Pink Martini - Omide Zendegani

Ces 4 titres masterisés sont issus de l'album de Birds on a wire, Rosemary Standley et Dom La Nena sortie le 31 mars 2014 chez Air Rytmo / L'Autre Distribution

C’est une histoire de rencontres. 
Celle d’abord d’une chanteuse, Rosemary Standley, et d’une productrice de spectacles, Madamelune, qui ont l’envie de monter un duo de reprises voix et violoncelle. 
Dom La Nena, toute jeune violoncelliste et chanteuse aux multiples talents rejoint alors la chanteuse de Moriarty. 
L'alchimie est immédiate : dès la première répétition domine l'impression qu'on a affaire là à deux sœurs qui auraient passé leur jeunesse à jouer de la musique dans la même chambre, le soir, à la lueur d'une lampe de chevet. 
Entre la franco-américaine et la brésilienne, les répertoires s’échangent et s’entrechoquent : classique, folk, traditionnel américain ou argentin ; en italien, anglais, réunionnais, espagnol, arabe. 
D’Henry Purcell à Tom Waits en passant par Stefano Landi, Violetta Parra ou encore Léonard Cohen, ces deux oiseaux sur un fil, ces deux  Birds on a wire sont prêtes pour une tournée d’une trentaine de dates. 

Ces miscellanées live doivent absolument être immortalisées, faire l’objet d’un recueil que l’on pourrait emporter avec soi. Le disque s’impose. 
Joueur, émouvant, délicat, fragile, dépouillé, rayonnant de grâce et de naturel, 
Birds on a wire qui sort chez Air Rytmo, label anagramme de Moriarty, est comme un album photo que l’on feuillette et alors les souvenirs reviennent :  on pleure avec All the World is Green de Tom Waits ou Oh My Love de John Lennon, on frisonne avec Blessed is the memory de Leonard Cohen, on rit sur Sambinha signé Dom La Nena, on hyperventile sur Arriba quemando el sol de Violetta Parra, on rêve éveillé sur Panis & Circenses de Caetano Veloso, on frémit sur le traditionnel Duerme Negrito, on ferme les yeux sur Solitude de Purcell. On repense à ces amours passées, envolées, regrettées ou pas. Car à travers les chansons réunies ici, Rosemary Standley et Dom La Nena ne chantent, ne parlent, (presque) que d'amour. D'amants éperdus dont les adresses, les demandes de grâce se perdent dans le vide. C'est ce vide que deux Inséparables nommées Rosemary et Dom viennent combler comme des oiseaux annonçant le printemps. 


All the world is green Tom Waits

Lowly Deserter

Richard Koch did it again! One of the most independent and unmistakable jazz trumpeters of our time is back with his fourth studio album. After three quartet records, he now presents us with a new work as bandleader in a new quintet: “Rays Of Light”. It will be released on 04.07.2025 by Fun in the church. 
In terms of instrumentation and instrumentation, this acoustic work could have been performed in the 19th century. We hear Fabiana Striffler on violin, Valentin Butt on accordion, Andreas Lang on double bass, Nora Thiele on frame drums and Richard Koch on trumpet. However, Koch's compositions are interspersed with the transatlantic history of pop music over the last 150 years: from the American Folk Book to Internet radio - and back to the village festival in his adopted home of Wustermark, from where he can always travel quickly by regional train to the jazz capital of Berlin. 

At a time when the transatlantic relationship is threatening to tip politically, Koch's “Rays Of Light” are just the right thing to counter the whole madness culturally as a European musician. After all, it is particularly evident in music how our cultural DNA is similar and has always influenced each other. Just as all kinds of European folk and salon music, crossed with Afro-American and oriental influences - influenced by Christianity, Islam and voodoo - have given rise to a magical, earth-spanning, creole music: jazz.
And we haven't even talked about Bach, Dylan or the Beatles yet. 
Koch's pieces in the year 2025 cannot be assigned to a specific region or tradition either: It is music that is just as suited to the Austrian Alps as it is to Provence or New Orleans. It is understandable in both urban and rural settings. It incorporates Balkan elements such as klezmer, we hear oriental percussion in its origins, and the double bass adds a good dose of swing and bop from the nervous metropolises. The accordion offers plenty of harmonic scope for interpretation and the violin shares this with the trumpet, without getting lost in metaphysical speculation. 
Koch's compositions are as light-footed as they are colorful. As if he wanted to say: Listen up, dear people! All the music in the world is here, everything is good! But the lightness of his playing, which seems to rub off on his fellow players, remains his creamy secret. When Koch and his quintet leave the stage, everything quickly becomes as gray as it was before. 

So it's no wonder that successful rock & pop acts such as Peter Fox and the Beatsteaks, as well as musical mavericks like Nils Frahm and Jimi Tenor, have long sworn by Richard Koch's trumpet playing. Everyone likes to have this very special swag at their party. And party is indeed a good keyword. Because “Rays Of Light” is extremely party-ready. It is perhaps the most party-ready album in the Berlin jazz world in recent years. An album that would like to bring the whole quarrelling family back together again in these times, plagued as they are by ultra-diversity on the one hand and fear-filled, categorical, anti-woke rejection on the other. 

You can't think of many jazz musicians who can pull music off their sleeves as easily as Richard Koch and his “Rays Of Light”. Musicians who really aspire to be understood by everyone out there. Without being camp or kitsch. This instrumental jazz-folk music is celebrated with great seriousness and full concentration. With great passion and infectious joy of playing! Chapeau! 


Rays of Light

Falling and Rising

Whiskey & Rain

Midnight Solitude - 2

04 Manic

Green Grass (Tom Waits Cover)

No Quiero Tus Besos (Ana Cañas/Natalia Lafourcade)

VOLTA (2012)

Guela Records / Som Livre

No Quiero Tus Besos (Ana Cañas/Natalia Lafourcade)

My new album "A Thousand Things And More" has finally been released. This here is the title track of the new album. 
Please visit my new website www.anjagraefe.com for more music and information. 
I hope you enjoy!

I Fall in Love Too Easily (feat. Scott Hamilton, Ignasi Terraza, Esteve Pi & Josep Traver)

Andrea Motis

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