Tag Archives: 2019

Artist, CD-Reviews

Claudia Campagnol: I’m Strong

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An incredible debut album from Hungarian-Swedish-Danish singer and multi-instrumentalist Claudia Campagnol has found it’s way to my desk. Official release date is April 23, but two songs have been released as singles in February and March 2019 and are already available on Spotify.

Claudia Campagnol was born in 1987 in Budapest, Hungary, to parents who are both professional musicians. She sang before she could talk, and started playing the piano when she was 4. The whole family moved to Sweden and by the age of 12 she could be seen “guesting” on her parents’ gigs in venues all around the country.

At the age of 12 she discovered her dad’s Jazz fusion albums with Chick Corea, John Patitucci, Mezzoforte or Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter who inspired her for her first composition “Rainbow Dreams” which is found on the album.

After graduating from the University of Music in Malmoe she worked several years in Sweden and around Europe. She settled in Copenhagen, Denmark, where she met the Swedish-Italian drummer Niclas Campagnol, who became her husband. After a baby break Claudia is back on the scene. In 2017, she reached the final in the Danish “Young Jazz” competition. She also starred on Antonio Faraò’s latest album  “Eklektik” (with Marcus Miller) (a very interesting album) and now she is finally releasing her debut album “I’m Strong.”

The album starts with the brilliant Stevie Wonder inspired  “All Through You”, which was released as a single on February 22 and was selected by Apple Music’s editors for their “Best of The Week” playlist covering all genres.  Claudia plays keyboards, bass and sings lead and background vocals, Niclas Campagnol the drums. This song is a soul-pop song in the best tradition of Stevie Wonder, Al Jarreau or Chaka Khan. I was listening a lot to this kind of music in the early ’80s and so I cannot get enough of it.

“I’m Strong”, the title song of the album comes next. A soft tune which was written for Vivian Buczek for her 2014 album “Curiosity”.  What I like especially is the cool combination of keyboard and vocal sounds.

“Do You Love Me” adds Gábor Bolla (saxophone), Zacharias Celinder (guitar) and Gerard Presencer (flugelhorn). The solo goes to Claudia Campagnol with what she calls her keyboard “signature” sound. Claudia wrote and recorded this tune to win the love of Niclas. Nice story with a happy ending.

“For Her” features Gerard Presencer on flugelhorn and is about a woman Claudia Campagnol once met in a dark and smoky jazz club who “made a hell of an impression” on her. The highlight of this song is definitely the flugelhorn solo by Gerard Presencer.

“Conquer the World” is the second tune that was released as a single.  We see a different line-up  with Jimmy Haslip on bass and Vinnie Colaiuta on drums. Claudia explains: “Vinnie Colaiuta played a monstrous drum fill on John Patitucci’s album “On The Corner” which I just had to rewind a hundred times the first time I heard it. Thanks to my label Giant Sheep Music, one of my greatest dreams has now come true!” The tune has a nice steady odd groove and harmonic sequences that remind me again on Stevie Wonder.

“Rainbow Dreams” is a soft and open ballad.  Claudia wrote the song at the age of 12 and it includes interesting harmonic structures. Claudia explains again: “In my teens, I couldn’t wait to get home from school, put on the meanest chord progressions with the baddest cats on the planet and let all my emotions explode through my ears”.

“Z-Song” comes next and features Eliel Lazo on percussion (he is a friend of Silvio Caroli who was featured in my blog two weeks ago). The melody is sung without lyrics, nevertheless the beautiful vocal arrangement dominates this Latin-song.

“Don’t Let It Die” features Carl Mörner Ringström on guitar. Interesting harmonic sequences and a great guitar solo are the highlights of this ballad. Claudia Campagnol gives us more insights: “If you ever had a best friend or a lover whom you could drift away with over a bottle of red wine, talking about the meaning of life throughout the whole night, as if time almost stood still, then you fully understand this tune”.

“It Makes Me Glad” starts with a great and lengthy a-cappella intro and ends with an open piano solo. The inspiration for this song came after an audition for the Swedish vocal ensemble “The Real Group”.

The album ends with the Charlie Chaplin tune “Smile”.  Claudia prepared an arrangement that combines the melody from this song with her idea of “mean” chords to a very uncommon but rather refreshing interpretation.

Overall a great album with a sound I haven’t heard for many years and that reminds me a lot of the music I was listening to in the ’80s but with a fresh and inspiring touch. It is jazzy, it grooves and it is full of new ideas. Claudia Campagnol managed to do her own thing in a brillant manner. Chapeau!

The official CD release party takes place on April 23 in Copenhagen at the PH Halmtorvet 9. If you are in Bremen at the jazzahead!-clubnight on April 27 you can see her at the Swissôtel Bremen.

