San Diego musician, mentor and trailblazer, Tasha Smith Godinez delivers A NEW DAY on Celtic and electric harps.

“… athletic excursions…. penchant for the avant garde” ***** 5-star review BBC Music Magazine
“The inherently transcendental sound of virtuoso Tasha Smith Godinez’s harp… fascinating and evocative” Songlines*
“… a champion for the harp”* The Alternative 9 Review
“… unforgettable sound…”JazzQuad
“She is constantly looking for the limits that her instrument seems to impose, and she tries again and again to assign a new sound and new sounds to the repertoire for the harp.” Rootstime

There are harp players, composers and then there’s trailblazers: musicians whose entire career centres around the instrument they love, taking their work to a whole new level. Such is the case for San Diego harpist, Tasha Smith Godinez, whose life and career centres around the harp. As the director of the San Diego Harp Academy, Tasha teaches and mentors the harp and as the founder of Ennanga Records & Publishing, Tasha composes, records and arranges harp music with an edge.  

A NEW DAY is a collection of nine original compositions by Tasha Smith Godinez brought to life by two harps, viola, bass, percussion and a dash of vocals. On A NEW DAY, Tasha includes new techniques on both the Celtic and electric harps as she journeys into a jazz-world music fusion. As Tasha Smith Godinez explains,

“The blend of the electric and acoustic harp sounds brings new life to the harp augmenting the instrument’s sonic possibilities and expanding the horizon of harp music.”

Tasha Smith Godinez incorporates traditional harp plucking with various other techniques and instruments at the same time. These include mallets on the strings and soundboard of the electric harp, the use of stomp pedals on both harps for various effects, a variety of cymbals, chimes and percussive cymbals called crotales and using the soundboard as an occasional drum.

Tasha Smith Godinez delights in stretching her limits as a harp performer and is joined on A NEW DAY by viola and electric bass player, Domenico Hueso and masterful percussionist, Christopher Garcia who proves the rightness of ‘less is more’ throughout the album. Before going into the studio to start recording A NEW DAY, Tasha learnt how to play both the Celtic and electric harps simultaneously which she accomplishes on ‘The Word Began His Work’ and ‘The Least of These’.

On the album’s title track ‘A New Day’ Tasha adds a reverb stomp pedal to accompany her performance on the electro-acoustic pedal harp. While playing the strings, she drags a rubber mallet down the length of the bass strings, causing the strings to resonate in harmonics for the eery sound heard throughout the introduction. The effect creates an other-worldly sound - like that of the darkness before dawn. ‘A New Day’ begins with a melancholy sadness and transitions to a lively, Brazilian Baiao-inspired rhythm full of hope and exuberance.

The memorable opening track ‘Passion Flower’ was inspired by Tasha encountering this exquisite vine for the first-time during travels through the French town of Perpignan. Tasha was so taken by the flower’s strength and exquisite blossoms, that she composed this piece about it and since this time, the passion flower vine has taken pride of place in Tasha’s home garden.

‘Synergy’ is a pivotal track on the album marking considerable growth for Tasha Smith Godinez as a composer of solo harp music. It is dedicated to Tasha’s mentor and musical partner for many years, Christopher Garcia and was specifically written for the new and special electro-acoustic pedal harp. ‘Synergy’ combines stomp pedal sounds, cymbals, and chimes – all played by the harpist.

‘Look Up’ and ‘Love Is’ are the two compositions with vocals on the album. ‘Look Up’ is a spirited song sung by American musical theatre star singer, Leonard Patton, who has featured in a stream of highly successful musical theatre productions including San Diego’s longest running original musical, MIXTAPE.

The track ‘Love Is’ grew from Tasha asking friends, family and fellow musicians the simple question, and building the song around their answers, which were often sent on mobile phones. Tasha Smith Godinez loves the spontaneity of the recording as on ‘Love Is’, completely improvised for both the vocalist and harpist. 

A NEW DAY was inspired by Tasha’s love of the Celtic harp, nature, family and faith, all with a wider context of the world as it is unfolding today as Tasha explains,

“A NEW DAY is a musical reflection of the world in its current state, my hope for the future and an appreciation for the beauty of creation both in humanity and nature. All the music is inspired by very personal experiences, the people in my life and my faith. When you hear A NEW DAY from start to finish, you’ll hear jazz, world, a little blues and a touch of the avant- garde.”

