Category: "Spotlight"
Spotlight: Gretchen Parlato
Tags: Gretchen Parlato, Interview, Jazz
N.E.R.D. centered synesthesia in this year's pop musical conscious but Gretchen Parlato featured the sensory experience in a buoyant lyric she penned to legendary jazz saxophonist Wayne Shorter's "Juju" in 2005. Included on her essential debut, and written at film scorer and jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard's behest, it reflected the concentrated wisdom Parlato brings to musicking.
Long enamored with the sounds of Brazil and, in recent years, transplanted listeners to West Africa with frequent collaborator Blue Note guitarist Lionel Loueke, her influences range from folk to New Wave to R&B to the jazz vocalists Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Nancy Wilson. In fact, her pared down cover of the Michael Jackson hit, "I Can't Help It", is a case study in genre transcendence and interpretative brilliance.
I spoke to the 32 year-old jazz singer back in the winter, a few weeks after photographing her trio at a quaint West Village date. In the two seasons since, she has toured Australia, opened for Bobby McFerrin at Carnegie Hall, recorded and performed with Esperanza Spalding, the young jazz bassist with both Bill Cosby and Questlove's imprimaturs, taken a brief medical hiatus, recovered and scored a record deal with ObliqSound.
To my delight, she is back at the mic and tonight begins a two night stint at lower Manhattan's Jazz Gallery to be followed by a flurry of dates, concentrated here in the New York area, the Southern California native's home since the summer of 2003. So what better time to share edited excerpts of our conversation, which surveyed her early augties tenure at the Thelonious Monk Institute, her pop, Brazilian and African influences and her thoughts on the future of jazz.
Spotlight: Ayinde Howell
Tags: Ayinde Howell, Film, Interview, Music
The irrepressible Ayinde Howell is equally at home on stage, on set and in the kitchen. The Pacific Northwest transplant to Brooklyn stars in James Spooner's most recent film, the festival stalwart, "White Lies, Black Sheep," playing now in Brooklyn as part of the fourth annual Afro Punk festival but he's also a sharp-eared producer, rousing poet and emcee and successful restaurateur. Fresh from a photo shoot Thursday, the ever busy Howell shot me an e-mail responding to a few of my questions on his background and current projects.
VIBE: You are a rapper/actor/chef/producer? How did you become a jack of so many trades?
Howell: Deejaying is what got me started in the whole performance thing. I started that at fifteen then took a hiatus into the family business by partnering with my dad to open Hillside Quickies Vegan Sandwich Shop in Seattle next door to the University of Washington. In the course of about "three years of hiding behind the pots and pans," as a close friend put it, I had met and fed the likes of Saul Williams, Dead Prez, Erykah Badu Common, Blackalicious and the Last Poets! My place became known as "the Hip Hop Vegan Spot" and I was back stage at so many concerts, the music was just calling out to me.
At the time, I was heavily into spoken word, which lead to me writing, producing, directing and performing two one man shows. That still was not enough, so I gave my half of the sandwich shop to my sister and moved to Los Angeles to pursue music with one of my long time collaborators from Seattle who promptly decided to quit music the day I arrived. The rest of my time in Los Angeles was tumultuous and short-lived. I landed back in Seattle and was offered a lead in an inde film called "Urbanworld" opposite Ishmael Butler of Digable Planets. After wrapping that film, I recorded my first album, American Hero Vol. I. It was then I started to realize I could produce the music I heard in my head.
You have produced and collaborated with so many artists. Can you identify three songs from various projects that best represent your style?
My style as a producer is like me: different. I really like "Freedom 2tha Kings" featuring Buttafly of Digable Planets, "NoWar" featuring S.Sweets, both of which are on my last EP the SecretLife of PorchMonkeys
For those who may not be aware, what is SecretLife of PorchMonkeys?
The Secretlife of Porchmonkeys is a concept EP I produced along with my studio collaborator Bubba Jones. It's title is a reference to how I feel like I am viewed as a hip hop kid in this time in Hip hop. I tell people I'm a rapper and they are like, "Oh, well good luck with that." It has such a heavy stigma to it that I've wondered what if nobody ever knows that I had this whole secret life, and I'm not just some dude with a label on the rapper rack.
You are a Northwest native. What challenges and advantages arise for artists coming up out there and why did you decided to relocate to Brooklyn?
Seattle is a great place to grow something to put it on a stage and be very creative and if you are good at what you do but you hit the ceiling fast. After reaching that point, I thought this was a perfect time to leave so I moved to Brooklyn armed with my talent and a whole lot of ambition with my sights on conquering new ground.
Your film "While Lies, Black Sheep" deals with tokenism and racial disillusionment. What drew you to the role and what experiences were you able to draw on to lend credence to your character?
Actually, Afro Punk drew me to James Spooner, and in classic Brooklyn serendipitous fashion we kept running into each other. With good timing, some luck and a long auditioning process, I landed the role 6 months after landing in New York. The first thing I identified with in my character, AJ, was him being an outcast amongst his own people. I grew up Rastafarian in a smaller town 30 minutes south of Seattle called Tacoma in the eighties and was Vegan, with dreadlocks everywhere and home schooled long before it was cool. Niggas had a field day with me and my sisters, so it gave me a lot of fodder to fuel AJ. AJ is a kid I would always see and wonder what his story was and I wanted to honor that as much as possible in doing so it took me outside of my comfort zone in masculinity music, and identity.
What's next for you?
Up next on the radar is me with my nose to the grind and my head in the stars. Check for me.
"White Lies, Black Sheep" plays this Sunday, July 6 at 7pm, Monday, July 7 at 6:50pm and Tuesday, July 8 at 7pm at BAM Rose Cinemas in Brooklyn, New York. Click here to purchase tickets.
