There will be no love that’s dying here! Those are the lyrics to the 1st line of the 1st song on Gregory Porter’s new CD which is AMAZING!!! I think this is my favorite so far. I always listen to a cd several times from beginning to end and when that song comes on it just puts a smile on my face. It helps that when I met him this summer at the Capital Jazz festival he is a nice person. I have watched several interviews with him and he is genuine. I even watch one the other day where the interviewer was speaking in French. He answered in English so I’m assuming they edited out the interpreter. And I also know my dad would have absolutely loved him! ‘Musical Genocide’, ’Brown Grass’, ‘Free’, and ‘Moving’ are the other ones I really like. Now he just did a video for ‘Hey Laura’. I’ve only seen it once and maybe I need to see it again. He never plays the love interest. It’s almost like in all of his videos he is the singer who is telling the story of the people in love, or out of love, or trying to get there. ‘When love was king’ he said he wrote for his newborn son. This one has some heavy bass playing in it. Not really good for work because it puts me in the mood of sipping cabernet! Well the whole thing I want to be somewhere sipping! ‘Liquid Spirit’ is the cd title and probably the most upbeat song on the CD. Now my only gripe about Mr. Porter is that he does not do enough touring in the states!! And I get it. Europe does seem to embrace jazz and jazz artists more than we do. And if they are not mainstream meaning they are not in constant rotations on the radio station people don’t really know what’s out there unless they are really seeking that type of music. Even at the Capital Jazz Fest he was featured as a Rising Star which means he was on first. After I heard him I could have gone home feeling like my money was well spent. At least he was on the main stage which is good!! So yeah this is jazz! I like jazz and this is a must have! I have all of his cd’s (he has 3) and will continue to purchase them when he puts more music out.
Janelle Monae
I am not an early adopter. This is a term that I didn’t even know
existed until, well late. It basically
means someone who jumps right on technology right when it comes out. Like if the iPhone 7 came out today, that
person would have already been in line for it to get it and be the first. Well this true for music as well. Some artists have a following that may be
underground and then when they finally get a major label deal then everyone
know about them and start loving them.
This can be said of Ledisi and U2
(yes that band from Ireland…err Bono’s (friend of Oprah) band). Since I am a
late adopter, I usually have to go back and purchase everything from the artist
all at once to get caught up. I had to ddo this for Eric Roberson, Frank
McComb, and Esperanza Spaulding. All
this build-up is for my review of Janelle Monae’s ‘Electric Lady’. Say of think what you want, if you are not
onboard, then you just don’t know any better!
So the concept behind her music is based on a futuristic android named
Cindi Mayweather who falls in love with a human. Now in the video ‘Tightrope’ I got a glimpse
into the storyline and for a little bit that cd was on my wish list in the good
Amazon store, but I never got it because I didn’t get it. There was a limited (like maybe 500) release cd
that wasn’t really officially released called ‘The Audition’. This one dealt
with Cindi falling in love. This chick
was 18 when she did this. You have to do
some real good searches to find any information on this one and you won’t
really find too much. Then there was the
EP ‘Metropolis’ and then ‘ArchAndroid’ was the full length CD. All of these projects follow a path so
Electric Lady is labeled suites 4 and 5 of 6.
Initially she intended to do 4 suites.
So Metropolis was 2 of 4, but then it got expanded. I’m giving a whole lot of background info,
but what you need to know is that this most recent CD gives me everything I
need! It gives r&b, pop, a lil
go-go, big band, some retro and futuristic and it is all just fused together seamlessly. She has a vision and writes ALL her own
stuff. So you have to wonder what the
heck some of these other singers are doing out there? I am a firm believer that if you sing it, you
should have had a hand in writing it.
How else to you fully embody your music?
When I hear some of these artists speak about the writers they had for
their project I’m always like HUH?!? To me that is a very detached way of being
in this crazy industry. On this CD there
are some heavy hitters that she did collaborations with, Prince, yeah THAT PRINCE, Erykah Badu, Miguel and even
Solange. There are a few videos out but
of course I like the stuff that probably won’t be played on the radio, like ‘Look
into my eyes’, ‘It’s code’ and ‘Can’t live without your love’. And then there are these interludes with DJ
Crash Crash which are just hilarious. Go
get this and everything else she has done!
I had 2 more cd’s but these 2 were the best!
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