http://youtu.be/vr2jl3XYj3w There is something about Russian and Ukrainian folk music that touches my heart. I love it so much - in fact, my parents come from that part of the world. I remember when I was a child in Israel, my grandfather would be at the barbershop, and he and some of his friends would start singing songs like this one.
Exciting genre of music I'm very open minded when it comes to music - but I still prefer the same two genres in my earbuds day in day out - most electronic and most black music !
Not a DJ Khaled fan either, but 'I'm on one' just is a great track with Rick Ross, Lil Wayne and Drake !!
Ohh..... I got that album ! 8/10 overall. Best tracks 'wrapped around your finger' and 'every breath you take'
I was singing this song while I was in the shower, and my wife was freaking out. :biggrin: She knows I speak these languages, but she never realized I knew this song. She says I sound like a Cossack, because of my deep voice. I also love dance music from Africa, particularly Congo-Kinshasa.
Al Jarreau - We Got By Al Jarreau Biography by Jason Ankeny - Allmusic.com The only vocalist in history to net Grammy Awards in three different categories (jazz, pop, and R&B, respectively), Al Jarreau was born in Milwaukee, WI, on March 12, 1940. The son of a vicar, he earned his first performing experience singing in the church choir. After receiving his master's degree in psychology, Jarreau pursued a career as a social worker, but eventually he decided to relocate to Los Angeles and try his hand in show business, playing small clubs throughout the West Coast. He recorded an LP in the mid-'60s, but largely remained an unknown, not reentering the studio for another decade. Upon signing to Reprise, Jarreau resurfaced in 1975 with We Got By, earning acclaim for his sophisticated brand of vocalese and winning positive comparison to the likes of Billy Eckstine and Johnny Mathis. After 1976's Glow, Jarreau issued the following year's Look to the Rainbow, a two-disc live set that reached the Top 50 on the U.S. album charts. With 1981's Breakin' Away, he entered the Top Ten, scoring a pair of hits with "We're in This Love Together" and the title track. After recording 1986's L Is for Lover with producer Nile Rodgers, Jarreau scored a hit with the theme to the popular television program Moonlighting, but his mainstream pop success was on the wane, and subsequent efforts like 1992's Heaven and Earth and 1994's Tenderness found greater success with adult contemporary audiences. A string of budget compilations and original albums hit the shelves at the end of the decade, but into the turn of the century his original output slowed down. That was until he signed with the Verve/GRP label in 1998 and reunited with producer Tommy LiPuma. LiPuma had produced Jarreau's ostensible 1975 debut, We Got By, and the pairing seemed to reinvigorate Jarreau, who went on to release three stellar albums under LiPuma's guidance, including 2000's Tomorrow Today, 2002's All I Got, and 2004's Accentuate the Positive. Givin' It Up, recorded with George Benson and released in 2006, was nominated for three Grammy Awards -- each one for a different song. Jarreau returned with his first ever full-length holiday-themed album, Christmas, in 2008. http://www.allmusic.com/artist/al-jarreau-p3111/biography
Little Feat, waiting for columbus. An album I always come back to. I'm kind of stuck on Sailin Shoes and Spanish Moon.