A NEW DAY is Tasha Smith Godinez’ sixth studio album and was recorded between February and March 2024 at Studio West in San Diego, California. The album is being released through Ennanga Records & Publishing, the vehicle through which Tasha releases original harp compositions for both pedal and lever harps, arrangements by American composers, and recordings of contemporary harp music. It follows on from ‘Postcards From The Soul’ (Ennanga Records, 2014), In The Village Of Hope (Cold Blue label, 2015), HarpCHICK (Ennanga Records, 2020), Metamorphoses (Centaur Records, 2022) and Out Of The Desert (Ennanga Records, 2022).

Tasha Smith Godinez website click here

Click here to purchase the album

Chinese Female Contemporary Jazz Vocal/Composer **Christine Xu **Debut Original Composition Album ''Seek and Find''

Christine Xu, Jazz Vocal/Composer, started from the classical music, knocked on the door of jazz, and labeled ''Seek'' as the theme of her Jazz Composition this time, recording her mood, collecting daily thoughts, and the most suitable outlet for her to express herself has finally spread out and surfaced.

From composing, lyrics writing, arranging to full album independently production, this new generation of female musician's talent is best demonstrated by it. The ability to write singable melodies is an advantage for singers who are also jazz composers. The melodic limitations of her own singing are most suitable for her own singing state, while it is more catchy and easy to model for the audience.

Jazz music allows her to ''Find'' her original voice, willing to reveal those unspeakable internal feelings. The album included five pieces sung without lyrics and in ''onomatopoeia'', in which she believes that her lover's heart and life's energy, which she no longer hides, can be heard. Her story, her sensitivity, is here, and she will sing it for you.

1.  Entrance: Head out

2.  Tranquil: Anxious, lost on the way, and with a feeling of flinch. But it brings me back to my original mood, searching for serenity.

 3. Forest Hills:When I came to New York City, I stayed at a place called 'Forest Hills' and met my landlord, Jennifer, with whom I became good friends, along with her two cats, Bijou (2014-2023) and Arabella. They help me find the rhythm that suits me best.

 4. Ask, Seek, Knock

5. Christine in Wonderland:In a new tempo, I open the adventure of the unknown. I see the flowers and embrace the thorns . . . . . .

6. Love Suffers Long:Love is endurance, not torture. In love there is always tolerance and willingness to give.

7. Can Not Deny:Love happens silently, without reason, and it's the most wonderful thing in the world.

8. Undefined:''      ''

9. From the Rising of the Sun:Sunrise brings 'hope', so that the decayed can find 'new life', the sun always rises, so that life can be stabilized.

10. Exit:Love never fails.

To purchase click here

 PERSONNEL

Vocal - Christine Xu

Guitar - Chris Chen   

Bass  - Wenjun Wu

Drums - Yongheng Wu

ALBUM CREDITS

All compositions and Lyrics by Christine Xu, except for the music part of ''Ask,Seek,Knock’'(04), which is a musician’s improvisation

Arrangements by Christine Xu(01-10), ''Tranquil''(02), ''Christine in Wonderland''(05), ''Love Suffers Long''(06) arrangements by Chris Chen and Christine Xu

Recorded by You Li, Yuhan Zhang, Tong Xing at 55TEC, Beijing, CN(01/April, 22/June/2023, 25/March/2024)

Edited by Yang Li, Yuhan Zhang, YongHeng Wu, Tong Xing, at 55TEC, Beijing, CN

Mixed&Mastered by Dave Darlington at Bass Hit Recording, NYC, USA (03/Sep/2023, 15/April/2024)

Produced by Christine Xu

Graphic designed by Hualiang Zhan

photographed by Guofan Li

Cover makeup by Lei Zhang

Christine Xu received a bachelor’s in Music Education from ZheJiang (China) Conservatory Of Music. After graduation, she studied artistic director in Berlin, Germany.

In 2021, Christine received a master degree in Jazz Studies (Vocal) from Queens College, City University of New York, studied under Jazz musicians Chareneè Wade, David Berkman, Jeb Patton, Dennis Mackrel, Antonio Hart, Michael Mossman, Aubrey Johnson.

