It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood...
Entries in Twilight Dance Series (113)
Duchess of Coolsville
Rickie Lee Jones is one of the most singular artists in today’s music world. A clue to defining her iconoclasm comes from her own family description as "lower-middle-class-hillbilly-hipster." From her emergence on the national scene in 1979, Rickie Lee has become one of the most acclaimed and talented singer-songwriters of our time spanning many genres: folk, rock, jazz, soul, spoken word and pop.
Her first self-titled album launched her career and received five Grammy nominations. Her nominations included Best Song, for "Last Chance Texaco," Best Album, Best Pop Vocal and Best Rock Vocal. As it happened, she won Best New Artist, and her career was launched. Just four months after her debut, Rickie Lee graced the cover of Rolling Stone, and again only 18 months later.
Her most recent releases are THE SERMON ON EXPOSITION BOULEVARD (2007), on which Rickie Lee and her collaborators have put Christ's words into a modern-day context, portraying those words in a way that anyone can understand and her newest Balm in Gilead.
Fabian Lewkowicz
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Kailash Kher
There is no greater star in Indian popular music today than Kailash Kher, a revered singer whose prodigious vocal gifts and inspiring personality have made him a household name across the subcontinent. Kailash Kher’s meteoric rise from a humble upbringing outside of New Delhi to being appointed a judge for the 2008-09 season of Indian Idol is nothing less than remarkable. It is also a testament to the strength and appeal of what is undeniably one of the most unique voices in Indian music today.
While Kailash studied Classical Indian music in his early years, it was the traditional folk songs sung by his father that exerted the most influence on the young artist. In 2001, after a foray into the business world, Kailash left New Delhi for Mumbai, home to the highly competitive Bollywood film and music industry. Kailash’s first recording was an advertising jingle for a diamond company, made for the equivalent of $100. After recording a handful of jingles, the raw, earthy and soulful strength of his voice caught the attention of every production house and film composer in Mumbai. By 2004, Kailash had been catapulted to stardom, performing on some of the biggest hits in Bollywood. Kailash has been heard in over sixty soundtracks and near two hundred jingles.
After being introduced to brothers Naresh and Paresh Kamath, fixtures of the Indian rock and jazz scene, they formed Kailash Kher’s Kailasa, combining Kailash’s strong traditional folk sensibilities and lyrics that invoke Sufi-mystical dimensions with Naresh and Paresh’s more modern rock, electronic and funk influences. Kailasa can be heard to best advantage on their first American release, for the elite Cumbancha Records imprint. The superb “Yatra (Nomadic Souls)” features re-recorded and remixed classics alongside never released new material.
Fabian Lewkowicz
in Twilight Dance Series
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JOVANOTTI
Jovanotti (aka Lorenzo Cherubini) performs during the 26th Annual Twilight Dance Series at the Santa Monica Pier on Thursday, July 22, 2010.
Jovanotti fills stadiums in his native Italy and throughout Latin America. He sets out this summer to bring his synthesis of rap and rock to festivals across America. Jovanotti’s music has transformed from its early roots in hip-hop and rap to a broader hybrid, incorporating pointed lyrics which address philosophical, religious, social, and political issues, more typical of a singer-songwriter, Italian cantautore tradition.
He has recorded eleven studio albums, the four most recent releases reaching #1 in Italy. Over the past twenty years Jovanotti has collaborated with Brazil’s Daniela Mercury, Sergio Mendes and Carlinhos Brown, and recorded alongside Ben Harper, Michael Franti (Spearhead) and Bono (U2). Jovanotti appears on several international compilations, most notably Red Hot + Rhapsody, a 1998 tribute to George Gershwin, on which he performs "I Got Rhythm." His song "Piove" is featured on the CD Peppers & Eggs from the soundtrack of the TV series The Sopranos.
Fabian Lewkowicz
in JOVANOTTI, Twilight Dance Series
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Jace Everett
Singer/songwriter Jace Everett performs during the 26th Annual Twilight Dance Series at the Santa Monica Pier on Thursday, July 22, 2010.
Indiana-born, Texas-raised, singer/songwriter Jace Everett became enamored by both gospel music and the works of Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings in his teenage years. Jace's upbri...nging in the evangelical church and his far-flung travels are apparent in his songs: “The church is where I learned about music, played bass and did my first real public singing where the girls thought I was really cool. I’ve always been attracted to emotionally and spiritually mature themes, both philosophically and musically.”
Jace's song 'Bad Things' is the “theme” song, heard over the opening title montage of True Blood, HBO"s most successful series since The Sopranos. As the third season begins, Jace Everett releases his own new album “Red Revelations” and hits the road playing these songs. Everett’s music evokes the complex, vividly emotional terrain of his diverse influences; Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ray Charles, Jim Morrison, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Marvin Gaye; and springs from the same sources of inspiration, contradiction and risk.
Chilean hip-hop artist Ana Tijoux was born in France to a French mother and a Chilean father while they were living in exile during the Pinochet dictatorship. After the country’s return to democracy, the family moved back to Chile. While studying literature in school, Anita began immersing herself in Santiago’s hip-hop underground. Rhyming first in French, then later in Spanish, Tijoux found “…a platform to talk about all kinds of things" in a way that was cathartic.
Fabian Lewkowicz
in Twilight Dance Series
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Australia Rocks the Pier
Fabian Lewkowicz
in Twilight Dance Series
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KONONO NO.1
Fabian Lewkowicz
in Twilight Dance Series
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PATTI SMITH
The Godmother of Punk, Patti Smith, 62, performs at the Santa Monica Pier during the season finale of the 25th Anniversary Twilight Dance Series on Thursday, September 3, 2009. Smith's most widely known song is "Because the Night," which was co-written with Bruce Springsteen and reached number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1978. In 2005, Patti Smith was named a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture, and in 2007, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Fabian Lewkowicz
in Twilight Dance Series
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The Lowrider Band
The Lowrider Band, featuring original founding members Howard E. Scott on guitar and vocals, Lee Oskar, Harmonica, Harold Brown, drums and vocals, and bass player B.B. Dickerson, perform at the Santa Monica Pier during the 25th Anniversary Twilight Dance Series on Thursday, August 27, 2009. The Lowrider Band sprung from its roots in Long Beach, with a hybrid sound born in the racially-mixed ghettos of Los Angeles. Their music crosses over and combines many styles and genres; funk, Latin music, R&B, rock and jazz. The band has always transcended racial and cultural boundaries with their musical melting pot and multi-ethnic line-up.They played all their million selling smash hits: Spill the Wine, Slippin into Darkness, The Cisco Kid, The World is a Ghetto, All Day Music, Me and Baby Brother, Why Cant We Be Friends and of course Lowrider, the universal anthem from which they take their name. These songs have provided an essential foundation for spreading their message of brotherhood and harmony, with the hip-hop generation building on samples of these songs to perpetuate the values of these brown-eyed soul pioneers.
Fabian Lewkowicz
in Bands, Twilight Dance Series
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