Ochin Pakhi, a Chicago band devoted to traditional Bengali music, is proud to announce the release of their album Praner Alap: Meeting of Hearts on Innova Recordings. An ambitious artistic collaboration, the album features new musical arrangements of songs by poet Rabindranath Tagore from his Nobel Prize-winning poetry collection Gitanjali (Song Offerings).
With soaring vocals by Subhajit Sengupta and Swarnali Banerjee intertwined with sweeping strings, accordion, raga-based improvisations, and a myriad of instruments, Praner Alap brings new emotional intensity to Tagore’s melodies and lyrics. The digital album is complemented by a poetry and art booklet featuring paintings inspired by each song, painted by a variety of artists, and newly translated lyrics.
“Praner Alap is the culmination of a beautiful collaboration between dear friends from around the world who joined their diverse artistic backgrounds to explore the depth of Tagore’s songs,” said Lucia Thomas, the band member who translated the lyrics, and who performs on violin and Bengali folk instruments. “We hope this album will introduce listeners to the incredible power of Tagore’s words and melodies.”
Published in 1910, Gitanjali was Tagore’s groundbreaking collection of Bengali poetry that largely contained lyrics of songs he had composed. Tagore’s English translation of Gitanjali gained popularity in the West and won him a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913, but the melodies of the songs remained unknown to Western audiences. Praner Alap brings these musical works to life for contemporary listeners through innovative cross-cultural arrangements.
Ochin Pakhi has been performing Bengali music in Chicago since 2017. In addition to Tagore’s songs, the band’s repertoire includes songs of the Bauls, mystic minstrels of Bengal. The group is featured in an award-winning documentary titled “Ochin Pakhi” by director Elja Roy. Praner Alap, the group’s first album, was produced by Chicago Folklore Ensemble, a group established in 2015 to celebrate immigrant communities through interdisciplinary performances interweaving music and storytelling.
Africa in New Orleans is a collection of songs created from the wellspring of collaboration that is composer, musician and dancer, Sidiki Conde. In 2023, The New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park invited Conde and guitarist, Wowo Souakoli, to work with New Orleans musicians engaged in the diverse genres of the city: jazz, blues, and zydeco. All genres with origins in West Africa where Conde hails from. Through this collaboration Conde felt both at home and part of a bigger global story.
Neera does not tell one single story; it tells multiple, entwining stories through its sounds. One thread is joy, creativity, and freedom in art. The different sonic combinations—created with violin, viola, kamancheh, tombak, spoken word, electronic pulses, and all the different timbres of each—show how the artists resist the restraints of being put in a box, labeled as a “violinist,” “classical musician,” or perhaps “Iranian immigrant.” Sarvin Hazin & Kimia Hesabi, like all of us, have a palette of experiences at their disposal, and they have used the full range in creating their debut album.
The inspiration from their identities is another thread; the music pulls from multiple traditions, inviting us to do the same. One story told is the strength and power of women throughout history. The piece titles give some clues, as they draw on Persian culture and obliquely allude to both ancient figures and more current women whose actions and values have become touchstones for Hazin & Hesabi, Persian culture, and sometimes throughout the world. The stories of each of these women—like the stories of all of us—are not isolated, but instead pull on the stories that came before, showing the connections across time, people, and cultures. The music itself is not specifically programmatic, but the grief and pain, harmoniously present with the meditative strength of those who persevere, spark change, and fight for true beauty is a theme throughout.
Neera is a multimedia project that blends various cultures and musical echo-systems. Derived from older Persian languages, Neera means “to shine light,” and they (or Hesabi and Hazin) took this meaning to heart by paying homage to Iranian women from different generations who were authentically and courageously themselves while living in a society that constantly worked to define them by enforcing its standards on their lives and identities.
Using Western classical instruments such as violin and viola, as well as Iranian classical instruments such as kamancheh and tombak, in combination with electronic sounds and vocals, give Neera a genre bending quality, and a unique and personal musical language and style.
