Showing posts with label Corky Siegel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Corky Siegel. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 27, 2022

Corky Siegel's Chamber Blues - More Different Voices

Size: 136.5 MB
Time: 58:46
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2022
Styles: Chamber Blues
Art: Front

01. No One's Got Them Like I Do (Feat. Lynne Jordan) ( 7:03)
02. Insurance (Feat. Toronzo Cannon) ( 5:42)
03. There Goes My Man (Feat. Marcella Detroit) ( 6:12)
04. Little Blossoms Falling Down (Feat. Frank Orrall) ( 6:22)
05. Joyful Jambalaya (Feat. Chihsuan Yang) ( 3:14)
06. Oasis (Feat. Ernie Watts) (10:22)
07. Twisted ( 5:04)
08. Down So Low (Feat. Tracy Nelson) ( 4:11)
09. Hine Ma Tov Blues (Feat. Cantor Pavel Roytman) ( 6:44)
10. Penguins In The Opera House ( 3:46)

Featuring blues harmonica vs classical string quartet, with iconic voices, the ‘different voices’ are: Ernie Watts (2 x Grammy winning saxophonist), Frank Orrall (Poi Dog Pondering), Marcella Detroit (Shakespear’s Sister), Pavel Roytman (a Ukrainian Cantor) singing a Jewish chant for peace, Alligator Records’ blues star Toronzo Cannon, country blues singer Tracy Nelson (After the Fire is Gone with Willie Nelson), and bodacious diva Lynne Jordan.

The Chamber Blues ensemble members are: Jaime Gorgojo – violin (Madrid), Chihsuan Yang – violin (Taiwan), Rose Armbrust – viola, Jocelyn Butler-Shoulders – Cello, and Kalyan “Johnny Bongo” Pathak – Tabla (India).

Siegel’s MORE Different Voices is more different than anything you might imagine and for more different reasons than what you might conjure. Always pushing boundaries, Siegel’s Chamber Blues experiment continues the compositional interweaving of blues and classical in the form of his blues sonata and concerto adventures. But again, he reaches across the musical spectrum to explore the joyful diversity of other genres.

“My memory is a thing of the past / my future is an unopened present.” This rolling and reverberating title of Corky Siegel’s ‘memoirs in progress’ is a true reflection of a long, unusual and extraordinary career still going full esteem ahead. As the Lone Ranger of the original ground-cracking genre known as Chamber Blues, Siegel has been bringing the diverse/opposing forces of both blues and classical music together, and blues and classical fans, shoulder to shoulder, for over 55 years, joyfully obliterating musical categorization and cultural boundaries in the process.

1965: Corky Siegel stumbles unknowingly into the hangout of the Chicago blues masters and before he can say “one four five” (classical 12-bar blues changes) he and his guitar partner Jim Schwall are hired to front the house band every Thursday night and host the very blues deities he’s been idolizing on his hallowed recordings, including Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, and Little Walter. From under the wings of these music mentors Siegel and Schwall formed the Siegel-Schwall Band and within a year they were whisked up for another residency at Big Johns (known as ground zero of the American blues rock explosion).

And then it happened.

A blues player and a classical conductor walk into a bar.

From Siegel’s historic performances as blues harmonica and piano soloist with major orchestras, beginning with his 1968 debut with the Chicago Symphony, he continued to bring blues and classical audiences together collaborating with the New York Philharmonic, Boston, Philadelphia, Suisse Romande, NHK Japan, San Francisco symphonies (38 orchestras and counting), including a Great Performances on PBS and two historic “American Classic” albums on Deutsche Grammophon. Siegel did this all while road-tripping with his blues band (RCA, Vanguard and Alligator recording artists) Siegel-Schwall, his solo singer-songwriter performances, and his Chamber Blues ensemble, while composing works that weave blues and classical flavors together taking everyone places they’ve never been before.

In 2017 Siegel launched his 6th blues/classical album, Different Voices, and with so much critical acclaim and so many still unrecorded centerpiece favorites in their regular repertoire of Corky originals, it was a springboard for MORE.

Not to be outdone by his own prolific creative moments including all his more than 150 video productions during the Damnpandic, Siegel has also just released, or is about to release, for the first time digitally; Chamber Blues – Complementary Colors (from 2001), Solo Flight (Siegel’s singer/songwriter album 1975-1980) and a brand new solo album and CD; Somethin’ Wrong with three other albums on the back burner.

