SOUNDTRACK: ANTONIO LIZANA-Tiny Desk Concert #615 (April 28, 2017).
I am fascinated by Lizana, but more for his voice than anything else. Lizana’s singing voice/style sounds a lot like the lead singer of Gipsy Kings (musicians from Arles and Montpellier in the south of France, who perform in the Spanish language with an Andalusian accent). Lizana is from Spain, but he has that same strained and fascinating delivery. The blurb here hints that maybe that is just the style of flamenco:
In many ways, the traditions of flamenco and jazz could not be further apart, but in the hands of a few Spanish jazz musicians, these two worlds commingle and find common ground. Antonio Lizana is one such musician, both a saxophonist and vocalist with one foot firmly planted in each tradition. As a vocalist he has mastered the Moorish, note-bending improvisations that make flamenco singing so beguiling, while the fluidity of ideas he expresses as a saxophonist place him in the time-honored tradition of composing while playing.
Indeed, between jazz-like saxophone, Lizana sings flamenco vocals. For these three songs, Lizana and Jonatan Pacheco (percussion) and Andreas Arnold (guitar) play quite a mix and it works very well. The band is also quite multicultural as well as Andreas is from Germany and Jonatan is from Spain (and he plays a mean box drum).
“Airegría” is about 6 minutes long. It begins with hims singing over the percussion. It after a minute and a half that the guitar comes in and not until almost 2 and a half minutes before the sax comes in. The guitar is kind of staccato while the sax is pretty fluid.
Introducing the band he says, “We’re very happy to be here playing. We have today on the stage or on the desk…”
“Déjate Sentir” more conventionally jazzy sax but the main melody comes from his kind of scat singing. Ad I find tat when the guitar kicks in I prefer him singing to guitar rather than playing the sax–I suppose traditional flamenco over jazz. But I can appreciate the sax too–especially when it seems to push aside the flamenco style for a bit.
“Viento De La Mar” is a smoother song with some pretty guitar and light jazzy sax. My favorite moments comes in the middle with the chiming percussion and the big ending.
[READ: June 24, 2016] Big Bad Ironclad
How cool is this series? It is so cool that this is the official author bio:
The spy Nathan Hale was executed in 1776. The author Nathan Hale was born in 1976.
Nathan Hale is the author/illustrator’s real name and he uses the spy Nathan Hale as the narrator of his stories about history (or in this case the future–for the spy, that is).
The book begins on September 22, 1776 as Nathan Hale is about to be hung for treason. The British soldier in charge of the execution is cross, but the executioner himself is kind of giddy because Hale is going to tell another tale.
After some amusing introductions, designed to antagonize the solider, Hale settles in to tell the story of the iron ships (iron doesn’t float!).
And thus he begins the story of the Merrimack and the Monitor. The year is 1861 and Abraham Lincoln has just been elected.
Hale uses some very funny narrative devices to get some of the salient battle points across, like General Scott’s anaconda plan–surround the enemy and squeeze. But how can they do that with only four, yes four, ships?
The North’s man in charge was Gideon Welles, nicknamed Father Neptune. Stephen Mallory is in charge of the confederate navy–the executioner dubs him “sharkface.” And in the most amusing nod to comics, Gustavus Fox (Foxy) is rendered as a fox (he’s a cute li’l fox). (more…)
I Just Read About That... 