Thursday

Chicago Songstress~ Julia Huff.

I met Julia Huff last week at Katerina's. I was there for a later show but caught most of her set.
The voice man, the voice caught me, surrounded me...power!

Julia Huff
 I got to chat with her a bit, and I asked her to introduce herself to you guys, I always like to have you know who I'm writing about and their personality, their wonderful music will speak for itself.

Julia:
"All I have to say is my music is my life. It is the reason why I breath..it IS my making and as I always sing, I am livin my life like it's Golden!!

I am a former news reporter, with a broadcast degree turned vocalist. I have NEVER looked back.
My God given gift of voice has taken me all over the world and it has been nothing but an all inspiring joy ride.  In reality, my gift presents a number of challenges but there are regular triumphs and I suggest than anyone in my position step out on faith, believe in yourself, and watch what God can do.

I am grateful and committed to being the very best that I can be. That's what I believe success is all about. So onward and upward I go. Can't wait to see what happens next!!

                                           *******************************
One of the things I look for in an artists when I meet them is 'attitude'. Julia projected nothing but...Positive, Happy, Friendly, Loving Life....well, go check her out and you'll get surrounded as I did!

Julia Huff

Chicago:
Julia is at the 'M Lounge' ..the 1st Tuesday of every month!
Julia hosts a 'Jamm'..2d and 4th Monday of the April at 'Jazz Showcase'
Sunday April 7th...she will be at 'Buddy Guy's'

Julia will be featured on May 11th...'A Tribute To Phyllis Hyman' @
DuSable Museum of African American History, Chicago.

 The CD:
follow Julia Huff, get her music: HERE


Julia, thanks so much for taking time to meet my readers. I'll be seeing you soon!!

follow me:  Pete Carma

Monday

On Women's Rights, for StreetcredMusic...Kenya Carter Davis

Born and raised in Newark, New Jersey, Kenya Carter Davis is a friend of mine since 1980.
A great sense of humor, an over abundance of common sense, a background similar to mine...
being brought up in a ghetto, and having to fight you way to grow up, has welded us together.
Kenya got a job in the Casino Industry in Atlantic City in 1978, today she is Casino Manager of
a property in Colorado. Has two children, and is still married to William who she married in 1989.

Who better than Kenya to ask for a comment on women's rights; 

Kenya, circa 1990. (hahahaha)


 Kenya:
 “But if God had wanted us to think with just our wombs, why did He give us a brain?”
Is one of my favorite quotes. Growing up in poverty, I saw so many young girls, I mean like 13-14 years old getting pregnant out of ignorance and the abuse they took from older men, it was a fear instilled on me, and in a way it may have spared me that fate.

My friends my cousins, most of them had their lives ruined because of pregnancy, grand parents, aunts and uncles had to be the earners for teenage parents, because those parents were unable to work because of their age and a lack of education.

I count my lucky stars that I escaped all that mess.

When I got a job in the casino industry, and learned about this 'Human Resources' thing that the corporations have, I was like 'WTF'!! You mean if somebody fucks with me I have a place to go for justice! WOW what a concept!

So I have a short message for your young woman readers, go to school, learn all you can, because if I can get my ass out of Newark, and now have a home in Colorado, raised two kids and have 109 people working for me...you can too!

Pete~~~when are you coming to Colorado???
 My friend Kenya: I would say never!!!!  xoxoxo
...but seriously, I have a friend who told me he would finance a 'Marijuana Dispensary' if I would do all the work.....I'm done working!!! Take care of your sixes and eights!


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Wednesday

'Moon Fool'~Anna Helena Mclean, 'Titania' Comes to Chicago

~~ "Pete Carma has asked me to write some words, because I'm coming to Chicago with 'Titania", a one woman musical adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream. People have called the show "exotic, delightful, and brilliant" and it's certainly a great joy to perform from my side. I'm playing at The Trap Door Theater at 8pm on the 20th and 21st April."

Anna Helena Mclean: 'Moon Fool'


 ...I first noticed Anna Helena Mclean (Moon Fool) when she performed with 'Hydra' three women I love, in NYC last year. That was the only credential she needed to impress me. She lives in the United Kingdom. So here we are a year later and she will be in Chicago and I'll be there!!
                                        *********************************

'Titania' ..

