The 10-minute version will be shown on the big screen at Shoemaker this Saturday night. We'll also try to do a semi-live version, with some surprises sitting in. Here are the original liner notes to this song: The lover breaks out of an affair to experiment elsewhere, and the lover's partner is more surprised than hurt or betrayed. There is a new passion between the lovers because of this dance outside the boundaries of a relationship. The lovers then see each other in a new light. This song, Namaste Papi, is part of the Moonlight Project, created by Peter Fox and Seanie Blue, and produced by Fox, Blue and Sandra Bishop and Steve McCormick. It is one of 13 base songs, each of which have up to a dozen variations. The Project will eventually have more than 100 songs in its collection. Written and produced in Venice Beach and Washington DC, the project explores how memory of a love affair can be much more fulfilling than the actual relationship. Love is described here as a star, subject to the physical laws of celestial mechanics: the bigger the star, the more quickly it burns out. The Moon reflects vanished starlight, or sunlight, and the nighttime sky gazer sees in the Moon the memories of a burned-out love. The 13 songs explore the process of a passionate love affair as it becomes a torrid memory. The lead vocal in this version is performed by Marjani Clark. The lead vocal in Spanish is by Sandra Bishop. Chorus vocals include Jonelle Vette, Bishop, Nika Smith-Jones, Sophie Holt and Neeta Ragoowansi. The idea was to meld a Himalayan influence to an Iberian rhythm, mimicking the travel of Rajasthani chants from NW India through the Middle East and Eastern Europe to the south of Spain, where those chants and stories emerged as flamenco in Andalucia in the 15th Century. For this, I wanted to experiment with a poor band's sound from the Caribbean. The horns should be Cuban, modeled at first on the horn sound of the band Las Orishas, but eventually stripped down to a single player: David Ralicke, who is on trumpet for Dengue Fever. But the trumpet is a military and aristocratic instrument, relative to other horns, so we asked David to play the trombone instead, hoping to create a more informal and "impoverished" Caribbean sound. I'd seen this to great effect with bands that play Punta Rock style in the oddly distinct community of Punta Gorda, in Guatemala. Punta Rock was best exemplified by the Punta Rebels, about whom I made a documentary in 2000 with Helmuth Humphrey. The lone horn meant that the band was trying for a bigger sound, but simply couldn't afford to carry the additional players to have the normal threesome on horns. Ralicke immediately got it, and insisted on giving us a lonely trombone even though the trumpet is his pro instrument. But as we added muscle to the tune, the opportunity came up to record Chris Watling of the Grandsons of the Pioneers. He showed up with a tenor saxophone and a baritone saxophone. I remembered a conversation I'd had in 1993 with Steve Berlin, whose sax is a signature of his band's unique sound: Los Lobos is not the Caribbean, but their East L.A. timbre is arguably the most glamorous of all lower-class Latin music, even with the recent explosion of interest in truly poor musicians in Havana. "The tenor just sounds more refined," said Berlin, "So when I want to get people moving and they're broke or oppressed, the songs they seem to respond to have a fatter and more resonant horn, and that's when you should use the baritone." These were not his exact words, of course, but paraphrase what he was explaining to me then as he prepared to play for tens of thousands of yuppies at the Clinton inauguration on the Mall. The audience is susceptible to socioeconomic conditions when listening to music: UB40, another band dependent on its sax sound, got its name by playing concerts to which people could only attend if they showed their Unemployment Benefits Form 40, hence the name UB40. So when Watling showed up last Friday with both tenor and baritone saxophones, it was easy for me to explain why we wanted the barry: the tenor never was taken out of its case. Watling waved me off and went to work, understanding that I wanted more lament in the song than pronouncement, and he delivered beautifully. So this song has two horns, Ralicke on the trombone and Watling on the baritone sax. They punctuate the song's six different melodies. I haven't talked it over with Peter, but I think of all the songs we've created or produced, six melodies is the most in any one song. And of those six melodies, at least three could be described as "hooks," music to any musician's ears! But where did they come from? How were they elaborated and protected? And most importantly, how did the melodies and the rhythms join to give this song its timbre? The "mindprint" that Namaste Papi delivers to its listeners is the result of an idea evolving from a collective chant into a pop tune. I maintain that the mi

