A vivid
self-portrait in mosaic form, Kavita Shah's Visions heralds the arrival of a
strikingly original, globally minded new voice. The gifted vocalist/composer
brings together a rich variety of musical, cultural, and personal influences
into a formidable debut album that combines a jazz quintet with Indian tablas
and the West African kora.
Visions
interweaves Shah's multicultural background (she's a native New Yorker of
Indian descent fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, and French) with her wide-ranging
musical tastes (reared on 90s hip-hop, Afro-Cuban music, and bossa nova, she
studied jazz voice and classical piano) and her fascination with
ethnomusicology (which she studied at Harvard). The album was co-produced by
the renowned Benin-born guitarist Lionel Loueke, a kindred spirit who shares
the singer's cohesive view of a multi-hued musical experience.
"I
haven't been so excited about a project like this in a long time," states
Loueke. "Kavita is a real, true musician. She's a great singer, but the
way she writes music, she's not really thinking just about the voice. It sounds
like she could be a horn player, a saxophone player."
Shah
majored in Latin American Studies at Harvard, living abroad in Peru and then
Brazil, where she conducted research on Afro-Brazilian music in a Bahian
favela. That period is reflected in her rhythmically intoxicating duo with
Lionel Loueke on Edil Pacheco/P. C. Pinheiro's "Oju Oba" as well as
in her own composition "Moray" (winner of ASCAP's Young Jazz
Composers Award), named for an Incan archeological site and inspired by Pablo
Neruda's epic poem "Las Alturas de Macchu Picchu."
Shah
went on to receive her Masters in Jazz Voice from Manhattan School of Music
while studying privately with Theo Bleckmann, Peter Eldridge, Steve Wilson, and
Jim McNeely. Wilson's supple reed playing is featured on three tracks on
Visions, while McNeely proved instrumental in nurturing Shah's innovative
arrangements. While at MSM, Shah was named byDownBeat as Best Graduate Jazz
Vocalist, and she has since become an active member of New York's thriving jazz
community, performing regularly at such venues as Joe's Pub, Cornelia Street
Café, Bar Next Door, 55 Bar, Shapeshifter Lab, Kitano, and Minton's Playhouse.
"It
is so against who I am to pick just one style of music," Shah says.
"Being a global citizen in the 21st century means having a somewhat disjointed
life - scattered memories, connections, and experiences that can be enriching
but also isolating. Visions is my small universe of all the parts that make me
whole."
Shah had
never met Lionel Loueke when she called on him to co-produce the album, but she
recognized a fellow traveler in his own globetrotting sonic collage.
"Lionel went above and beyond as a co-producer. He and I share the same
vision for how we approach music, so I think there was an automatic trust,
respect, and appreciation there. He has a really beautiful spirit and we formed
a special relationship; he's been incredibly generous and supportive of my
music."
Fourteen
musicians from around the world ultimately contributed to breathing life into
Shah's Visions, including keyboardist Stephen Newcomb, guitarist Michael
Valeanu, bassist Linda Oh, drummer Guilhem Flouzat, percussionist Rogério
Boccato, kora master Yacouba Sissoko, tabla prodigy Stephen Cellucci, and a
string quartet conducted by Miho Hazama. The album follows an engaging
narrative sweep, tracing the cycle of a day or, from a more melancholy angle,
stages of grief (Shah's father died when she was 18). But through Shah's
restless searching, it possesses a geographic as well as emotional sweep, made
cohesive by her singular, prodigiously confident vision.
"I
see myself as a cultural interlocutor. A singer can play an almost mystical
role, connecting these different elements on stage with an audience through the
human voice, through words. With the Visions project, it's amazing to see the
Joni Mitchell fan who has never before seen a kora standing next to the
hardcore jazz fan who would not expect to hear tablas on a Wayne Shorter tune.
I hope that people find something familiar in the music that draws them in, but
then discover something new that might change, even for a second, how they see
the world."
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