“I had no desire to have a band under my name,that has only emerged with the CD, with permission from the other members. I firmly believe in the collective spirit and contribution of all in which music can be performed and I think that in this instance that is a good part of resultant album.”
Author: Nikolas Fotakis
Built on an elusive melody by Lisa Young, ‘Thru the Still Trees’ is flowing, going to every direction possible – or impossible. An open-ended song, it is the perfect vehicle for Market Lane to manifest their improvisational skills and interact with their idol, their voices intertwined to the point that, by the end of the song, what you hear is the sonic equivalent of a congregation of clouds against a multi-colour sky.
“I wrote a song as a dedication to this particular genre of song and to Johnny Mercer, it’s called ‘Last Call’.
It’s a great thrill for me that I recorded the song with orchestra in studio A at Capitol Records in Los Angeles, the studio where Sinatra recorded so many saloon bar songs, and Johnny Mercer was one of the founders of Capitol Records. That’s poetry in action.”
“I’m not interested in doing something for fame’s sake. I’m interested in doing something that I respect and think its a good idea. I’d get a lot of fans if I collaborated with Justin Bieber but I have no connection with him musically, so I don’t go in that direction. I’m not going to collaborate with someone I don’t have real connection with. “
“I’m telling a multitude of stories with this project and I suppose that’s an overarching story; that everyone has a story worth listening to if you take the time to hear them. And that story might come through words or sounds or body movements or other forms of expression. With the three guitarists I’ll be sharing timeless stories from many cultures by performing pieces from the jazz, nueva cancion, chanson, pop and bossa nova traditions.”
“I noticed a few themes emerging as I was writing and have just finished cataloguing all the pieces to try and select a cohesive set to record. While going back over them, I was surprised how much the songs were like a diary, reflecting my daily life as I moved through the project. I was more often than not writing about imaginary characters, but I still ended up with a lot of myself in the songs.”
Nancy Ruth combines different elements – her classical training, her dramatic flair, her adventurous spirit, her sense of ‘duende’ – to create a sound where genres such as pop, jazz, flamenco and latin co-exist and dissolve into each other.
Kamasi Washington, a bona fide jazz superstar, is coming back to Australia. Here’s the man with his dectet, delivering ‘The Message’.
“Our approach to music making is very open. Whatever the members bring to the group is welcome. We each lead diverse music lives outside of the band and when we come together the things we’ve been doing individually find voice in the overall sound. This is intuitive and encouraged and it means that the sound of the group is changing in ways that keep things interesting. We always sound like the Necks, but we also sound different from tour to tour – in ways that we can’t predict.”
” I believe that is one of the primary purposes of music: To offer a portal for release and escape, and hopefully healing, even if only for a few seconds. What better way than by celebrating music from around the world and through the ages, whose message is struggle for unification and equality?”