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"This music is dedicated to Jeanne Lee" -- William Parker
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Since the mid-seventies virtuoso american vocalist Ellen Christi has been a central figure of the avant-garde New York scene, performing regularly at the Knitting Factory with jazz greats such as Don Cherry and Kenny Wheeler. She has recorded over 25 albums as soloist and/or collaborator on different labels including NYCAC, Soulnote and Splas(c)h as well as for her own label. Lisa Sokolov is a frontline New York jazz vocalist, improvisor and composer. Her work embraces the best of new music, free and straight ahead jazz. Her own studies began as a classical pianist and singer with conservatory prep education and traditional musical training. Her intrigue with the music of John Coltrane led her to search out Coltrane's bassist Jimmy Garrison at Bennington College in Vermont. Choosing this school, she found herself able to study with trumpeter Bill Dixon, saxophonist Jimmy Lyons, and drummer Milford Graves, as well as composers Vivian Fine and Louis Calabro. Arriving on the New York scene in 1977, Lisa began collaborating with bassist William Parker. This collaboration has continued now for 22 years. These years also included working in trio with singers Ellen Christie and Jeanne Lee. Lisa also was heard regularly with pianists Wayne Horvitz and Robin Holcomb in the days of Studio Henry. Indeed over the years she has worked with many new music and jazz notables including Rashid Ali, Badal Roy, Andrew Cyrille, Mark Dresser, Jimmy Lyons, Irene Schweitzer, Steve McCall, Butch Morris, Gerry Hemingway, Didi Jackson, Blue "Gene" Tyranny, Hilton Ruiz, Mike Richmond, Don Cherry and Jim McNeely. Yuko Fujiyama is a pianist currently residing in New York City. She is a part of the New York creative music scene and regularly works with top artists such as William Parker, Wilber Morris, Sabir Mateen, and Susie Ibarra. Her debut album as a leader, "Tag" (CIMP) with Mark Feldman (violin) and Tomas Ulrich (cello) received excellent reviews that praised her unique and personal sound. |
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Cycle Song Cycle consists of 15 songs written between 1983 and 1993. Each song in the cycle is dedicated to someone or something that has inspired me to do my best as both a musician and as a human being. People such as poet/playwrights Miguel Pinero and James Baldwin, composer Julius Eastman, Hunkpapa Medicine Man, Tatanka Iyotanka (known as Sitting Bull), the great singer Sarah Vaughan, the Australian aborigines; things such as flowers, trees, the sea, rain, and clouds; because of these things we dance, paint, play music, raise children, teach and pray. The vocalists on this cd are Ellen Christi and Lisa Sokolov, they are both beautiful singers/ composers/improvisors in creative music. I have worked with them on many projects over the last three decades. Every time they sing it is to share and communicated something from the deepest part of their souls. Pianist Yuko Fujiyama is from Sapporo, Japan. She brings the sensibility of a poet to each song leaving the right amount of space between words and phrases, between sounds and silences; inventing a canvas for the voice to paint over. Lisa Sokolov is a master of bringing words to life. She picks the sound colors which are the closest to her heart and welcomes them into her life, creating a music that is filled with many wonderful things, encompassing the sadness and joy that accompanies life and death or the silence that arises out of harmony. In her singing we hear earth tones of green and brown as well as sky tones that reveal red, orange, yellow, blue, and purple. Ellen Christi sings in duet with myself on bass. She uses her voice at times like a symphonic orchestra; at other times she inflects like an oglala medicine woman healing the sick. Ellen enters many daring and radiant sonic areas that hew singers tread. She not only enters these areas, she navigates inside them harvesting song plants. They are replanted daily. Music has never been about notes; music is about unconditional love of life. A sound is a word and a word is a sound with or without knowing the meaning of the word. There should be no separation between singing and living. -- William Parker, from the liner notes 15 tracks in 67:25 minutes More from Boxholder One Final Note Review :::>>> Tell A Friend About This CD From Drimala If you like this cd, you might also enjoy listening to: Zen Mountains Zen Streets (William Parker and David Budbill) Piercing the Veil (William Parker and Hamid Drake) Condor Autumn Wind (Wadada Leo Smith and Harumi Makino Smith) Chamber Music (Dan DeChellis) Raining On The Moon (Parker, Brown, Barnes, Drake, Conquest) Transitions (Nicols, Kraabel, Hug) Music Swims Back To Me (music of Julia Powell) Jump the Circle, Jump the Line (Buckner and Hamilton) |