Christine’s latest work,“Seek and Find” released June.21.2024, is her debut modern Jazz album, which collected her 10 original compositions. The album was recorded at 55Tec in Beijing by Christine with guitarist Zeran (Chris) Chen, bassist Wenjun (Vino) Wu and drummer Yongheng (Bei Bei) Wu. The album was mixed and mastered by Dave Darlington at Bass Hit Recording in NYC, USA.

Christine has already performed many cities in China. She already played in many major domestic jazz venues in China such as BlueNote Beijing, Jazz at Lincoln Center Shanghai,  EastShore Live Jazz (Beijing), De Factto(Beijing). In 2023, she started her album tour.

Christine’s links here

After a long hiatus, vocalist LISA RICH is releasing her newest album, LONG AS YOU’RE LIVING, a collection primarily of standards that reflect many of the trials, tribulations, and life lessons she has experienced over the years. Rich had a burgeoning career in the 1980s until she was sidelined with a debilitating illness. But with determination and the help and encouragement of her dear friend, the late JAY CLAYTON, she was able to find her voice again and return to the recording studio. What we hear on LONG AS YOU’RE LIVING is a true jazz singer, with the warmth, assurance and inventiveness that comes from a lifetime immersed in the music.

The recipient of three grants from the National Endowment of the Arts, Rich performed at The Kennedy Center, was an artist in residence at The Smithsonian Institution, and was featured numerous times on National Public Radio and Voice of America. She also released two well-regarded albums, Touch of the Rare (1985) with the Clare Fischer Quartet and Listen Here (1983). She had recorded a third album in 1987, Highwire, comprising original songs by Chick Corea, whom she had met at a concert in Washington, DC. After meeting him backstage, Corea generously gave her several of his original songs that had never been recorded by a vocalist.

Her ongoing medical problem put that record and her career on hold. Earlier, in the 1970s, doctors had told Rich that if she really wanted to be a singer and travel, she would need back surgery, so she went ahead with the procedure. A decade later, her back problems returned, and she experienced pain every time she sang. Rather than go through the dangerous surgery again, Rich stopped performing and became a full-time vocal teacher. She finally released Highwire in 2019, marking the beginning of her comeback. Leonard Feather said in The Los Angeles Times, “The complaint has often been lodged that no young jazz singers are coming up to take over from the Fitzgeralds and Vaughans. Every once in a while, a singer such as Lisa Rich will come along and give the lie to this theory."

Setting aside her singing career was truly a heartache for Rich, but appearing before a crowd of people was just too emotionally fraught, because she did not want to be seen as a performer with disabilities. Her attitude, fueled by anger at her plight, began to change when she gave a eulogy at her mother’s funeral. Rich says, “Speaking in front of people made me think that if I could do that, why can’t I get in front of people and sing.” Her first foray into live performance was at a jazz church in 2018 where she sang nine songs for an audience of 350 people.

With Jay Clayton’s friendship and support, Rich finally returned to the studio to record LONG AS YOU’RE LIVING. Rich says, “I loved Jay. She was so brilliant and so spiritual. She loved music and teaching, and it was her love and guidance that gave me the confidence to record a new album.” Clayton was co-producing the album, along with Rich and Bob Dawson, an engineer responsible for dozens of Grammy-winning albums, when Clayton was diagnosed with cancer. Unfortunately, she did not live long enough to see the project through completion, and this album is dedicated to her memory.

For LONG AS YOU’RE LIVING, Rich brought on board several East Coast heavyweights, including pianist MARC COPLAND, bassist DREW GRESS, and trumpeter DAVE BALLOU.

For Rich, the title of the album is bittersweet. Despite all that she had been through, she wanted her song choices to represent her ultimately positive outlook on life. However, the recent death of a dear friend gave the title a deeper poignancy.

Rich opens the album with the title track, “Long As You’re Living,” one of Clayton’s favorites. The lyrics convey the need to live life to the fullest considering the brevity of life. “Always remember / time is for spendin' / but there's an ending / while you are sleepin' / lifetime is creepin' / wake up and taste it / foolish to waste it.”

