Hiromi Uehara & Chick Corea

“Spain” by Hiromi Uehara & Chick Corea

I read a Toronto Japanese magazine (well not to the fullest understanding) called “bits” [www.bitslounge.com] and searched youtube for the Japanese Jazz sensation Hiromi Uehara. Uehara is basically a Jazz artist hailed from Japan. She continued her music career in Boston where she got involved with a Jazz group which became successful.

I found this video with her and Chick Corea - an American Jazz player who is a Scientologist, reason being is because he found Ron Hubbard and the Church of Scientology as the main inspiration for his works; both of them were playing “Spain” which is Corea’s composition.

Never did I felt so great seeing two Jazz pianists play out their hearts. In music, there’s nothing better than its eliciting of imagination and beauty, and that’s what I felt in that performance shown in the video. As the title of the piece suggests, “Spain” is indeed a mystery. It suggests a place of rest in the heating sun, the matinée theatre plays running to conceal it’s intelligence to the literate. It depicts the old buildings and structures left behind by historical triumphs, wars and golden ages. It’s where the people speaks with a rapid yet flowing intonation; its languages rich in idiomatic and stylistic expressions. It’s where bullfights take place where people care less whether the bullfighter will get killed or not because they’re more enchanted with the beauty of the event. It presents a culture influenced by religion and academics where which led the kingdom (and still is) into becoming one of the greatest civilizations in world history. Its people show belief in freedom which brings about change and improvement from oppressive traditional ideas which finally brought them to today, the modern Spain.

“Spain” definitely have been one of the best Jazz compositions ever created and I’m definitely admiring Chick Corea now for that.

Nice work Hiromi & Chick! Long Live Jazz!

Ingrid Michaelson

“Take Me The Way I Am” - Ingrid Michaelson

I was able to watch a Chevrolet Commercial from Discovery Channel today - I was watching “Canada’s Worst Driver 3″ at that time - and I found the song really good!

I researched for the song and it comes out that I discovered a singer who I could put with the likes of American blues singer Norah Jones, Canadian pop-rock singer Leslie Feist, Scottish pop and alternative rock singer KT Tunstall, and Icelandic electronica and rock singer Björk.

Ingrid Michaelson is an American indie-pop singer who was able to get her song “Take Me The Way I Am” to play in the chevy commercial. It’s nice Youtube actually provided the actual song which has a music video and it’s the first one by the singer. I swear I would actually wait for every chevy commercial if ever I couldn’t find this song.

The music video is actually cute and it does give meaning to the song with the singer being different from everyone else who are dressed as clowns. I’m looking forward to see more of Michaelson in the future.