The
butterfly has long been a powerful symbol of rebirth. The lowly caterpillar's
emergence from its cocoon into a thing of beauty in flight is a vivid
embodiment of transformation and self-realization. The title of Butterfly Blue,
the stunning and soulful new album by vocalist Halie Loren, evokes those poetic
images, but tinged with a sense of bittersweet melancholy.
Loren has
found quite a bit of metamorphosis over the past few years, growing from a
West-Coast singer-songwriter to an international jazz celebrity in Japan and
Asia, where the singer has now performed dozens of sold-out concerts and found
her music climbing to the pinnacle of many a sales chart, including three
consecutive Billboard Jazz #1 albums in Japan. Her career and musical growth
continues into 2015, the year which finds Loren spreading her proverbial wings
wider than ever before with the release of Butterfly Blue, drawing inspiration
from blues and soul music influences in a deeper way than she has in the past,
while firmly and unapologetically planting one foot in the jazz realm and the
other in pop. She does this without losing any of the warmth, charm and
sensuality that has always characterized her unique vocal approach. But the
thread that connects the album's mix of jazz and Songbook standards, reimagined
pop songs, and original pieces is captured in that seemingly contradictory title."
"A
lot of these songs were chosen because they explored different aspects of
imprisonment and freedom," Loren explains. "Many of them have to do
with ideas of being beholden to thoughts, feelings, and experiences from which
you alone can also free yourself."
The
album's title marries two original pieces that exemplify that theme.
"Butterfly" was written by Loren, who imagined the insect's
transformation from the caterpillar's point of view, facing the prospect of
having to pass through a literal death in order to experience rebirth, relating
the experience to that of human suffering being the catalyst for spiritual
growth. "Blue," one of two songs penned by guitarist and songwriter
Daniel Gallo, expresses empathy and promises of a brighter future to a lover in
the deep throes of melancholy. Joining the two, Loren says, "really felt
like an apropos combination. It's about finding the way through the pain of
experience to a new, wiser, more beautiful version of yourself. But you have to
go through the journey; that's where the real pain happens."
The two
songs also boldly spotlight the album's musical influences: the stabbing horns
and soulful pleas of "Butterfly" conjure soul touchstones like Otis
Redding or Etta James, while "Blue" lives up to its name through
Gallo's gut-punch guitar and Loren's powerfully communicated longing. While
she's quick to say that Butterfly Blue is by no means a blues or soul album,
those storied genres color the whole album. "It has touches of the things
that have heavily moved me musically over the years," she says. "I've
been a fan of a lot of different kinds of music my whole life, so I was
interested in stretching out beyond the territory I've explored over the last
few albums and digging deeper into more of my bluesy roots."
To realize
those ambitions, Loren added horns and strings to the arrangements in a more
extensive way than she has in the past, though with a light and always
effective touch. These additional musicians, William Seiji Marsh and Gallo on
guitars, David Larsen on saxophone, Joe Freuen on trombone, Dana Heitman on
trumpet, Rob Birdwell on flugelhorn and trumpet, and Katherine Dudney on cello,
join Loren's longtime core band, (pianist and co-producer Matt Treder, bassist
Mark Schneider and drummer Brian West) featured on the majority of the singer's
releases to-date. Together the ensemble subtly nods toward classic soul blues
sounds within a modern jazz context.
Butterfly
Blue begins on a more winsome note, however, with the wordless vocal melody of
Loren's "Yellow Bird." Despite the playfulness of the song's Tin Pan
Alley feel, however, the lyrics fit the album's darker theme. "The idea of
freedom being an internal feeling rather than an external reality came to me in
the image of a bird in a cage," Loren says. "I thought, 'What might
they dream about?' On the surface, it's kind of a cute song with a cute melody,
but the meaning of the lyric goes deeper into more esoteric notions of how
subjective our perceptions of 'reality' are, and to what degree we are masters
of our own experiences in this life."
The notion
of using animals to express deep-felt emotion comes easily to Loren, who has
always felt a strong connection to the natural world. Born and raised in
Alaska, she's lived for the last 17 years in Oregon, where she maintains a
strong connection to the outdoors.
Loren's
rendition of Charles Trenet's "I Wish You Love" is a unique hybrid of
the original French lyrics, with a brief detour into the better-known but less
expressive English lyrics. "Stormy Weather" is stretched into a
sultry, teasingly languorous blues, while "Our Love Is Here To Stay"
offers a sense of familial nostalgia.
"After The Fall", the second song
penned by Gallo, tells a story of a woman in the winter of life, reminiscing
about a long lost love through music that formed the soundtrack for those
precious memories of youth. "I had the rare opportunity to hear this song
as it was coming into being through hands other than my own: an original song I
didn't write but that was entirely new to the world, crafted with such a richly
emotional story and vivid imagery - it was love at first listen."
"I've
Got You Under My Skin" continues the album's theme of emotional or
spiritual imprisonment, here captured in the song's tale of uncontrollable
obsession, heightened by the spare, snake-charmer tone of the arrangement.
"Boulevard of Broken Dreams" is given a darker-than-usual perspective
that illustrates the thoroughfare's hopeless denizens.
Loren's
"Danger in Loving You" is reprised from her 2010 live recording
Stages, and is included as both a long-overdue studio version of the song as
well as a tribute to the vocalist's longtime songwriting partner, Larry Wayne
Clark, who passed away in 2013. "Carry Us Through," lifts the spirits
by adding New Orleans accents to singer-songwriter Sarah Masen's song of
survival, and the set ends on a hopeful note with the late Horace Silver's
classic, "Peace."
Loren
explains, "The idea of the song is that if you can find peace inside,
everything will be all right with the world outside. I love that it embodies a
zen-like quality in both message and music while so beautifully reiterating the
concept of freedom being a choice, an internal experience. I thought it would
really round out the feeling of the album nicely and bring it back to this
place of simplicity."
Upcoming
Halie Loren Performances:
May 8 /
Hart Community Performing Arts Series / Hart, MI
May 22-23
/ Juan de Fuca Festival of the Arts / Port Angeles, WA
Halie
Loren · Butterfly Blue
Justin
Time Records · Release Date: June 9, 2015
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