“Throw It Away” is an Abbey Lincoln song that resonates with Rich because it carries the message to keep your heart open and peel away negativity. Rich dedicates “When I Look in Your Eyes” to a close friend who unexpectedly lost her son.

“New Morning Blues” was written by Clayton, known for her free jazz vocal explorations. Rich’s superb wordless interpretation was based on a sax solo by Paul Desmond. Without a doubt, Rich’s performance would have pleased her mentor. “Lonely Woman” is a song about leaving a bad situation and finding happiness. Rich was given the lyrics for “Isotope” 35 years ago by pianist Steve Kuhn.

Jimmy Rowles renamed his classic composition, “The Peacocks,” when vocalist Norma Winstone presented him with her beautiful lyrics, “A Timeless Place.” Rich and the band play “Jitterbug Waltz” in loose time, giving the song a free-floating feeling. Rich does a swinging version of “Close Your Eyes” over modern comping by Copland on piano.

The lyrics to “Ask Me Now” resonate with Rich because of her lived experience of rejecting a romantic interest only to change her mind and then find it was too late. Rich performed “Bye Bye Blackbird” in an online concert setting during the Covid lockdown. Her interpretation then was to bid farewell to the pandemic. Rich closes the album with a mashup of “Haperchance,” a scat piece written by Clayton with music from Gymnopedie 1 by Erik Satie, and lyrics “Drifting Dreaming,” by Don Read.

Lisa Rich has always been a singer whose connection to lyrics is genuine and heartfelt, but the physical challenges she’s experienced have made her a more deeply empathetic and sensitive singer. Rich has persevered through it all and triumphed with her warm, smoky voice and a level of depth and wisdom that only comes from maturity and experience.

LONG AS YOU’RE LIVING will be released on Tritone Records on June 21, 2024 and will be available on all digital platforms.

 www.lisarich.com

Facebook.com/lisarichjazz

Re-Entry  Solivan’s 5th album as a leader, immediately brings you into her world. With a voice that is powerful, warm, strong & supple, the perfect touch of seduction, and the ability to weave a story so well you get lost in it. Marianne’s gift is delivering the lyrics to you like a delicious morsel. Whether it be the intensity of Wheelers & Dealers or the ethereal flow of Time Remembered, she is fully immersed in the words and music and delivers it to the listener as if they were old friends.

In this album, you find a singer who has come into her own. After years of performing and recording with NYC’s top instrumentalists, leading her own big band, and being the voice on numerous original music projects, she has landed on a repertoire that is uniquely her own.

Leaning on her Puerto Rican roots in Tal Vez and Debí Llorar and her love of Jazz tradition in I Burn For You (Fire Waltz) and If You Could Love Me, (for which she penned the lyrics), Solivan is squarely in her own lane here. Alongside a band that has clearly put in the hours playing together, you hear a sound that is focused with arrangements that allow Solivan to be nimble yet always supported. Together creating a sound that is tight, balanced and full of energy. With her first two records having received high critical acclaim in both DownBeat and JazzTimes, we are sure Re-Entry will be recognized as a record to watch rise.

‘This album came together amid life falling apart. One call from Alex to busk in the park with Steve changed the whole pandemic experience for me and I’ll forever be grateful for that call. We made the best of a traumatic reality, and I am terribly proud of us for leaning on each other and digging into the music. This repertoire is a glimpse into who I am as an artist, singer, lover, friend and how that can blossom when surrounded by loving, like-minded, thoughtful musicians. If you listen carefully you will get to know who I am.’

Click here to purchase

Musicians:

Leandro Pellegrino – guitar – all tracks

Steve Wood – bass – all tracks

Jay Sawyer – drums – all tracks

Alex Terrier – alto saxophone – tracks 1, 4, 5, & 6

Engineers:

Lou Gimenez – mixing and mastering

Patrick MacDougall - mixing

Michael Perez-Cisneros – recording engineer at Big Orange Sheep.

Recorded on May 15 & 16, 2021 in Brooklyn, NY Big Orange Sheep Studios.

All Photos taken by Adrien H. Tillmann

Click here to visit Marianne’s website

Today sees the release of Sweet Whispers: Celebrating Sarah Vaughan, the fourth album from multi-award-winning singer-songwriter and leading UK jazz vocalist Zara McFarlane.   The album honours the jazz great who inspired Zara on her own artistic journey and whose centenary year is honoured in 2024.