"The solo musical cabaret combines live vocals and cello with electronic looping to tell the Queen of the Fairies' often trivialized storyline. The spine of the show is original music running like a concept album, confessing a life in love. Then mid way the piece turns ritual and breaks down the boundary between audience and performer with the aim of opening up the woods of the psyche and its limitless possibilities."


 "I come from quite an unusual background traveling with my mother's theater company and inspired by an instrument (violins and cellos) building father from Denmark. On graduating I lived for 7 years in rural extremes of Poland, learning somewhat esoteric skills in experimental physical theater before joining a Swedish circus troupe with interest in social change. I now continue experimenting with the boundaries of music, theater and art and dream about building large scale ensemble total art works. With that in mind I recently set up what I call the 'ACT' ensemble. That's short for ACTOR - CHORUS - TEXT~ a practice I have devised to empower performers of varied abilities and backgrounds to create original work. Our priorities are trust, partnership and form."


"Titania is a completely new domain for me personally and professionally. It's a kind of personal poem told through music and framed as theater. The main thing I've discovered about playing it is that it's the least lonely thing I've done in my life and wherever I take it and whenever I play I am profoundly humbled by the fact that something genuine and alive always takes place. This gives me faith in true love and that is all I can ask."

...Hope you will make it...Anna Helena Mclean.


follow: Moon Fool
April 20th & 21st, Chicago, 8 PM.....The Trap Door Theater

 Follow:
Core of the PUDEL 

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Tuesday

She Said~~She Said, Aretha vs Edith...La Vie En Rose

Two of the greatest ever, one of the greatest tunes ever. From different continents, BUT music has no boundaries, no gender: Enjoy!

Edith Piaf
'La Vie En Rose'


Aretha Franklin
                           
'La Vie En Rose'


'La Vie En Rose'  lyrics by Piaf herself, melody by Marquerite Mannot. 
(Piaf could not have her name on the tune originally because she could not qualify for a copyright)
Piaf also put the song aside after writing it in 1945, and did not record it till 1947, because her advisers told her it would not sell!!


follow me: Pete Carma

Sunday

Tracy Thorne~Album release, 'I Am That'

Sexy songstress Tracy Thorne, will have her album release show in New York City, at Rockwood Music Hall, Monday, March 11th, at 7PM!  The album is titled, 'I am That'.

Tracy Thorne
   Tracy is from Tennessee, now a New Yorker. This is her 'break through' album!
                                               **********************************

Tracy sent me the tunes in advance, I love them all. I have invited her to be my guest on my blogtalk radio show this week (Tues 3/5 at 2PM NYC time) to talk about her new venture and the gig coming up! We will be playing three of the tunes from the album.

Tracy: "I don’t want to give away too many surprises but I’ll say this:  Viola. Mandolin. Sass. Pizza & French Fries. Mellotron. The Aviator. Monkeys Inside Of Closet.  Some of these things may not make sense to you. Some of them still don’t make sense to me. But the album’s sounding great and that’s all that matters."

So there you go, that's reason enough to tune in to my blogtalkradio show OR,
get you butts down to Rockwood Music Hall ~~~~Monday March, 11th at 7PM!!


follow me:Pete Carma         

Blogtalkradio Schedule: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/search/pete-carma

She Said~~She Said...Yulix vs Yuli

She is in her own words 'ever morphing' .
Yuli Yael Beeri Yula...best allround performer in NYC!


96 BULIX MOBIL TO SUCCESS


Enjoy video!!

Kiss Slash Crooked Smile~Yulix
                                                



ENJOY VIDEO II

Yula&the eXtended Family


Check out 'The Hive' where Yula Bee creates!


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Friday

Artists in New York, Part XII, Svetlana Shmulyian

Svetlana Shmulyian came to New York from Moscow.

Svetlana 

Photo - Elisseo  Cardona, Blue Monk Moods
 Beautiful, talented, amazingly friendly and open, intelligent, educated, a great stage presence....
I meet Svetlana a year ago, but finally got to see her live show a month ago. It was at her regular gig at The Back Room on Monday Nights, with a 'swing' jazz Speakeasy atmosphere.

Amazing setting for Svetlana and the 'Delancey Five'.  This Monday night event is soooo New York, I asked Svetlana to be featured in my 'Artists in New York Series.

