Laurie Antonioli Songs of Shadow Songs of
Light Vocalist Laurie Antonioli delivers the most personal and soul-baring
statement of her esteemed career with the release, on August 19, of Songs of
Shadow, Songs of Light: The Music of Joni Mitchell. The CD, her first for the
Origin label, finds the acclaimed Bay Area jazz singer returning with obvious
passion and inspiration to her earliest musical influence.
"Joni's
music is such a part of me, it's like a second skin," says Antonioli.
"So is jazz, of course, but this goes even deeper. It's where I started.
It's both a personal and a generational thing."
Repertoire
is largely drawn from early-period Mitchell, including "Marcie" from
Mitchell's 1968 debut album Song to a Seagull and the obscure "Eastern
Rain," recorded by Fairport Convention in 1969 but never by the composer
herself. Antonioli puts her stamp on some of Joni's less frequently covered
songs, such as "Woman of Heart and Mind," "Hissing of Summer
Lawns," "Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire," and "People's
Parties," on which Theo Bleckmann contributes the background-vocal choir
effects.
Also
included is "Both Sides Now," Joni's most recorded song. For that
reason, Antonioli wasn't sure about tackling it, but "each day, at the end
of the session, [pianist] Matt [Clark] and I did one or two takes to see if we
could get something. We didn't rehearse or even talk about it, other than to
agree we wanted to find a different approach to it. The song evolved into a
haunting jazz ballad."
Clark
and the other members of Laurie's band of eight years' standing -- guitarist
Dave MacNab, bassist John Shifflett, drummer Jason Lewis, and reed player
Sheldon Brown -- are her full collaborators on this project, handling
arrangements as well as helping to shape the material in performances in the
year before it was finally recorded in December 2013.
Laurie Antonioli In fact, Antonioli recalls
the moment, three years ago, when she decided that she had to do this project.
Clark started playing "Boho Dance" and "I started singing along.
I asked: do you know this tune, do you know that one? And he knew them all, by
heart, just about every song she ever wrote."
Songs of
Shadow, Songs of Light was recorded "live" at Fantasy Studios in
Berkeley, with "each of us isolated so we could all play at the same time.
Thus the improvisational sections and endings and all the interaction were
happening as it would in a concert. This is generally not how people make
records anymore," adds Antonioli. "Most singers get their 'tracks'
and redo or practice their parts and then record."
Early on
in her career, Bay Area native Laurie Antonioli was a protégée of Joe
Henderson, Mark Murphy, and Pony Poindexter, who recruited the 22-year-old
singer for an extensive European tour that turned into an eight-month sojourn
in 1980.
Following
the release of her 1985 recording debut Soul Eyes, a duo album with George
Cables, Antonioli was one of the region's most visible singers, booked at
leading venues and festivals with her own band, performing regularly with Bobby
McFerrin, and sitting in with luminaries like Tete Montoliu, Jon Hendricks, and
Cedar Walton at Keystone Korner. Raising her daughter, combined with
Antonioli's work as an educator, subsequently kept her off the U.S. scene for
too many years.
Laurie Antonioli In the summer of 2006, she
returned to the Bay Area from a four-year tenure running the Vocal Department
at The Jazz Institute in Graz, Austria to take a position as the Chair of the
Vocal Program at the Jazzschool in Berkeley. The Jazzschool is now an
accredited institution known as the California Jazz Conservatory, Antonioli's
unique eight-semester vocal program holding up under the rigors of the
reviewing committees.
Laurie's
second album, 2004's Foreign Affair, is a bracing blend of post-bop jazz and
Balkan music created with players from Serbia, Albania, Germany, and the U.S.
In 2005, her long-running partnership with Richie Beirach culminated in the
release of The Duo Session on Nabel Records, a critically acclaimed album
featuring Miles Davis jazz standards and Antonioli's lyrics set to the
pianist's compositions.
Her
fourth album, American Dreams (2010), was inspired by feelings that arose
during her years abroad and features a number of her collaborations with
Austrian pianist Fritz Pauer. "It is not hyperbole to say," wrote C.
Michael Bailey in his All About Jazz review of the CD, "that Laurie
Antonioli is emerging as the most important vocalist, let alone jazz vocalist,
this decade. Let us hope for much more music from this brilliant constellation
in the west."
Laurie
Antonioli and her American Dreams band will perform a CD release show for Songs
of Shadow, Songs of Light at Yoshi's San Francisco, Sunday 9/28.
Tracklist:
People's
Parties (2:41) Court and Spark
Rainy
Night House (5:01) Ladies of the Canyon
Barangrill
(3:26) For the Roses
Eastern
Rain (4:27) [Not previously recorded by
Mitchell]
Cold
Blue Steel and Sweet Fire (4:52) For the
Roses
Both
Sides Now (5:18) Clouds
Hissing
of Summer Lawns (4:56) The Hissing of
Summer Lawns
Woman of
Heart and Mind (5:02) For the Roses
This
Flight Tonight (4:37) Blue
River
(4:41) Blue
I Don't
Know Where I Stand (4:39) Clouds
California
(4:32) Blue
Marcie
(5:49) Song to a Seagull