Neera is a recipient of the Creator Development Fund from New Music USA in 2022.
Abriendo y Cerrando, Shinjoo Cho’s first solo album for bandoneon, features both her original compositions and arrangements. Recorded in Argentina in 2024, this album exhibits Shinjoo’s search for a new language for bandoneon outside of its emblematic role in the tango genre and the making of a composer and performer whose musical passage encompasses Asia, North America, and South America. Guest composers and performers include Alban Bailly and Antonio Boyadjian.
Buoyed by experience and tradition, Cho approaches the bandoneon’s intricacies with affection and curiosity which is evident in the playful chaos of Attention Deficit Distorter and Rocío, an organ-like treatment of the iconic Korean protest song Morning Dew (아침 이슬). Improvisatory influences and tango’s percussive usage of bandoneon are present in all her pieces. Both Cho’s compositions and her playing exude a deep sincerity and masterful control of pace which invites the listener to experience the breath of the reeds as the instrument flexes, snaps, and stretches.
Shinjoo Cho is one of the leading bandoneonists in the U.S. and is an active performer in the Americas, Asia, and Europe. She collaborates in multi-disciplinary projects as a composer, educator, improviser, and tango and ensemble musician, and explores the vast range of tango music tradition as a bandleader and member of Abaddon Sextet (NY), Pedro Giraudo Tango Quartet (NY),El Sesenta Dúo (NY/Philadelphia),Solidaridad Tango (Canada), Casa del Tango Sexteto (Mexico) and Oscuro Quintet (Philadelphia). Her recent projects include Lo que vendrá, a retrospective of Astor Piazzolla’s music with 20 performers and composition for the Lewis Latimer documentary film and the web/radio episodes of WHYY’s Route 47: Historias Along a Bus Route. Shinjoo’s latest recording credits include Roads to Damascus by Kinan Abou-afach, Postales by Patricio Acevedo, and Exploratorium by Gene Coleman.
Alicia Waller is a New York City-based soprano, vocalist, and songwriter seeking to integrate a range of diverse musical traditions through a performance practice that centers around the female voice. To hear her is to encounter an incredibly versatile musician with a seemingly insatiable appetite for artistic exploration. She is, for example, a classically trained opera singer as well as an avid interpreter of a number of Latin and vernacular forms from around the world.
In her debut album release Some Hidden Treasure, Waller unveils four original songs that present a wide-ranging exploration of American music. Appearing as frontwoman of Alicia Waller & The Excursion, she calls the record “an experiment about the spaces in between.” Waller’s Some Hidden Treasure weaves globally inspired jazz with soul, soul with R&B, and R&B with spirituals and the blues, plus a nod to hip-hop. She achieves this all while expertly adapting her trained vocal instrument to an entirely new direction alongside veteran bassist and co-producer, Marcos Varela, and in the company of the formidable instrumentalists who form her backing ensemble, The Excursion.
While composing the E.P., Waller looked to the artists she’d grown up on—the music her parents listened to like Bobby Womack, Marvin Gaye, Donny Hathaway, and Anita Baker. Fascinated by the compositional complexity and textural diversity that these great musicians offered alongside their masterful vocal performances, she sought to develop a lush and varied sonic landscape for the album. The artist says that she wanted to push boundaries in contemporary music and challenge listeners. “When I went into this, I didn’t know exactly what was going to come out,” Waller states. “I just knew that I wanted it to sound ballsy and new. I wanted the voice to have a touch of classical and jazz, but the instrumentation to feel like soul music. I wanted it to sound like it came from the gut.”
The record is also a frank expression of feminine vulnerability. In the frenetic “Soul,” Waller and the band race between three distinct musical themes as the singer describes her contradictory emotions toward a lover—courting him, refusing him, and seducing him at once. In the title track, “Some Hidden Treasure,” she tenderly contends with having fallen in love with a dear friend, while in “Just Step Back” she manically consults the many voices in her head as she frees herself from a relationship that has run its course. The song, “Clouds,” finds the singer at perhaps her most transparent, as she openly discusses a desire for love and fear of time lost.
