Rebekah Ann Curtis
Singer/Songwriter Rebekah Ann Curtis is interviewed by SiS Organizer Chris Klimecky. Rebekah shares new, unreleased tracks along with stories about her songwriting and performing history. She performs “What Goes Up” live to finish the show.
Click the play icon above to stream, or click here to download
Click here to read more about this podcast from Chris’s blog archive.
Eric Habér, who also helped on the CD Puzzle Pieces opened the show with a mellow acoustic set warming us up for the rest of the evening. Eric’s sound seems reminiscent of late 60’s “ballad-like” Brit pop. Soft, sweet, sardonic, this guy totally reminds me of the mellower yet still powerful Rolling Stones. Check out his Digital Album at: http://erichaber.bandcamp.com/
Roo Forrest played a rather creative set with a cello and bongo accompaniment ranging from his serious and masterfully written “Istanbul” to a well performed, albeit unusual, cover of “Fulsom Prison blues” which was accompanied by inserts during instrumental breaks of poems by Anne Frank (Roo’s sublimely unusual). And finally ending his set with an amusing political assessment of our current presidential candidate situation, complete with costumes, props, and subtle but witty gimmicks, fitting into his song an introduction to our highlight and star of the evening Jabi Shriki. On a side note “Istanbul” was requested from the audience, it was the first time I’d heard it and it blew me away. I don’t know if this song is available for listen but you can check out Roo’s debut CD at: http://www.rooforrest.com
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Kicking off his west coast tour Jabi seemed not only relaxed but at home on stage playing selections from his current CD ‘Puzzle Pieces’ and songs from past releases as well. The show itself felt more “at home” than concert-like, partly owing to the fact of the living room-like setting that the Gypsy seems to be famous for, but also the ease with which the performers played. Puzzle Pieces takes on this relaxed, familiar, yet original and inspirational sound; Meditation rock with a Mid-Eastern influence. Look for upcoming dates on Jabi’s tour at: http://www.jabi.us
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Jabi’s previous releases had a more esoteric feel to them, this one is a bit more pop - not losing that esoteric eastern sound but actually adding to it. Mellow 80’s comes to mind but definitely not so much softer, as “smoother.” David Bowie meets Sheila Chandra is the feel I get from Puzzle Pieces. Some songs working better than others, as in most albums, but the overall feel is both meditative and mesmerizing. The track “Undertones” is almost anthem-like in sound and lyric. “Intro” - track 9 - is a simple yet enchanting guitar piece. But as “Inverse Seconds” begins I bring the top down and crank up the heat, on this winter’s evening. While drifting down the highway I’m traveling, I release the song into the night, feeling really “cool” that I’m from Seattle…‘cause so is Jabi Shriki.
Jabi Shriki
Pop/Rock musician Jabi Shriki is interviewed by SiS Organizer Chris Klimecky. Jabi shares tracks from his new album, Puzzle Pieces, and the philosphy behind them as well as a new tune played live.
Click the play icon above to stream, or click here to download
Click here to read more about this podcast from Chris’s blog archive.
Johannes Brahms once wrote about Johann Sebastian Bach’s Chaconne in D minor for violin in a letter to Claire Schumann -
‘On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind.’
And it is with this piece that a dude in jeans, a t-shirt and ballcap started his forty-five-minute-long violin concert-of-sorts at a metro station in Washington D.C.
During that time one thousand and ninety-some people passed by. Seven people stopped to listen.
‘What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.’
W.H. Davies writes to begin a poem entitled Leisure (six stanzas later he ends it with ‘A poor life this if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.’).
What though - of the nearly eleven hundred people that walked through the metro lobby that morning - only one single person realized was that the dude was in fact a world-reknown violin virtuoso who had just sold out a concert in Boston a few days before where tickets went for an average of a hundred bucks a piece. And his violin he played was a 1710 Stradivarius worth a reputed three-and-a-half million. Dollars.
It was a sociological experiment that the humble but superstar-of-a-violinist - Joshua Bell - had agreed to when approached by the Washington Post. The idea of course was to see that if - under less-than-ideal circumstances (a bustling train station during morning rush hour chocked full of policy analysts and project managers and budget officers and consultants and bureaucrats suits and ties and all scrambling to get to work) and cloaking the identity of the performer under jeans and shirtsleeves - beauty so-to-speak could - as Emmanuel Kant may have envisioned - transcend it all.
But alas … it did not.
When asked afterwards people just said they were busy. Had other things on their mind. Some who were on their cellphones spoke louder as they passed him to compete with the ‘infernal racket.’ It seems perhaps the explosion in technology has in some ways limited - not expanded - our exposure to new experiences. Increasingly - with large thanks to the likes of Google and the Facebook and their filter bubbles - we get our news from sources that think as we already do. And cram our iStuff with music we already like.
No time to stop and listen to something that would have apparently made Brahms blow his brains out because of its beauty.
So it sort off makes me sad I guess. Maybe cos I’ve been on a Bach kick lately reading a couple of books and watching a couple more documentaries within the past few weeks about the late great Glenn Gould. Maybe cos even the pitiful and notoriously-retarded Youtube comments on a recording of Bach’s Chaconne by Itzhak Perlman are littered with things like ‘Not even Plato had the fortune to listen to such music’ and ‘Pure magic, plain and simple’ and ‘It is the sound of God when he cries.’ Maybe cos I hope that I would have stopped had I wandered through that particular metro station that particular morning even if I did not recognize the Chaconne in D minor.
Because hopefully I would have recognized the beauty and taken a moment or two to soak it in. Soak it up. Remember how Kant said ‘the beautiful itself is either enchanting or touching, or radiating or enticing.’
And leave then having been reminded … beauty is everywhere.
Looking out over a sea of mountains rising above valleys of clouds immersed under a shimmering sun. My son when he smiles without inhibition before he realizes he is doing so his hair in need of a cut so it’s starting to curl. A strain of a Bach melody held on the D string then taking off building and building elegantly to some ultimate end that should be able to most certainly transcend it all.
After almost a year of paperwork and back and forth with the IRS, Songwriters in Seattle has received official approval for recognition of tax exempt 501(c)(3) and public charity status beginning Feb. 23, 2011. While we have been working under the assumption that this would be achieved for tax years 2011 forward, we are happy to publicly announce that it is now officially and legally the case.
So, what does this mean? In simple terms, it means that any donations made to Songwriters in Seattle (including those made last year) are tax deductible. It means a lot more in reality, as it opens us up to many more avenues of funding, including corporate matches (and in some cases like Microsoft, matching of volunteer hours with dollars) and grants, both public and private. Also, the likelihood of corporate sponsorships and others jumping onboard to help us increases. These are areas we can now pursue that had been on the backburner. If you have knowledge or ideas for funding opportunities, please contact us at [donations@songwritersinseattle.com](mailto: donations@songwritersinseattle.com) and we will help set it up.
More funding means more opportunities for the musicians of our region to learn, grow, and enrich the culture of the Pacific Northwest. We are proud to serve our membership and the region in this endeavor and thank you for your support.