To mark the release, Zara unveils her impassioned interpretation of the Marvin Gaye classic, Inner City Blues, an album focus track among many stand-out tracks. The track was recorded by Sarah Vaughan for her 1972 comeback album, ‘A Time In My Life’ which Gaye had originally released the year before. It would become one of the era’s greatest protest songs.

“Sarah was not afraid to lend her voice to the troubles of the times” notes Zara, “her version was pretty full on, with horns and a large band” she continues, “but we wanted to strip it back, leaving it sparse and intentional with the feel centred around the bass line.  It’s crazy to think how this song still resonates so poignantly today”.

Just as Vaughan’s straight up soul-funk version serves as a reminder of Vaughn’s versatility, Zara’s exceptional brazen, bluesy version does the same.

Nicknamed ‘sassy’ or the ‘Divine One’, Sarah Vaughan was revered not just for her incomparable vocal range, but for the depth, control, emotion and playfulness of her voice. A pioneering woman, she brought bebop to vocal jazz, her contemporaries marvelled at her enviable musicianship and subsequent generations of jazz vocalists have been inspired by her.

Sarah Vaughan’s recording career spanned 50 years notching up almost 60 albums (plus nearly 30 again in compilations and box sets), so it’s not hard to imagine  immense task in selecting the songs for ‘Sweet Whispers’. Yet the album is more than a run-through of some of Vaughan’s most popular songs. Through a thoughtfully chosen selection of songs, formed across months in collaboration with producer, and the album’s clarinettist and saxman, Giacomo Smith – Zara journeys through the musical life of Sarah Vaughan, from her first to last recording, breathing new life into some of her best and less familiar songs. But importantly, the songs that mean the most to Zara.

‘Inner City Blues’ follows the album’s first single, the stunning The Mystery Of Man released in April. It appeared on Vaughan’s 1984 album, The Planet Is Alive...Let it Live that featured the philosophical poems of Pope John II. The song features Zara’s soaring voice and layered harmonies and is an epic track of immense power and spirituality.

Elsewhere, we hearMean to Me, Zara’s favourite Sarah Vaughan song. Appearing on her 1950 debut, the song showcases her technical prowess and bebop leanings. Just as Vaughan did before her, Zara’s swinging version is imbued with emotion and soul and a deft presentation of her stunning jazz voice. If You Could See Me Now, the 1946 jazz standard composed by the great pianist Tadd Dameron especially for Sarah, is another of Zara’s favourites since the lyrics really speak to her.  Zara provides a superb rendition of Obsession taken from Vaughan’s last studio album, 1987’s Brazilian Romance featuring Milton Nascimento. The addition of steel pans provides a nod to Zara’s Caribbean roots. 

The collection includes one original, the title track Sweet Whispers, a divine, short but touching hymn-like ballad swathed in cello, inspired by quotations from Sarah Vaughan uncovered by Zara on the creative journey. With a soft, beguiling voice, this is Zara’s sonic love letter to her inspirational jazz pioneer.

‘Sweet Whispers: Celebrating Sarah Vaughan’ was recorded analogue at Durham Studios, London. Giacomo assembled a stellar cast of musicians - Joe Webb on piano, Ferg Ireland on double bass, Jas Kayser on drums, Marlon Hibbert on Steel Pan and Gabriella Swallow on cello – to record 11 tracks live to tape; with minimal overdubs, the recording has retained a live, vintage feel.

Zara McFarlane said “It was when I started to listen to Sarah Vaughan that I really began to appreciate jazz vocals. She had such control across her range and a vocal command that was cheeky, playful and fun yet sophisticated and articulate. I really wanted to pay homage to her as I feel she has been somewhat overlooked amongst the jazz singers. Although I do love Ella and Billie, it's all about Sarah for me.”

A celebration of Sarah Vaughan could be in no better hands than that of Zara McFarlane, who makes an inspired homage to the ‘Divine One’. Beautifully performed in Zara’s own inimitable style, with her own playful swoops and slides, she has added her own touch to the music. With a silken voice and timbre that brings emotional depth, attitude and personality to this collection of Sarah Vaughan songs, this is a masterful celebration.