Some Hidden Treasure is the opening act of an artist with a lot to say, and who is daring enough to say it all while channeling her musical roots in a refreshingly inventive way.
Building on a long track record of scholarship and interpretive artistry focused on the great Mary Lou Williams, vibraphonist and composer Cecilia Smith is proud to announce the release of Volume 1: Small Ensemble Repertoire, the new album from her NEA American Masterpiece Award-winning Mary Lou Williams Resurgence Project. Through countless hours of immersion in the Williams archive at the Institute for Jazz Studies, and direct access to manuscripts and scores from Williams’ former manager Father Peter O’Brien, Smith and her top-tier bandmates put their unique stamp on music either composed by Williams, composed in honor of her, or arranged and recorded by Williams during her lifetime. Among the timeless gems on Volume 1: Small Ensemble Repertoire is Williams’ previously unrecorded “Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone,” sung by the acclaimed Carla Cook.
Pianist and composer Mary Lou Williams made her reputation as a road warrior with the storied Midwestern territory bands of the 1930s (notably Andy Kirk’s 12 Clouds of Joy). She gained renown as a formidable boogie-woogie pianist, but her pioneering role in Swing Era big band arranging and composition was for far too long unheralded. She also served as a mentor to Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell and other icons of the bebop revolution, and continued to refine and deepen her creative vision until her death in 1981. In Smith’s treatments we hear the intelligence and inventiveness that Williams brought to all her endeavors. With her seasoned swing feel and sparkling touch on the vibes, Smith finds a solid rapport with longtime colleagues Lafayette Harris, Jr. and Carlton Holmes (sharing piano and Hammond organ duties), bassist Kenny Davis and drummer Ron Savage. The album is coproduced by Smith, Harris, Jr. and master trumpeter and educator Cecil Bridgewater.
On Volume 1: Small Ensemble Repertoire, Smith extends her considerable performance history with Mary Lou Williams’ music, bringing new insights and ideas to the work at every opportunity. She leads off with her original “Sketch One — Truth Be Told,” incorporating a sequence of motifs drawn from Mary Lou’s pieces “Nicole,” “Waltz Boogie” and “Truth” (a.k.a. “Scratchin’ in the Gravel”). The fourth and final motif, commonly identified with Thelonious Monk’s “Rhythm-a-ning,” is in fact a riff from the killer shout chorus in Mary Lou’s “Walkin’ and Swingin’” (1936) — just one of Williams’ innovative contributions to the band book of Andy Kirk’s 12 Clouds of Joy. “Sketch Three — 100 Years of Mary Lou Williams,” a Smith original in . time, is another fine example of elevated swing and flowing lyricism. “I’ve combined a gospel feel with unique harmony and a simple melody,” the composer remarks. “My mission is to keep Mary Lou’s music current and in the world as part of the jazz narrative.”
Cecilia Smith is a leading vibraphonist of the four-mallet technique and an avid composer and arranger, with six albums as a leader to her credit. She has recorded and performed with Gary Bartz, Milt Hinton, Randy Weston, Marian McPartland, Donald Harrison, Greg Osby, Billy Pierce, Mulgrew Miller and Cecil Bridgewater. Her vibraphone stylings can be heard on Cassandra Wilson’s acclaimed Traveling Miles, Digable Planets’ Blowout Comb, Lonnie Plaxico’s Short Takes and more. She received a Joyce Foundation Award to develop her multimedia work Crossing Bridges. Another multimedia work in development, Decisive Moments, is being made in collaboration with Blue Man Group video artist and filmmaker Kevin Frech. Smith is a 2016 recipient of the Ziegfeld Club’s Elizabeth Swados Award. She is the Artistic Director of the Mary Lou Williams Resurgence Project and a teaching artist for nonprofit organizations and social service agencies.