More Different Voices MP3
More Different Voices FLAC

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Corky Siegel's Chamber Blues - Corky Siegel's Chamber Blues

Source: CD
Size: 157,6 MB
Time: 67:34
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 1994
Styles: Chamber Blues, Classical
Art: Full

01. Unfinished Jump (Opus 13 From The Chambers Blues Suite) (3:09)
02. Filisko's Dream (Opus 12 From The Chamber Blues Suite) (5:16)
03. Concerto For Alberti Blues Piano (Opus 6 From The Chamber Blues Suite) (8:43)
04. Koulangatta (5:38)
05. Allegro (Opus 8 From The Chamber Blues Suite) (9:35)
06. No One's Got Them Like I Do (6:45)
07. Opus 11 For Solo Violin (From The Chamber Blues Suite) (4:38)
08. Slow Blues (Opus 7 From The Chamber Blues Suite) (7:35)
09. Concerto For 2nd Violin (Opus 9 From The Chamber Blues Suite) (8:57)
10. Insecurity (7:11)

Composer, pianist, harmonica virtuoso and singer/songwriter Corky Siegel has been bringing his critically acclaimed, blues-influenced music to worldwide audiences for three decades. His early years with the Siegel-Schwall Blues Band, his solo performances, and his groundbreaking blues-classical collaborations with conductor Seiji Ozawa are all a reflection of Corky's wide-ranging talent. His Alligator release, Corky Siegel's Chamber Blues, integrates the delicate structure of and complex qualities of chamber music with the emotion and spontaneity of the blues.

Blending classical and blues was not a departure for Corky, but a continuation of his life's work. According to Corky, "It seems like my thirty years of writing and performing have just been preparation for Chamber Blues. I have never done anything that has been so right for me before, creatively. It's like I've been working up to this since I started."

Renowned for his recordings in the late 1960s and early 1970s with the Siegel-Schwall Blues Band, Corky counted many famous musicians as his personal friends, including Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and many others. Among them was Chicago Symphony Orchestra conductor Seiji Ozawa, who would often drop by Corky's gigs and stay the whole night. "Ozawa wanted my band to jam with his band, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra." Sure enough, the first jam took place in 1968, when Siegel-Schwall and the Chicago Symphony played William Russo's Three Pieces For Blues Band And Symphony Orchestra, and it was a smash success.

After the successful performance with the Chicago Symphony, Siegel-Schwall Blues Band went on to perform with the New York Philharmonic in 1969. "You have to remember, " says Corky, "this was in the 1960s. We went on stage with long hair, amplifiers and vests without shirts. When the subscription audience who was there to see the symphony saw my band, they booed. But when we finished, the reaction was so strong that the president of the Symphony Association said it was the longest and most intense standing ovation he had ever heard in Lincoln Center."

In 1971 the Deutsche Grammophon label recorded Three Pieces For Blues Band And Orchestra with the San Francisco Symphony under conductor Seiji Ozawa. The album was released in 1973 and it quickly became a major seller. In 1976, Siegel recorded William Russo's Street Music with maestro Ozawa and the San Francisco Symphony. The album won the French government's Grand Prix du Disque when it was released in 1979. The album also received the Recording of Special Merit citation in Stereo Review in 1979 and again in 1988 for the re-released compact disc.

Corky has written and performed works for many symphonies including the San Francisco Symphony and the National Symphony Orchestra. His music has been choreographed by four different international ballet companies and has been used for many national TV specials and documentaries including Carl Sagan's Cosmos, the ABC television series Missing Persons, and even the 1988 Olympic men's figure skating competition. He also accepted commissions to write experimental blues/classical material for such organizations as the City of San Francisco and Chicago's Grant Park Symphony.

It was Corky's association with the Grant Park Symphony in 1983 that first led to the creation of Chamber Blues. "Suddenly I had this explosion of inspiration. I visualized an emotional classical blues blend that created a new form with the sweet wooden sound and intimacy of a string quartet. And then I was compelled to focus on the elements of blues and classical that complement each other."

Siegel and his string quartet with percussionist (and Ramsey Lewis alum) Frank Donaldson, challenge the conventional boundaries of both classical music and blues. Chamber Blues has been described as a cross between Muddy Waters and Mozart "The whole concept of Chamber Blues is not experimental," says Corky, "it's natural and palatable…it's neither classical nor blues--it's just music."

Corky Siegel's Chamber Blues