Delighted to announce that I'll be playing the Down With Jazz festival on Saturday June 10th with a great big sextet ensemble! New music played by a big group of glorious musicians...can't wait!
Tickets are a bargain and the line up is stellar if I may say so myself (the nice thing about writing on my own website is that I MAY say so myself! I just did!).
I love the name and the whole ethos of the festival. It comes from the 1934 anti-jazz movement where the church viewed jazz and "foreign" music as so dangerously divilish that they campaigned to ban it from dance halls and radio.
I love the name and the whole ethos of the festival. It comes from the 1934 anti-jazz movement where the church viewed jazz and "foreign" music as so dangerously divilish that they campaigned to ban it from dance halls and radio.
|
In keeping with the dangerously divilish theme the new music is upbeat and joyful, we'll have you humming along and your foot tapping in no time.
This new music has a different sound from previous music I've released so I'm giving this new larger ensemble a new name. I'm naming the project FÓD which translates as sod. Previously I'd chosen FÓD as the name for my West Pier Song Cycle, which is influenced by traditional Irish music, in part because of an old Irish tradition that when someone is moving into a new home they take with them a sod of turf, fód móna, still lit from their family home to light the fire in their new home (I wrote a little about it here). It's a symbol of new beginnings, bringing the love of a home to a new place and bringing traditions from the past into the future and so it was fitting that it was the name for this project that is inspired by a smorgasbord of influences from West African singing to Brazilian melodies. |
With these songs I'm trying to catch little fiery sparks from music I love, like the sing-song melodies of Hermeto Pascoal or the lip smacking grooves of Lionel Loueke, and trying to hear them in new contexts, seeing if I can get the spark to catch into a new, different, feel-good hooly of a bonfire. Ok that's enough fire metaphors for today!
Get your tickets for Down With Jazz, come along, bring some warmth and help get the fire started! (ok now THAT'S enough fire metaphors for today!)
Get your tickets for Down With Jazz, come along, bring some warmth and help get the fire started! (ok now THAT'S enough fire metaphors for today!)
|
In other news Ruba Shamshoum is launching her debut album Shamat in Whelan's on May 25th! If you're a reader ofthis blog, or have liked my Facebook page, you'll already know that I'm a big fan of Rubas. She's a beautiful person and a beautiful singer and I'm delighted that I'll be playing support and warming up the stage for her big night. I'll be performing a short duo set with Filipa Quintino, just the two of us, which is new for us so come along and give us lots of love!
|
RSS Feed
