interviews

LA Native, Jazz singer Amber Weekes has an on-going love affair with the torch song. Her new album Pure Imagination is out now.

jazz voacalist amber weekes The Gathering

Inventive heartfelt seasonal jazz Amber Weekes – THE GATHERING:  It’s been just about a year since I reviewed “Pure Imagination” from exciting jazz vocalist Amber… she’s joined on this inventive heartfelt seasonal jazz album by Paul Jackson Jr, guitarist, bassist John B. Williams, and pianist Josh Nelson… I didn’t find LIVE videos from this new album, but you can get a great feel for her performance skills from this video…

…be sure to SUBSCRIBE to Amber’s YouTube channel, too… I did.

The samples aren’t available yet, but I can guarantee that if you’re wanting to get in the mood for the Christmas season, you’ll fall in love with Amber’s ultra-hip version of “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”… DJ’s will be spinning this jazz gem OFTEN, too, I predict!

I will tell you right now that I’ve never heard a more upbeat interpretation of “Winter Wonderland”… recording is flawless, and Amber makes the song come alive.

The album opens with a guaranteed winner, in Sammy Cahn’s “The Christmas Waltz”… absolutely laid-back and lush with life… I just LOVED this performance!

There was no question in my mind that my personal favorite of the ten tantalizing tunes offered up would be “Let It Snow”… it brings back many pleasant memories for me, and you will enjoy your own on this tune, too.

I give Amber and her players a MOST HIGHLY RECOMMENDED rating, with an “EQ” (energy quotient) score of 4.98 for this joyful jazz experience.  Get more information on Amber’s website as it becomes available.                              Rotcod Zzaj

 

Original Link: https://contemporaryfusionreviews.com/inventive-heartfelt-seasonal-jazz/

jazz voacalist amber weekes The Gathering

AMBER WEEKES/Gathering: A SoCal jazz vocal mainstay, Weekes delivers her first Christmas album with the requisite great songs and more great players than an indie record should be able to boast. Easy going but stunning, this is a delightful take on Christmases that have everything but snow. Who needs snow? A most welcome new addition to the holiday music shelf.
(Amber Inn)

 

Original Link: http://midwestrecord.com/MWR1703.html

Amber Weekes promotional image

Presenters and producers might hire jazz singer Amber Weekes based on the variable sound of her laughter alone. During a 75-minute interview with the Los Angeles-based performer and recording artist, her upbeat responses often begin with spontaneous laughter that bubbles with warm, mirthful, golden tones or taps percussively in a rapid titter or rumbles bewitchingly slow and siren-like from deep in her chest. A lover of stories, Weekes’s articulate, expressive words follow the laughter, bringing to mind the lyrics of lullabies, blues ballads, R&B, Motown, American Songbook, and classic jazz standards.

jazz singer Amber Weekes performs live
Weekes’s new 13-track CD, Pure Imagination, reinforces the notion that behind such a voice is a person of similar character — alternately generous, funny, forthright, teasing, alluring, powerful, seductive. The album features a strong contingent of West Coast musicians and collaborators — Grammy-nominee vocalist Sue Raney, bassist/coproducer Trevor Ware, trumpeter Scotty Barnhart, vocalist Mon David, the Bucjump Brass Band, violinist/arranger Mark Cargill, and others. Highlights on the album, Weekes says, are “a gift of love and healing for the world,” including Cole Porter’s “It’s All Right With Me” (the ballad with David), “The Way He Makes Me Feel,” a New Orleans-style arrangement of Paul Simon’s “Gone At Last,” and several works by Oscar Brown, Jr.: “Mister Kicks,” “Brown Baby,” and “The Snake.”

Weekes’s parents brought influences from their lives in Harlem to the West Coast, where they met, married, and raised their children in a household full of music. Her paternal grandparents in Harlem owned Weekes’ Luncheonette, serving post-show fried-egg sandwiches to regular customers such as Duke Ellington, Diahann Carroll, Billy Strayhorn, Harry Belafonte, and others. Weekes has performed in venues and jazz clubs throughout Southern California, and at the New Rochelle Jazz Festival in New York and Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. Weekes is a frequent guest artist on Chet Hanley’s Jazz in the Modern Era and Straight Ahead Jazz Plus programs.