To purchase album click here 

https://www.zaramcfarlane.com/

Violinist/ Composer Alexa Torres and her Quartet to release new recording : IN SITU

In July 2022, Alexa Torres set out on a one-year trip to interview and collaborate with improvising violinists across Belgium, France, and Poland. Her hybrid research and performance sojourn was funded by two prestigious awards: The Presser Graduate Music Award and The Fulbright Grant. Torres recorded her debut album, In Situ, in preparation for this journey, to reflect internally on the sound cultures that shape her personal musical milieu before turning her gaze externally to new soundscapes.

“In situ is an archaeological term which refers to the original position of an artifact found in place. When I was 21, I spent five weeks excavating Maya ruins in the Belizean jungle. We spent 8 or 9 hours a day digging in the wet dirt, often without finding much. But I remember the sense of awe I felt when I finally dug up an artifact. It was a scraper – a type of tool, carved out of stone. As I held it, I thought about how I was likely the first person to touch it in over a thousand years, and I imagined stories about the people who had used the tool before me so long ago. I wanted to bring that very particular feeling of awe to this album. The term in situ evokes a sense of rediscovery and recontextualization which are processes that I think play a big role in improvisation. It also conveys a feeling of connection between past, present, and future. Artifacts found in situ represent material culture which we use to construct narratives of the past in order to better understand our present and our future.”

This sense of temporal connection is reflected musically through the textures, improvisational languages, and timbres of In Situ. With a blended acoustic-electric violin sound, Torres’s be-bop lines intertwined with modern diminished and altered vocabulary float over guitarist Wellman’s bright, distinctly contemporary voicings. Further mirroring Torres’s goal of bridging past, present, and future, In Situ brings together original compositions as well as contemporary arrangements of jazz standards. The result reflects an intimate engagement with jazz idioms and with Torres’s own Latinx heritage by synthesizing Latinx rhythms, modern jazz devices, and improvisation.

“I recorded this album right after I had finished my master’s degree in jazz violin from The University of North Texas. It was real transition moment – I was preparing to leave the country for an extended period of time, I was in the process of moving, and my future was uncertain. And I really wanted to use this record as an opportunity to sit in that liminal space between where you are coming from and where you are going. I wanted to use it as an opportunity to reflect not just on this deep digging into jazz traditions I did in my master’s, and what it means to try to transfer these traditions to the violin, but to move further into the past to also reflect on my Cuban heritage, and on the years I spent living and performing in Chile. I saw this album a sort of excavation of my own past, and also as a deeply personal, multilayered syncretism. When I say this, I mean that I saw it as a way of integrating the different physical spaces I’ve occupied, the various soundscapes I’ve encountered in those spaces, and also of uniting my research and performance practices.”

In addition to being a professional improvising violinist, Torres is a music researcher with a background in cultural anthropology. “I view my work as an ethnographic researcher and my performance practice as an improvising violinist as intrinsically connected,” she says. “They mutually inform each other.”

Torres was awarded the Austin Live Music Grant to support the release of In Situ and the album will be available on all streaming platforms on June 14th, 2024. Immediately following its virtual debut,  In Situ is set for a live release concert on June 15th at the Dougherty Arts Center in Austin, Texas. Torres has teamed up with the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center in Austin, TX to offer a community-centered performance that is free to the public, which will be complemented by additional summer release performances in New York City and Austin, TX.

In December and January 2023-2024, Alexa performed a pre-release tour of In Situ in Chile. During the tour, Alexa played in the cities of Valparaiso and Santiago, performing at some of the country’s top jazz clubs such as Thelonious Lugar de Jazz.

“My four years living in Chile were really formative for me. I did a lot of growing up in Chile. I learned a lot about myself, and about what I want in life and in music. And so much of this album is about connecting different spaces and times that were important to me, so I was thrilled to be able to do that not only conceptually but also physically by performing this album in Chile with some really great friends and musicians.”

Torres’s violin is supported by a rhythm section of talented musicians: Mario Wellmann on guitar, Josh Newburry on bass, and Jordan Proffer on drums. Weaving an aural landscape that is both personally and historically grounded, In Situ sculps a sonic bridge between the past and the present, between tradition and innovation, and between musical idioms and cultures.

Alexa website click here