Tag Archives: music

The Ai Kuwabara Trio Project brought a delicious taste of Japanese jazz to Denver

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We recently were privileged to enjoy a concert of contemporary jazz by a vibrant young group from Japan, the Ai Kuwabara Trio Project. Simply put, the combo rocked the joint at the King Center for the Performing Arts at the Auraria campus. The auditorium was full for the free performance, and I bet everyone there were blown away.

Pianist Kuwabara is impossibly young for such an astonishingly assured and accomplished musician and composer. She’s a mere 23 years old, but she and her bassist and musical partner Yusuke Morita have already released two albums as the Ai Kuwabara Trio Project (the “Project” part is because the group doesn’t have a permanent drummer, though Shintaro Imamura is doing a sterling job on the current tour).

The musicians’ youth comes through in the way they are almost starstruck at their own success. At a pre-show reception, Kuwabara bowed deeply when she was introduced to Ikuhiko Ono, the Consul General of Japan at Denver, and his wife Eiko. The tour is organized by the Japan Foundation of Los Angeles, which brings a variety of Japanese arts and culture and showcases them here in the States. This particular tour was too brief: The group played in Berkeley and LA before coming to Denver, and the next day they flew off to Anchorage — yes, Alaska — to perform one more time before flying back to Japan.
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Mara Measor’s debut album is a beautiful, smart pop gem

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Mara Measor‘s eponymous debut album is a late summer treat, a collection of songs colored by a diverse palette that span roots in folk, jazz and alt-rock, with a splash of arty chamber pop thrown in. Her stylistic range merges into a studied sound that’s both memorable and intellectually satisfying. (Kudos to album producer Jamie Lawrence for his light touch and diverse approach to framing Measor’s music.)

Her bio compares her to a mashup of Jason Mraz and Regina Spektor, but Measor’s artistic scope also reminds me of a Jane Siberry, an idiosyncratic Canadian singer-songwriter who’s less known because she’s marched to a different drum all her career. Measor’s music has a broad appeal so I hope that she won’t have to work the margins of the mainstream and can break through to a wider audience.

mara-cover“Mara” deserves to be heard. It opens with insistent acoustic strumming that punctuates the desperation of “Desperate for You,” and the track introduces Measor’s supple, sultry voice, which can soar from a whisper to a full-throated roar, matched by an arrangement that builds when it needs to and then returns to a plaintive piano and Measor’s solo strumming to let the listener back down.

The tracks that follow showcase her sensibility with mostly downbeat ballads and mellow swing and her wordsmithing — the only cover on the album is Coldplay’s “The Scientist.”
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AWESOME: Cool video mashup of “One Love” & Ue O Muite Arukou” (“Sukiyaki” to some) by Tohoku musicians

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I find this magically powerful. It’s a sweet rendition of one of my all-time favorite songs (and one I was just playing last night on the guitar). And it’s also an expression of hope, community and rebirth from musicians in the Tohoku region of NE Japan, set amidst the cleaned-up but still devastated area hammered by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

“Carnival China Style” U.S. tour showcases old and new culture from all over China

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These dancers are just paert of the 70-person touring troupe for "Carnival China Style" that will perform in Denver on Jan. 13, 2010.

UPDATE: THIS EVENT IS NOW FREE! (Ticketmaster processing charges still apply)

It probably irks Chinese people to no end that their centuries of culture is often crammed into just a couple of off-hand images: Bruce Lee and martial arts, Chairman Mao holding up his Little Red Book, Jackie Chan and martial arts, the traditionalist flash of a Beijing Opera performer in full makeup and drag, Jet Li and martial arts. Oh, and martial arts of any kind, whether or not it’s from China. The mainstream American consciousness seems to be oblivious to the depth and richness of Chinese culture, and to its vast variety.

But Chinese culture spans a huge area and a long timeline. Remember, China is so big and diverse that it even has seven separate groups of language dialects. A Chinese person from Beijing may not be able to understand someone from Hong Kong, because Mandarin is spoken in Beijing and Cantonese in Hong Kong.

The country’s government has been on an international campaign since before last year’s Beijing Olympics to educate the world about all of China. Because the country’s taking over the world stage as a economic power (by most accounts, it’ll eclipse Japan as the world’s second-largest economy in 2010, second only to the U.S.), it’s been keen to promote cultural exchanges and send performers halfway around the world. You can expect this public-relations campaign to continue through at least next year’s 2010 World Expo, which will be held in Shanghai.

The ongoing effort to showcase China’s riches is great for those of us who are interested in the breadth of its culture.

Here in Denver we have a rare opportunity to catch a spectacle of an event, “Carnival China Style,” that will bring 70 performers and support staff from all over China to the U.S. and Canada starting after the new year. A Denver stop’s been announced for Wed. Jan. 13 at 7 pm at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House, the classy auditorium at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.

Other stops on the tour include Toronto, Ottawa, Chicago, St. Paul, Denver, San Francisco, Sacramento, Reno, Seattle and other cities. President Obama enjoyed some of the performers traveling in this troupe during his recent visit to China.

The evening of entertainment is based on a Chinese traditional festival format and it’ll highlight the long history, grace, beauty, populism, diversity and folk nature of Chinese culture. The evening won’t just be traditional dance and music, either.

There’s a segment featuring Wang Feng, a popular rock star in China, and even the woman who hold the Guinness World Record for twirling the most hula hoops at once. Who knew that’s a Chinese cultural heritage?

Here are some descriptions from the event’s press release: Continue reading →

Dawen’s “American Me” is a gem of an R&B-pop recording; don’t miss him in NYC dates this week

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Dawen, LA-based Asian American R&B singer-songwriter The first single from Dawen‘s debut album, “American Me,”which was released back in September, wastes no time stating his passion for Asian American identity. “Flip through the paper, turn on the telly, go to a movie,” he croons in his supple, silky soprano. Then he slips into the first verse:

Just because you saw the movie Crouching Tiger
Doesn’t mean that I know kung-fu
And just because Mr. Yan has an accent
Doesn’t mean that I’ve got one too
People tell me I “speak good English”
Or that I’m “too thin to be Bruce Lee”
Where do they get their preconceptions
Of what I’m supposed to be?

That’s his first single, but the first track on the album, is more blunt in addressing the inequities of many immigrants of color to the U.S.:

Welcome to the USA
Freedom is your right
Land of opportunity
Only if you’re white

Welcome to the USA
Sea to shining sea
I give my money, give my life
Still they stare at me

Welcome, Welcome, hey…

On the third track, “Ku Li,” Dawen weaves in the lyrics from the folk song, “I’ve been working on the railroad,” into a stunning statement about how Chinese immigrants were treated as slave labor during the taming of the American West. Dawen

What’s amazing, despite such in-your-face lyrics, is that Dawen wraps his message in an incredible wealth of warm musicality, starting with his soulful R&B vocals to his must-be-classically-and-jazz-trained keyboards and his guitar work, and his hooky instincts for get-in-your-head melodies and late-night funk bedrock rhythms.

The album is a mellow, low-key wonder that can play in the background or zoom into the foreground with the sharply-observed social activism of the first eight tracks. Continue reading →