Let’s start with music during your childhood. Your dad was a choir soloist, among other musical activities, and your mother taught you early on about active listening. Was recorded or live music more commonly heard in your home?

Boy. [Laughs] Initially, it was recorded music … and then we were raised around jazz musicians coming to visit, so we did hear live music at home. My dad was a choir soloist, so I heard him sing all the time. I would say it was both live and recorded. And I heard a lot of discussion about music.

Did you listen to music from genres other than jazz?

We were raised Episcopalians, so we heard classical oratorios by Fauré, [Theodore] Dubois, Mozart, and Handel. My parents also loved classical music that wasn’t religious. I was fortunate in that it was classical music, old-school R&B, jazz — all kinds of music. The more well-rounded you are, for me it gives me a broader range of expression as a singer, a different context as a listener, another way to be transcendent. I love the soundtrack from Somewhere in Time, for example, which has Rachmaninoff and some contemporary elements that are in it. [The score composed by John Barry includes repeated use of the 18th variation of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.] That gives me a different experience than listening to Ella [Fitzgerald] or [John] Coltrane or In a Sentimental Mood, played by Coltrane and Ellington.

When listening to recorded music, which vocalists were most often heard?

Even though my parents were in L.A. when I was born, Harlem was still living with us. I heard Nancy Wilson, Diahann Carroll, Nat King Cole, plus Frank Sinatra, Barbara Streisand, the Beatles, Ella Fitzgerald. Then as I got older, we certainly heard Motown sound. Marvin Gaye — I remember learning how to do the Texas Hop to his “Mercy, Mercy Me.” There was Stevie Wonder, the Temptations, the Four Tops, L.T.D., Earth Wind & Fire, Bobby Caldwell — his voice is the first one I fell in love with. The clarity, tone and, later on, seeing him live, he had a slight body and all of this voice. Every time, I’m just blown away with how this man has all of this emotion in his voice.

Do your mother’s ideas and instruction about active listening influence your professional work as a singer? Did you ever resent the push?

I never resented it. I always appreciated it. Lyrics count, they just do. Even now, the melody of a song will grab me, but the lyric will grab me more. Daddy was a big, big storyteller, so my ears are pitched for that because that’s the water I swim in. I can think of times with my mom, even in the last few years, where we’ll be going somewhere and we’re in her car, so she has total control. [Laughs] She’ll pull some song out and say, “Really listen to this song. Pay attention to the beauty of all the song is.”

Do you have any favorite L.A. clubs?

My favorites are gone: the Jazz Bakery and the Sky Room in Long Beach. The Sky Room was a 1930s supper club, elegant, very high-end, with a parquet dance floor with a bandstand. The sound was great. I love to dress in a gown and perform. That’s the most comfortable for me. Even though it was a restaurant, I did feel people were listening to me. I do like Feinstein’s at Vitello’s in the [San Fernando] Valley.

Your album prior to Pure Imagination was ’Round Midnight, released in 2002. Why the gap, and why this new album in 2020?

Honestly, a big part of the gap was life in and of itself. The other part is the financial piece. As an independent artist, finding the capital to get it done really takes finding people to produce it. I did a fundraising campaign and a friend loaned money to get started. I had to be very creative.

And why now? I was driven, I thought it was the time to do it. I had been working diligently, training with Sue Raney for 20 years and was pleased with what my songs sounded like. And there were songs I really wanted to record, most notably the Oscar Brown tunes. Also, I’m really aware of the passage of time and taking things for granted. I wanted to do something that was going to celebrate the relationship I have with Sue and the opportunity I had [on the album’s first track] to record with her.

Has the coronavirus changed your perspective on the CD? Is the healing you intended, and the range of styles encompassed gained significance during a time when a global crisis knits us tighter together but also directs us to self-isolate?

