What is Pink Martini?
Since I would venture to presume that most of us have varying musical interests I'll start out on a recommendation of one of my favorite bands. We all have differing tastes that range from country to rock, hip-hop to jazz and if I were to parlay them all here I suppose the discussion would be quite extensive. So to narrow the field to a single evolutionary group I present Pink Martini.
Foremost, I suppose the question lies not exactly with what Pink Martini is as opposed to who they are. Formed as a group of eclectic musicians, Harvard educated pianist Thomas Lauderdale and China Forbes present an array of musical styles from their 1997 independently released debut CD entitled Sympathique. Spanning the lingual globe but still maintaining an offbeat cuban flare, the group hailing from Portland, Oregon manages to touch our palates with Spanish, French, Japanese, Greek, and English songs all on one CD. If you are constantly searching for new and unique groups in the world music scene then this is definitely one hidden gem that you should check out.
After a long anticipated and overdue sophomore release, Hang on Little Tomato made its way out of the creative minds of Lauderdale/Forbes in late 2004 - adding to their musical repertoire with new tracks in Italian and Croatian. The title of their second CD, culled from a 1964 Hunt's Ketchup advertisement underscores the festive and airy musical quality that it seeks to recreate.
Having an opportunity to witness their live performance at the Walt Disney Concert hall for the past two years, I would say that it is a joy worth mentioning as well. Seeing a 12-piece ''American'' orchestral group perform, with a nod to an especially notable rework of Hiroshi Wada's "Kikuchiyo to Mohshimasu" combining the sounds of a traditional koto (japanese slide guitar) onstage is definitely something not to be missed.
(For another day - but a recent and marvelous late addition to my closet of music is Keren Ann's 2001 debut - La Biographie De Luka Philipsen. Then again, I'm somewhat biased towards the French genre of music and for that matter all things French but that is a conversation for une outre jour.)
Foremost, I suppose the question lies not exactly with what Pink Martini is as opposed to who they are. Formed as a group of eclectic musicians, Harvard educated pianist Thomas Lauderdale and China Forbes present an array of musical styles from their 1997 independently released debut CD entitled Sympathique. Spanning the lingual globe but still maintaining an offbeat cuban flare, the group hailing from Portland, Oregon manages to touch our palates with Spanish, French, Japanese, Greek, and English songs all on one CD. If you are constantly searching for new and unique groups in the world music scene then this is definitely one hidden gem that you should check out.
After a long anticipated and overdue sophomore release, Hang on Little Tomato made its way out of the creative minds of Lauderdale/Forbes in late 2004 - adding to their musical repertoire with new tracks in Italian and Croatian. The title of their second CD, culled from a 1964 Hunt's Ketchup advertisement underscores the festive and airy musical quality that it seeks to recreate.
Having an opportunity to witness their live performance at the Walt Disney Concert hall for the past two years, I would say that it is a joy worth mentioning as well. Seeing a 12-piece ''American'' orchestral group perform, with a nod to an especially notable rework of Hiroshi Wada's "Kikuchiyo to Mohshimasu" combining the sounds of a traditional koto (japanese slide guitar) onstage is definitely something not to be missed.
(For another day - but a recent and marvelous late addition to my closet of music is Keren Ann's 2001 debut - La Biographie De Luka Philipsen. Then again, I'm somewhat biased towards the French genre of music and for that matter all things French but that is a conversation for une outre jour.)
posted by Vision20 at 2:56 PM
1 Comments:
Well, I must say that this is quite a recommendation. As a Pink Martini fan myself, I too find that this group of "electic musicians" inspire my musical senses in many ways. When I was introduced to Pink Martini, (coincidentally by a friend named Paul), I also found that this group was truly one of a kind. Although I have not seen Pink Martini in concert, it is still one of my dreams to get to experience the in person, one of a kind, electrifying, high soaring fever, caused when hearing Pink Martini's up-ritmic beats. Thats right..."Hang on little tomatoe" for Pink Martini is truly a great musical group!!
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