• published: 03 Aug 2012
• views: 1219

The 10-minute version will be shown on the big screen at Shoemaker this Saturday night. We'll also try to do a semi-live version, with some surprises sitting in. Here are the original liner notes to this song: The lover breaks out of an affair to experiment elsewhere, and the lover's partner is more surprised than hurt or betrayed. There is a new passion between the lovers because of this dance outside the boundaries of a relationship. The lovers then see each other in a new light. This song, Namaste Papi, is part of the Moonlight Project, created by Peter Fox and Seanie Blue, and produced by Fox, Blue and Sandra Bishop and Steve McCormick. It is one of 13 base songs, each of which have up to a dozen variations. The Project will eventually have more than 100 songs in its collection. Written and produced in Venice Beach and Washington DC, the project explores how memory of a love affair can be much more fulfilling than the actual relationship. Love is described here as a star, subject to the physical laws of celestial mechanics: the bigger the star, the more quickly it burns out. The Moon reflects vanished starlight, or sunlight, and the nighttime sky gazer sees in the Moon the memories of a burned-out love. The 13 songs explore the process of a passionate love affair as it becomes a torrid memory. The lead vocal in this version is performed by Marjani Clark. The lead vocal in Spanish is by Sandra Bishop. Chorus vocals include Jonelle Vette, Bishop, Nika Smith-Jones, Sophie Holt and Neeta Ragoowansi. The idea was to meld a Himalayan influence to an Iberian rhythm, mimicking the travel of Rajasthani chants from NW India through the Middle East and Eastern Europe to the south of Spain, where those chants and stories emerged as flamenco in Andalucia in the 15th Century. For this, I wanted to experiment with a poor band's sound from the Caribbean. The horns should be Cuban, modeled at first on the horn sound of the band Las Orishas, but eventually stripped down to a single player: David Ralicke, who is on trumpet for Dengue Fever. But the trumpet is a military and aristocratic instrument, relative to other horns, so we asked David to play the trombone instead, hoping to create a more informal and "impoverished" Caribbean sound. I'd seen this to great effect with bands that play Punta Rock style in the oddly distinct community of Punta Gorda, in Guatemala. Punta Rock was best exemplified by the Punta Rebels, about whom I made a documentary in 2000 with Helmuth Humphrey. The lone horn meant that the band was trying for a bigger sound, but simply couldn't afford to carry the additional players to have the normal threesome on horns. Ralicke immediately got it, and insisted on giving us a lonely trombone even though the trumpet is his pro instrument. But as we added muscle to the tune, the opportunity came up to record Chris Watling of the Grandsons of the Pioneers. He showed up with a tenor saxophone and a baritone saxophone. I remembered a conversation I'd had in 1993 with Steve Berlin, whose sax is a signature of his band's unique sound: Los Lobos is not the Caribbean, but their East L.A. timbre is arguably the most glamorous of all lower-class Latin music, even with the recent explosion of interest in truly poor musicians in Havana. "The tenor just sounds more refined," said Berlin, "So when I want to get people moving and they're broke or oppressed, the songs they seem to respond to have a fatter and more resonant horn, and that's when you should use the baritone." These were not his exact words, of course, but paraphrase what he was explaining to me then as he prepared to play for tens of thousands of yuppies at the Clinton inauguration on the Mall. The audience is susceptible to socioeconomic conditions when listening to music: UB40, another band dependent on its sax sound, got its name by playing concerts to which people could only attend if they showed their Unemployment Benefits Form 40, hence the name UB40. So when Watling showed up last Friday with both tenor and baritone saxophones, it was easy for me to explain why we wanted the barry: the tenor never was taken out of its case. Watling waved me off and went to work, understanding that I wanted more lament in the song than pronouncement, and he delivered beautifully. So this song has two horns, Ralicke on the trombone and Watling on the baritone sax. They punctuate the song's six different melodies. I haven't talked it over with Peter, but I think of all the songs we've created or produced, six melodies is the most in any one song. And of those six melodies, at least three could be described as "hooks," music to any musician's ears! But where did they come from? How were they elaborated and protected? And most importantly, how did the melodies and the rhythms join to give this song its timbre? The "mindprint" that Namaste Papi delivers to its listeners is the result of an idea evolving from a collective chant into a pop tune. I maintain that the mi

• published: 03 Aug 2012
• views: 1219