My sense when I did it was the same as now: It’s a gift of love and healing for the world. I think that still applies. What I find, though, is that there are things in the album that weren’t the ones I put most of my emotion into that now, I’m hoping are inspiring to people. Ironically, it’s the first cut and the last cut. The lyrics of Pure Imagination, I’m hoping people can hear it and imagine something different for themselves.

This is our Superman moment. You know the first movie where Christopher Reeve was Superman and then has to back off, recreate himself for 12 years to build the muscle, and emerge and serve humanity in his highest manifestation? The things we’re required to do now: we’re all in that space where we need to determine what our true calling is. And with “Gone at Last,” it’s hoping people can close their eyes, listen to the second-line arrangement, and imagine what it will be like when we can step out of the pain of this and put it behind us. It’s in the line in the chorus: “I’ve had a long streak of bad luck, but I pray it’s gone at last.”

You’ve been working with Sue Raney for 20 years: Why and what have you learned?

The first thing that comes to mind is that from the very beginning, my first lesson, she said, “One of the best things about you is that you have your own sound. And not everybody does.” Over the 20 years I’ve worked with her, she has continually supported me in owning my sound; making it as powerful as it can be and owning my breath, phrasing. There’s a way that I speak where I emphasize something, where I kind of growl. Hear it? I just did it. I do it when I sing, when there’s something that hits me in a certain way.

In what primary ways did your early study of viola and classical music impact your work as a jazz vocalist?

Good question. The viola is unique; it has its own clef. It has a rich sound, so I’d say I see myself the same way. I like to have a warm sound. Classical music, well, on this new album you can hear my appreciation and need to have strings be incorporated into some of the arrangements. Just like the human voice and how it evokes certain emotions, strings enhance that.

You’ve said in other interviews that jazz speaks universally but also allows freedom for you as a singer. Using as an example a track from the CD, will you talk about that dichotomy?

An example is the bossa-nova version of (Manilow/Mercer’s) “When October Goes.” It’s a contemporary standard and it’s a song that’s loved and appreciated by so many people. Typically, you hear it as a ballad, but to twist it and do it as a bossa was exciting. In recording it that way, I got to bring a sensuousness to the longing expressed in the lyric. There are a lot of ways of longing: a melancholy longing, but also regret the person’s not there, a sensuous longing. I’m making it a siren song to pull someone back.

Tell us about Brown’s “The Snake”: Why did you include it and what did you discover in recording it?

First, I need to say I did three songs in tribute to my father. With this album, I also wanted to do a tribute to my mother. Her exposing me to Oscar’s music was the best thing she’s ever done. “The Snake,” no matter what I did, I knew it had to be included. I love the lyric, the story. Being really frank, the song came on the radio right after my parents were divorced. I knew there was a lot of hurt and this is me interpreting as an adult the hurt I saw at the end of her marriage.

The life message continues to resonate with me. There are things that we choose to ignore, and then later, the hurt comes. Looking back, we see the telltale sign was there from the beginning. We want to presume the best, so we ignore it. We want everything to have a happy ending; not everything does. I’m not a cynical person, I’m an optimist, but I recognize there are things like that. Maybe sometimes pain is best digested with a spoonful of sugar. The arrangement itself I love because it’s seductive. It’s feverish on purpose.

And “Gone at Last”?

Honestly, the song for me is a stretch. I have a tremendous affinity for New Orleans, but I’d never done a second-line tune. It’s a style or arrangement that is a signature of New Orleans music used in parades and funerals. People are familiar with the New Orleans style funerals: There’s the dirge as the casket is taken into the cemetery, something on the order of “Saint James Infirmary Blues.” Then as the attendees leave, it is the stylist tune that’s played, most commonly “When the Saints Go Marching In.” It’s not just used in funerals. I was in New Orleans last year at this time, at a festival. The parades were playing second-line tunes. It requires gospel-feel singing. We recorded it wanting to give that feeling of a loved one gone and celebrating that departure. It’s a mixture of joyful and sadness, all at once. It was the most emotionally draining song to record because I had to really place myself there. I had to think about a best friend I lost to cancer the same year my father died.

Mon David joins you to sing “The Way He Makes Me Feel.” What was your experience?