Sting - Mercury Falling Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner - Born: October 02, 1951 After disbanding the Police at the peak of their popularity in 1984, Sting quickly established himself as a viable solo artist, one obsessed with expanding the boundaries of pop music. Sting incorporated heavy elements of jazz, classical, and worldbeat into his music, writing lyrics that were literate and self-consciously meaningful, and he was never afraid to emphasize this fact in the press. For such unabashed ambition, he was equally loved and reviled, with supporters believing that he was at the forefront of literate, intelligent rock and his critics finding his entire body of work pompous. Either way, Sting remained one of pop's biggest superstars for the first ten years of his solo career, before his record sales began to slip. Before the Police were officially disbanded, Sting began work on his first solo album late in 1984, rounding up a group of jazz musicians as a supporting band. Moving from bass to guitar, he recorded his solo debut, 1985's The Dream of the Blue Turtles, with BranfordMarsalis, Kenny Kirkland, and Omar Hakim. The move wasn't entirely unexpected, since Sting had played with jazz and progressive rock bands in his youth, but the result was considerably more mature and diverse than any Police record. The album became a hit, with "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free," "Love Is the Seventh Wave," and "Fortress Around Your Heart" reaching the American Top Ten. Sting brought the band out on an extensive tour and filmed the proceedings for a 1986 documentary called Bring on the Night, which appeared alongside a live double album of the same name. That year, Sting participated in a half-hearted Police reunion that resulted in only one new song, a re-recorded version of "Don't Stand So Close to Me." Following the aborted Police reunion, Sting began working on the ambitious Nothing Like the Sun, which was dedicated to his recently deceased mother. Proceeding from a jazz foundation, and again collaborating with Marsalis, Sting worked with a number of different musicians on the album, including Gil Evans and former Police guitarist AndySummers. The album received generally positive reviews upon its release in late 1987, and it generated hit singles with "We'll Be Together" and "They Dance Alone." Following its release, Sting began actively campaigning for Amnesty International and environmentalism, establishing the Rainforest Foundation, which was designed to raise awareness about preserving the Brazilian rainforest. An abridged Spanish version of Nothing Like the Sun, Nada Como el Sol, was released in 1988. Sting took several years to deliver the follow-up to Nothing Like the Sun, during which time he appeared in a failed Broadway revival of The Threepenny Opera in 1989. His father also died, which inspired 1991's The Soul Cages, a dense, dark, and complex album. Although the album peaked at number two and spawned the Top Ten hit "All This Time," the record was less successful than its predecessor. Two years later, he delivered Ten Summoner's Tales, a light, pop-oriented record that became a hit on the strength of two Top 20 singles, "If I Ever Lose My Faith in You" and "Fields of Gold." At the end of 1993, "All for Love," a song he recorded with Rod Stewart and BryanAdams for The Three Musketeers, became a number one hit. The single confirmed that Sting's audience had shifted from new wave/college rock fans to adult contemporary, and the 1994 compilation Fields of Gold: The Best of Sting played to that new fan base. Three years after Ten Summoner's Tales, Sting released Mercury Falling in the spring of 1996. Although the album debuted highly, it quickly fell down the charts, stalling at platinum sales and failing to generate a hit single. Although the album failed, Sting remained a popular concert attraction, a feat that confirmed his immense popularity regardless of his chart status. Released in 1999, Brand New Day turned his commercial fortunes around in a big way, though, eventually going triple-platinum and earning two Grammy Awards. Issued in 2003, Sacred Love also did well, and Sting spent several years with the reunited Police before returning to his solo game for 2009's If on a Winter's Night.... One year later, he hit the road alongside the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, who added their own symphonic arrangements to his material. Symphonicities, a companion CD, and Live in Berlin, released in conjunction with the world tour, arrived that same year. Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi http://www.starpulse.com/Music/Sting/Biography/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUe3oVlxLSA&feature=player_embedded#! Pretty catchy as well as pretty good song. STING prettty solid choice there.