                                ***************************************************
So tell us a bit more about you and your coming to New York City.
When did you move to NYC~  From Moscow


Svetlana:
I moved to New York from Moscow in 1995 with a one-way ticket on Delta Airlines.  I came with the scholarship to study management, having graduated with honors from the university in Moscow studying mathematics - and also a two year program in jazz voice at the The Moscow College of Improvised Music where I studied with the luminaries of the Russian jazz scene.  Upon completing the two year music program I was among the only two vocalists invited to continue the studies, the ensemble instructor also asked me to join her band as a vocalist for a regular gig at a swanky Moscow Jazz club. I was also recruited, upon a competitive audition, into a girl trio band that had both jazz and pop sound... Seemed like my music career was about to begin - but I already bought my one-way ticket to New York - a decision that both promoted and somewhat stalled my music career.

 

Had you ever been here to visit before you moved here?
Did you know what to expect?


I did not know what to expect but I was very excited - I remember the JFK automatic terminal doors opening into my new life as if it were yesterday... New York gave me a very warm welcome - late August, the glorious New York early fall weather that extended for weeks, my first room in Queens and then several shared apartments in East Village... As I was rolling my one suitcase onto the JFK sidewalk and later to the East Side YMCS I remember saying to myself - this feels like home...  

I missed my family, but every day I was meeting people that I could have never met at home which was one of the most thrilling things about New York - I also saw people walking down the street in their pajamas in the middle of the day, and no one would pay attention... I met a bunch of bohemian artists, musicians, poets and went to many underground parties, poetry readings, performance art installation, music concerts in, then, non-gentrified, Williamsburg.  Despite it's vast difference with where I came from, New York felt like a fantastic, liberating and very natural place for me to live...   

Photo: Anya Roz

Svetlana and the 
Delancey Five: 'It Don't Mean A Thing'


Svetlana:

 As many who came to the new land before me, I quickly got rid of most of my home packed treasures - but kept a few for memory sake...   To this day I still have a  .....
... frying pan packed into the suitcase by my mom. The pan was one of the numerous “wonder” products that arrived to Moscow from China with the promise to transform pale Moscow produce into the cook-book-picture worthy meals. In my mom’s view, the frying pan was there to protect me from the dangers of the new land as I did not have any family or friends to do so; it was a talisman of safety and prosperity in the new world, and also a symbol of my mother’s love.
....
then 2 final questions I ask everyone..Svetlana,
1. If you were leaving the planet and could take only one album with you, which would you take??

Svetlana:  
Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie! 1961 studio album by the Ella produced by Verve.  From first vinyl span on my Moscow flat turntable to the dozens of tunes on my IPod  - with her flawless intonation, lash tone, and breathtaking solos - Ella is my greatest inspiration. 

 2. If you could perform with anyone, who would you choose?

Svetlana:
Louis Armstrong is a master of swing, vocally and instrumentally, his voice has flawless  intonation and richness of tone  that worked gorgeously with female vocalists.

Some final thoughts from Svetlana...
...  My children are my greatest work of art; their first scream outside the womb is the best music I have ever made. 


                          ************************************************
 I have to make music because I can’t not to, because there is nothing else I would rather do. Through the continents and life experiences, I am finally home. 


Follow; Svetlana & The Delancey Five

Get Svetlana's music: http://svetlanajazz.bandcamp.com/



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She Said~She Said??? Nikky Yanofsky vs Cezara Lucia!!!

...no gender in music!!
She Said~~She Said..

Two spectacular women take you 'Over The Rainbow'

Cezara Lucia Vladescu, 'Over the Rainbow'

Cezara Lucia Vladescu



     
Music is soooo freakin awesome...two young women from different sides of the planet..one composition...Emotion at a zenith!!    Thank you ladies!
                                                .............in both cases, xoxoxo      

Nikki Yanofsky,   'Over The Rainbow'     

Nikki Yanofsky

  'Over the Rainbow'....written by: Harold Arlen (music) ~E.Y. Harburg  (lyrics)~ Oscar winning song from 1939 film 'The Wizard of Oz'    sung by Judy Garland.       



 
Follow Nikki: HERE

Follow Cezara Lucia: HERE 
 

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