Wonderful; I adore Mon. He’s a deeply spiritual person, generous in his delivery and as a human being. The sensuousness with which he sings I’ve always appreciated. I wanted to do it as a duet so it would be unique. It required me to be a better singer to sing with Mon, because he’s such a tremendous vocalist. He drew out my best. Early on in the song, there’s a point where he’s singing and I come in with just a little hum. It enhances the exchange between us. Things like that happened.

You find special connection to Oscar Brown, Jr’s music: will you tell me about meeting him near the end of his life?

I had met him several times before that. “Hazel’s Hips” was the first song of his I ever wanted to record. He told me several times he’d never heard a woman do it. I was so intimidated, I dropped it. I tried to get in touch with him when I wanted to record it for my first album. In 2002, he was performing at the Jazz Bakery. Sue told the owner about me, reminding him, and I met him in the green room.

A few years later, Oscar (due to a long set of circumstances) stayed with me as a house guest. I got to talk to him, to introduce him to my mother, to tell him my mother was responsible for my appreciation of his music. I actually eventually got to perform Hazel’s Hips with him at a fundraiser for the documentary film they were making about him in December of 2004. It was a huge moment. Performing it with him was fun because in addition to being a great songwriter and singer, he’s also an actor. I acted the song out with him. At the end of the song, I left the stage and it caught him off guard.

What are you doing now to reach audiences, in light of not being able to tour and promote CD?

I’m working with someone on social media to put out extra video clips on my website that tell the story of the album. People can learn about the album itself and hopefully, it will pique their interest. I’m lucky in that I’ve been getting a lot of radio airplay. Between social media and stations playing my music, I hope people at home will listen and listen and then, listen more.

 

Original link: https://www.sfcv.org/events-calendar/artist-spotlight/amber-weekes-celebrates-her-pure-imagination

pure imagination amber weekes

With ‘Pure Imagination’, recorded on her own Amber Inn imprint, Amber Weekes amply demonstrates that she belongs to the rich tradition of the jazz diva.

Amber Weekes Pure Imagination album cover

Indeed, on her most recent recording, the Los Angeles-based songstress sweetly swings her way into the ears and hearts of listeners.

Amber adeptly interprets a brace of compositions, including choice jazz standards, and three songs from the prolific pen of the late vocalist and civil rights activist, Oscar Brown Jr.

Among these, is a poignantly rendered, “The Snake”, which was repeatedly and controversially referenced by Donald Trump during his 2016 Presidential campaign.

On Pure Imagination, Amber is surrounded by some of the best musicians in the City of Angels.

They include pianists Peter Smith and Tony Copodonico; bassists Trevor Ware (co-producer) and Jeff Littleton; drummers Charles Ruggiero and Nathaniel Scott; saxophonist Keith Fiddmont; trumpeters Curtis Taylor and Scotty Barnhart; violinist, string arranger/conductor and co-producer Mark Cargill; and veteran LA percussionist Munyungo Jackson.

She swings like the gallows on Cole Porter’s “It’s All Right With Me”, and Sunny Skylar’s “Got to be This or That”.

Her affinity for bossa nova rhythms comes through brilliantly on the album’s title track, taken from the Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) soundtrack, and the Johnny Mercer/Barry Manilow tune, “When October Goes”.

It all makes perfect sense when you consider that Amber comes from a musical family with roots in the Caribbean islands of Barbados and Jamaica.

Her father, Martin, who eventually became a lawyer, started out as a trombone player and a Frank Sinatra devotee “who sang while he was in the US Army and in New York City clubs”.

Amber’s mother was a classically trained musician and a choir soloist in the Episcopal Church.

“As children, my sisters and I all sang, and we were surrounded by jazz musicians and audiophiles of all sorts. My sisters did not pursue music beyond high school, but they played piano and sang when we were young.”

Her paternal grandparents ran Weekes Luncheonette. Among its patrons were Duke Ellington, Diahann Carroll, Billy Strayhorn, Lena Horne, Sidney Poitier, and Harry Belafonte.