More information is found on Claudia’s facebook site:
https://www.facebook.com/claudiacampagnolofficial/

Claudia produced also a nice promotional video:

And finally the album has been released on Spotify:

 

Artist, CD-Reviews, Guitarist

Q Morrow: There Are Stars In Brooklyn

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Today I would like to present another guitar player from New York City, his name is Q Morrow, and he grew up in Idaho before studying classical and jazz guitar in California and Texas. He also spent a year studying Carnatic music in Bangalore and has settled now in Brooklyn, NY where he is an active part of the music scene.

He plays (as you can see) a classical guitar with nylon strings and that characterizes his music and the sound on his new release “There Are Stars in Brooklyn”.

The album features:

  • Q Morrow – Guitar
  • Will Vinson – Alto Sax
  • Evan Francis – Flute, Alto Sax
  • Sam Bevan – Bass
  • Raj Jayaweera – Drums

The line-up is special with two alto saxes and a flute, but my experience is that flute and alto sax fit perfectly together with a guitar, because the guitar frequencies are quite low and so there is not much of an overlap with the wind instruments.

The album starts with the title song “There Are Stars in Brooklyn”. Q plays a beautiful solo intro, the head is then played by Flute and Sax , the band grooves nicely. The melody and guitar solo is inspired by classical guitar music while Evan Francis on flute and Will Vinson on Alto Sax play their solo with much more modern jazz inspiration.

The beginning of the second song “The Do How” reminds me of Sylvain Luc (another master of the nylon guitar from France which I used to listen a lot to) but the song becomes rhythmically much more complex. Q explains: “One thing in the album that warrants explanation is the metric modulations on track 2. What I’m experimenting with there is the temporal reflections (interpreted with metric modulations) of the chord changes’ relationship to the tonic of the key. In other words the length of each chord change correlates to the length of the wavelength of the root note of the chord as it relates to the tonic (F# in this case). So a D chord will last for 5 beats, a C# for 4 1/3 beats, a B for 3 (or 6). And it gets more complicated from there. All of the changes fit within the framework of 5/4 time, based on the idea of Mora in Carnatic music where complex, over-the-barline rhythmic phrases fit into a larger beat cycle framework. The bass maintains a 5/4 ostinato figure throughout to illustrate the original tempo. The B section of the title track is also based on the Karnatic mora, but in 7/8 time. So those tracks are my attempt to unify harmony and rhythm in the spirit of experimentation, something I’ve been working on for a few years now and will continue to do in the next couple of years”.

A very interesting concept behind this song. The composition is done in a way that it returns back to 7/8 time intro which gives the listener a fixed point.

The next tune is called “Pupusa da Jamaica” and is based on the Cuban folkloric rhythm Guaguanco. Even if the tune is in straight 4/4 time the band enjoys a lot of rhythmic freedom here as well.

“Sueño de Miel” (which means Dreaming of Honey) is named after a dream Q Morrow had when he was gathering honey in the South American jungle with an indigenous tribe. It shows Q’s mastery of the classical guitar. The tune is written down like a classical composition ( Q was so kind to share the sheet music with me) and is inspired by Venezuelan Joropo dance music.

“Chinook Passing” comes next and this song is clearly inspired by Spanish flamenco and tango, sounds very European and reminds me again of Sylvain Luc and his style of Basque folklore and Jazz music.

“Inferno Astral” is another tune for classical solo guitar. The constant 32nd notes are meant to evoke pouring rain. There is a live version of this available on Youtube, so if you want to see the exact fingering of this tune, here is your chance:

The album continues with “Not Quite Sure Yet”, another experiment in rhythm/wavelength relationships as described above. Also an homage to Q Morrow’s early roots in the Northwestern US (Idaho) which he describes as grunge rock. A very interesting song with multiple changes in rhythm and feeling. Great solos by guitar and saxophone and my favorite song on the album.

The last tune is “Loose Ends” which Q Morrow describes as a Blues with a vamp section, rhythmically straight but with multiple harmonic centers. A straight modern jazz tune played very well.

The album is a eclectic compilation of Q Morrow’s compositions. It shows his versatility as composer, arranger and musician and includes all different aspects and influences that he was exposed to and which found their way into his work. He has surrounded himself with excellent musicians who are able to understand and realize his ideas. This release is another perfect example of today’s Jazz music that gets inspired by the individual path of each musician.

More information about Q Morrow is available on his website:
http://www.qmorrow.net/

The complete album is not available on Spotify but the two songs “There Are Stars in Brooklyn” and “The Do How” have been released as single songs and are included in my 2019 playlist.