 2011 By

Boston Globe, July 10, 2011

“On a Day Like This,” the 2010 debut album by San Francisco singer-songwriter Meklit Hadero, traces the arc of one day, its 10 songs sequenced to convey the moods and events of the passing hours from daybreak until time to sleep.

It is a day of shifting weather, from “You and the Rain” to “Soleil Soleil,” as befits the city by the bay; a bittersweet day, as misgivings over a love that can’t last (“Leaving Soon”) give way to the affirming Nina Simone cover “Feeling Good.”

It is a day as emotionally rich as the sounds that accompany it are eloquent in their assured diversity, from the New Orleans jazz feel of “Float and Fall” to Hadero’s cover of “Abbay Mado,” by Ethiopian master Mahmoud Ahmed.

It is, all in all, a very Meklit Hadero kind of day.

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Soulphonics’ Ruby Velle: “Singing soul is like therapy”

May 26, 2011 By

MTV Desi, May 26, 2011

A few days ago we introduced you to Soulphonics and Ruby Velle, the vintage soul act in Atlanta that’s fronted by a young Desi woman. We caught up with Ruby to talk music, culture, history—and how 1960s-era soul music captured her heart.

So what’s a nice Indian girl doing fronting an old-school soul band?

I’ve been a fan of soul music for years and it has become a great way for me to express myself as well as to keep the genre itself alive and kicking. My favorite thing is bringing the sound to new listeners who don’t know they like it until they hear it. That to me is priceless.

How Indian an upbringing did you have? Did you run the gauntlet of Indian music, dance lessons and all that?

I was born in Toronto. I’ve been to visit India several times, my family is spread out between North and South India, so I got to glean the best parts of each culture. I grew up with a perfect of blend of east and west. My parents were typical in their strictness, but they allowed me to follow my creativity and passions. I was able to take part in Indian festivals, I learned dances and hymns as much as I could while attending school and singing in chorus. The blend of culture was never a shock to me. It has caused me to be authentic and honest about straddling two cultures.

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