Amber began singing as a child and considers her early influences to include Diahann Carroll, Nancy Wilson, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, and Lena Horne. She studied voice with Phil Moore, Catherine Hansen, Sue Fink and Sue Raney. She has performed at many of Los Angeles’ top clubs in addition to the New Rochelle Jazz Festival in New York and Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas.

Amber believes in the universality of jazz and the power of jazz artists to touch the world:

“I am a very great fan of actor Wendell Pierce. In his book, “The Wind in the Reeds,” he says the more of our authentic selves [as artists] we bring to our art, the more universal our work becomes. In my opinion, jazz gives room for this in a way that no other art form does. Yes! There are cell phones. There is social media. There are all kinds of things going on in this crazy world, but as long as there are human beings, we all have the need to be touched. Jazz is an art form that can be that vehicle. Its popularity may ebb and flow, but it will never, never die. If it does, humanity will disappear.”

Los Angeles-based jazz star Amber Weekes
By John Stevenson

Original link: https://arstash.com/amber-weekes-swings-sweetly-on-pure-imagination/

pure imagination amber weekes

Translated from Italian-

Amber Weekes – Pure Imagination

The new album by American vocalist Amber Weekes finds her in the company of Peter Smith and Tony Copodonico on the piano, Trevor Wane and Jeff Littleton double bass, Charles Ruggiero and Nathaniel Scott drums, Keith Fiddmont on sax, Curtis Taylor and Scotty Barnhart trumpet, Mark Cargil violin , arranger / conductor and Munyungo Jackson percussion. She has often been on tour in the United States and so the great experience on the stage can be seen while she interprets standards not too well known together with Just Squeeze Me (But Don’t Tease Me) by Duke Ellington and Gone at Last by Paul Simon. There’s a duo with Trevor Wane’s double bass, Brown Baby, elsewhere there are sections of string, in every situation you can manage executions with authority, thanks to a powerful but at the same time very warm voice. There is no lack of respectable solos from the soloists called to participate, but obviously his voice reigns over everything. Nice record, which renews the tradition and introduces us to a singer able to interpret an variegated repertoire in an authentic way.

Genre: vocal jazz
Label: Amber Productions
Year 2019

tracklist

01. Pure Imagination (feat. Sue Raney)
02. It’s All Right with Me
03. When He Makes Music
04. The Snake
05. Gotta Be This or That
06. Brown Baby
07. After You’ve Gone
08. When October Goes
09. Mr. Kicks
10. The Way He Makes Me Feel (feat. Mon David)
11. Just Squeeze Me (But Don’t Tease Me)
12. Gone at Last
13. When October Goes

pure imagination amber weekes

Swingin’ soulful jazz vocals Amber Weekes – Pure Imagination

 

Swingin' soulful jazz vocals Amber Weekes

Swingin’ soulful jazz vocals Amber Weekes – PURE IMAGINATION:  If your listening pleasure is totally enhanced by swingin’ soulful jazz vocals, you won’t be able to resist this delightful release from Amber.  As always, the best way to get familiar with a performer is to watch them, so scope out this ultra-hip live video of Amber doing “Mr. Kicks“…

…to enjoy more live performances, be sure you SUBSCRIBE to Amber’s YouTube channel, too… I did.

One of the most upbeat tunes on the album, “Gotta Be This or That“, had me on my feet (headphones on, lol) & dancin’ ’round the room for the entire 2:53 length… this is (unquestionably) the sweetest rendition of Sunny Skylar’s tune, thanks to Amber’s superb jazz vocal skills!

The player list is far too long to itemize here, so check out the album page to get all the details… that back-alley bass intro on “The Snake” is “sneaky”, for sure… the finger-snaps will have you on the edge of your seat for the entire 4:44… one of the slickest jazz performances I’ve listened to (yet) in 2019.

There was no doubt in my mind what my choice for personal favorite of the thirteen tunes offered up would be… Amber’s performance on Paul Simon’s “Gone At Last” will take you right on back to your roots & lift your spirit up high!

