Jazzzz & A Bit Of Everything....

Pink Turtle - Walk On The Wild Side

Syracuse

An accomplished juggler when it comes to play with styles, capable to invent modern structures, Nicola got us used to his ability to blend harmonically different musical worlds and create cooperation between great musicians. Deepness is the added value of his new album, something in between consciousness and spirituality. Nothing to share with futile trends, this record is a result of an urgent need to research in the depth of the soul and his musical influences.

The album features the talents of José James, Marvin Parks, Heidi Vogel, Melanie Charles, Tasha’s World and Bridgette Amofah, accompanied by a team of incredible jazzmen like Teppo Makynen, Magnus Lindgren, Greg Osby, Timo Lassy, Francesco Lento, Logan Richardson and Fabrizio Bosso.

Nicola Conte feat. Marvin Parks - Shades Of Joy

Lady Gaga & Tony Bennett - Anything Goes remake

do not copy!

Lady Gaga & Tony Bennett - Anything Goes remake

VERY CHIC

In the Blue of the Evening

The Heart Speaks In Whispers

Night

The Absence

Mira

Bang! Zoom

Friends

Nina with Strings

Spring Is Here

Strait Out Of The Box

Fly Me To The Moon (feat. Frank Sinatra)

This land is your land, This land is my land

Though it has often been co-opted as a benignly patriotic campfire sing-a-long, "This Land Is Your Land" was actually written by Woody Guthrie in 1944 as a subversive protest song in biting response to Irving Berlin's "God Bless America." At my sister Samra's urging, we recorded our version in 2004, during the George W. Bush presidency, in an effort to re-establish it as a song about social justice.

Ironically, when Woodie Guthrie resided in Coney Island in 1950, his landlord was none other than Donald Trump's father, the infamously racist real estate mogul Fred Trump, about whom Guthrie composed his poem "Old Man Trump," including the lines:

     I suppose that Old Man Trump knows just how much racial hate
     He stirred up in that bloodpot of human hearts
     When he drawed that color line
     Here at his Beach Haven family project 

Using a dark re-harmonization of "Yankee Doodle Dandy" as an intro, the Dap-Kings re-arranged "This Land" as a rough blues-y march, setting the tone for Sharon to tear into the lyrics of the song with the fiery gusto of a revolutionary. However, it was the inclusion of Guthrie's rarely-heard original verses that really enabled Sharon to reclaim the song as an urgent and unambiguous demand for equality and human dignity in a nation rife with social injustice and patriotic hypocrisy.

Today, as we inaugurate a rapacious billionaire to the highest office in the land, those original verses resonate with us as loudly as the day they were written:

     There was a big high wall there
     That tried to stop me
     The sign was painted
     Said 'Private Property'
     But on the backside
     It didn't say nothing
     This land was made for you and me

     One bright sunny morning
     In the shadow of the steeple 
     By the relief office 
     I saw my people 
     As they stood hungry
     I stood there wondering 
     If God Blessed America for me

We are grateful to Woodie Guthrie and to Sharon Jones, two friends of the people and bitter foes of the Trumps, who have given us an essential soundtrack to our struggle. When times get dark, let us not crumble in fear and bigotry. Let us honor the unbreakable spirit of those tireless fighters who have fallen before us. Let us rise to the fight, and let us help each other never to forget this noble truth:

    This land was made for you and me.

-Gabe Roth

Spring Is Here

Nina Simone

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