I've been listening to some ambient stuff recently, but needed a change. Went through my collection and pulled up Sleep, an old west coast heavy stoner doom rock band. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zj9IAvv32wE
Michael Sembello (born April 17, 1954) is an American musician and songwriter from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Career Sembello was born and raised in Philadelphia. He studied with jazz great Pat Martino and began his career as a professional musician by becoming a session musician, working increasingly with high-profile artists as a studio guitarist. The list of pop music personalities he worked with, or wrote for, includes Stevie Wonder (from 1974 to 1979), The Temptations, Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, Chaka Khan, George Benson, Barbra Streisand, Stanley Clarke, David Sanborn, Donna Summer, Miguel Mateos and New Edition among many others. He released his first solo album, Bossa Nova Hotel in 1983, and the song "Maniac" was selected for inclusion in the movie Flashdance. This song went on to become the third highest grossing song from a soundtrack. His contribution to that soundtrack was rewarded with a Grammy Award in 1983 for Best Album of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or a Television Special. Sembello produced guitarist Jennifer Batten's first solo album, ''Above Below and Beyond'' in 1992. In 1994, he produced Argentine singer Valeria Lynch's album Caravana de Sueños (1994), and co-wrote the title song with Puerto Rican Wilkins Vélez. Sembello has spent much of his career scoring music to soundtracks for movies and film, some of which have achieved blockbuster commercial success. They are featured on such movies as Cocoon, Gremlins, Summer Lovers, The Monster Squad and Independence Day, among many others. In 2008, Michael Sembello worked with saxophonist Michael Lington on his album Heat,[5] which was nominated as Jazztrax Album of the Year for 2008. Michael and his brother Danny Sembello penned three songs with Lington for the project. Sembello travels to Brazil frequently and is good friends with Daniel Jobim, the grandson of legendary composer Antonio Carlos Jobim. Sembello has recorded his vocals in six languages and is continually writing, producing and releasing albums. In May 2009 the allbum "Moon Island" was released on EMI Japan. The award-winning album consists of American pop songs given new arrangements with a strong Brazilian influence. He is recording a new album set to be released in the Fall of 2011. He intends to include the song "Carousel," the missing track from Michael Jackson's Thriller album (Quincy Jones decided to replace "Carousel" at the last minute with "Human Nature"). On the 25th Anniversary Edition of Thriller a portion of the song "Carousel" was included (with the uncut version appearing on a few editions of the King of Pop compilations). Michael Sembello continues to tour, write, produce and perform all over the world. Over the last year he performed in Ambon, Indonesia, Barcelona, Rome, Milan and Paris. In the spring of 2010, Coca-Cola UK kicked off their new Diet Coke campaign with Sembello's version of "Maniac." Discography Albums 1983: Bossa Nova Hotel – #80 U.S. 1986: Without Walls 1992: Caravan of Dreams 1997: Backwards in Time 2002: Ancient Future 2003: The Lost Years Singles 1983: "Maniac" – #1 U.S. #43 UK 1983: "Automatic Man" – #34 U.S. 1985: "Gravity" (from the film, Cocoon) 1985: "Talk" 1986: "Tear Down the Walls" 1986: "Wonder Where You Are" 1992: "Heavy Weather" http://www.fireradio.co.uk/music/artist/michael-sembello/bio/
Ben Sidran - Old Songs For The New Depression Although best known in some circles for writing Steve Miller’s hit song “Space Cowboy”, Ben Sidran is more widely recognized as the host of National Public Radio’s landmark jazz series “Jazz Alive”, which received a Peabody Award, and as the host of VH-1 television’s “New Visions” series, which received the Ace Award for best music series. A pianist, producer, singer and composer, he has recorded twenty five solo albums, including the Grammy nominated “Concert for Garcia Lorca,” and has produced recordings for such noted artists as Van Morrison, Diana Ross, Mose Allison and Jon Hendricks. He composed the soundtrack for the acclaimed film “Hoop Dreams”, and scored the documentary “Vietnam: Long Time Coming”, which won both the Aspen Film Festival audience award and an Emmy. He is the author of two books on the subject of jazz, “Black Talk,” a cultural history of the music, and “Talking Jazz,” a series of conversations with well known musicians. Although he holds a PhD. in American Studies from Sussex University, he has generally avoided the academic life, preferring instead to spend his time performing—most recently in Europe and Asia—producing radio and records, and completing his memoir, “A Life in the Music” (Taylor Trade Press, February, 2003). His most recent records include “Walk Pretty”, the songs of Alec Wilder, “Nick's Bump”. and “Cien Noches” recorded live in Madrid. Sidran is currently completing an album of Bob Dylan songs (“Dylan Different”) and working on a text, “Jews, Music and the American Dream”. http://www.bensidran.com/bios/index.html