I give Amber and her high-talent, high-energy players a MOST HIGHLY RECOMMENDED rating, with an “EQ” (energy quotient) score of 4.98.  Get more information on Amber’s website.            Rotcod Zzaj

pure imagination amber weekes

AMBER WEEKES – “PURE IMAGINATION” Amber inn Productions

Amber Weekes, vocals; Peter Smith & Tony Compodonico, pianists; Trevor Ware, bass/co-producer/background vocals; Jeff Littleton, bass; Charles Ruggiero & Nathaniel Scott, drums; Mitchell Long & Ramon Stagnaro, guitars; Justo Almario & Danilo Lazano, flute; Keith Fiddmont, alto & tenor saxophone; Dale Fielder, baritone saxophone; Curtis Taylor, Jeff Kaye & Scotty Barnhart, trumpets; Mark Cargill, violin/string arranger/conductor & co-producer; Munyungo Jackson, David Jackson & Don Littleton, percussionist; Nick Mancini & Gabriel “Slam” Nobles, vibraphone; Sue Raney & Mon David, vocals; Paul Baker, harp; Brian Swartz, horn arrangements; Mark LeVang, accordion; THE BUCKJUMP BRASS BAND: Robbie Hiokie, trombone; Randall Willis, tenor saxophone; Louis Van Taylor, baritone Saxophone; Vince Tividad, sousaphone; Mark Justin, piano; Kenny Sara, bass drum/snare drums/percussion/background vocals/handclaps.

Amber Weekes has a smooth, pleasing style. Her voice is crystal clear and during this repertoire, she pleasantly performs a Baker’s Dozen of notably familiar songs. Opening with the title tune borrowed from the Willy Wonka movie, Amber Weekes invites jazz vocalist Sue Rainey to make a guest appearance. She has studied with Raney and their voices blend nicely. I am struck by the Weekes way of stylizing her music, leaving space for the songs to breathe. Her phrasing is measured, like an instrumentalist rather than a singer. She doesn’t hold the tones out for long periods of time or delve into lengthy legato phrasings. Weekes displays skills by going straight to the notes without sliding. Every word is clearly enunciated and every melody is emotionally enriched. Her choice of tunes shows an expansive appreciation for many genres of music and includes compositions by Paul Simon, Duke Ellington, Oscar Brown Jr., Barry Manilow and Johnny Mercer. She introduced me to “When He Makes Music” by Marvin Fisher and Jack Segal. This is a treasure trove of great songs.

The West Coast musicians shine on this Weekes album of fine jazz. Scotty Barnhart is outstanding on trumpet during Amber Weekes’ polished presentation of “The Snake.” Trevor Ware’s big, fat tones on double bass carries the rhythm section effectively during Sunny Skylar’s, “Gotta Be This or That.” Weekes brightly ‘swings’ this tune. On Oscar Brown Jr.’s “Brown Baby” composition, Weekes and Trevor Ware duet, effectively showcasing her voice with only bass accompaniment. Ware pulls out his bow on this one to beautifully sing his solo. Amber Weekes and her producers have employed the talents of numerous studio musicians, handpicked for various sessions and representative of some of the best jazz players in Southern California. For example, she uses Jeff Littleton’s strong bass chops on “When October Goes” and the stellar guitar licks of Ramon Stagnaro blended with a happy flute embellishment by Danilo Lazano. They have arranged this Manilow hit with a Latin flair. Weekes invites Mon David to join her in interpreting, “The Way He Makes Me Feel,” using a harp tastefully added by Paul Baker and Mark Cargill continues to enrich the production with his string arrangements. This Amber Weekes album of music is a fine way to begin your New Year. It’s scheduled for a January 3rd release.

Original link

pure imagination amber weekes

AMBER WEEKES/Pure Imagination: One of LA’s jazz vocal treasures serves up a great album for anyone that misses classic jazz vocal albums done right. Pulling Sue Raney out of mothballs and making Tony Newley work side by side with Oscar Brown, this well-conceived set does nothing but hit all the right notes throughout. A real gem that should have come out a hair earlier to qualify for the current Grammy year, let’s hope voters remember to nominate this set come next September as her mantelpiece has earned this statue. Killer stuff that just plain sounds like heaven.
(Amber Inn)

pure imagination amber weekes

Pure Imagination review: Original Link Here

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