Beautiful right….!! ..We Need More of this floating around the web.

Isn’t she lovely ? Just Saw These. She looks Great. Are these new ? DiZAAAAAAAAAAMMMMNNN !

Esquire woman we love – Katy Perry from esquireuk on Vimeo.

From the moment Katy Perry swaggered into the studio for the shoot of our August cover, we could tell it was going to be a special day.

The results speak for themselves, but as an extra treat here’s a behind-the-scenes peek at Perry on shoot, courtesy of photographer and director Yu Tsai.

Esperanza Spalding, Chamber Music Society EPK from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

Peep this track list below and note that this jewel drops AUGUST 17, 2010

“The Most Beautiful Things Emerge From Chaos” – Esperanza Spalding

“Chamber Music Society” Track List:
1. Little Fly
2. Knowledge Of Good And Evil
3. Really Very Small
4. Chacarera
5. Wild Is The Wind
6. Apple Blossom
7. As A Sprout
8. What A Friend
9. Winter Sun
10. Inútil Paisagem
11. Short And Sweet

This Write up below is Via her Labels Heads Up x Concord Music Group where you can actually preview the album.

Centuries ago, long before the advent of radio or recording technology, chamber music was the music for the masses – the music in which people from nearly every segment of society could find meaning and relevance. A decade into the 21st century, Esperanza Spalding – the bassist, vocalist and composer who first appeared on the jazz scene in 2008 – takes a contemporary approach to this once universal form of entertainment with Chamber Music Society.

Backed by drummer Terri Lyne Carrington and pianist Leo Genovese – and inspired by the classical training of her younger years – Esperanza creates a modern chamber music group that combines the spontaneity and intrigue of improvisation with sweet and angular string trio arrangements. The result is a sound that weaves the innovative elements of jazz, folk and world music into the enduring foundations of classical music.

“So much of my early musical experience was spent playing chamber music on the violin, and it’s a form of music that I’ve always loved,” says Esperanza. “I was very inspired by a lot of classical music, and chamber music in particular. I’m intrigued by the concept of intimate works that can be played and experienced among friends in an intimate setting. So I decided to create my version of contemporary chamber music, and add one more voice to that rich history.”

Chamber Music Society is a place where connoisseurs of classical music and jazz devotees – and fans of other musics as well – can find common ground. The recording offers a chamber music for modern times – one that brings together people of different perspectives and broadens their cultural experience, just as it did in an earlier age.

Esperanza first took the world by storm in 2008 with her self-titled Heads Up debut recording that spent more than 70 weeks on the Billboard Contemporary Jazz Chart. Two years later, she continues to push the boundaries of jazz and explore the places where it intersects with other genres. Co-produced by Esperanza and Gil Goldstein, Chamber Music Society surrounds Esperanza with a diverse assembly of musicians. At the core are pianist Leo Genovese, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington and percussionist Quintino Cinalli. The string trio is comprised of violinist Entcho Todorov, violist Lois Martin, cellist David Eggar and Gretchen Parlato on voice. The great Milton Nascimento also makes a guest appearance on one track.

“Gil is really a master at integrating a sound that caters to string instruments,” says Esperanza. “I’ve learned so much from working with him, and I’ve gained confidence in my abilities as an arranger and producer as well.”

But this is no dream. It is the work of a brilliant young musical talent who isn’t afraid to challenge the limits of jazz and its relationship to other forms of musical expression. Chamber Music Society is the first of two current Esperanza projects. Radio Music Society, set for release in the spring of 2011, features an exciting new repertoire of funk, hip-hop, and rock elements fused into songs that are free from genre.

“I’m confident that this music will touch people,” she says of Chamber Music Society. “We all want to hear sincerity and originality in music, and anyone can recognize and appreciate when love and truth are transmitted through art. No matter what else has or hasn’t been achieved on this recording, those things are definitely a part of this music. Those are the things I really want to deliver.”

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SAY Word, she lives in Austin, Texas ! I love this woman. This interview below is from MARCH 8, 2010, and I was obviously sleeping on it…never the less, it gets posted. VIA the New Yorker

By John Colapinto

This week’s issue includes my Profile of the bassist, singer, and composer Esperanza Spalding. (Subscribers can read the full text online; others can pay to access the issue.) When I visited her home in Austin, Texas, I asked if I could shoot some video of her explaining how a song gets written and arranged. She happily obliged me by talking about the creation of an as-yet-untitled song:

Spalding plans to record this song but not for her next album, “The Chamber Music Society,” which is due out this summer. But I went out to Bennett Recording Studios, in Englewood, N.J., and watched her conduct a string section for a song that will be. It’s called “Apple Blossom”:

Complex keeps winning. I have a lot of respect for Marc Ecko so believe me when I say 1. I Didn’t attempt to News Stand Gaffle this issue of Complex, & 2. These are some of the dopest photos of Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam aka M.I.A. , that I’ve ever seen. The camera obviously stalks her. That said..do Like me and cop this off the shelves and/or since I’m not hustling Complex Mag via Amazon on my sidebar…make sure you go to the site and peep more.

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and word ? She still in the projects….

As painful and tough as those times are, I hope my kids have tough times to learn and grow from.
M.I.A.: I have those thoughts about my son, but I think his adversities are going to be on a different scale. I had to spend ages on stupid shit, like getting to know about racism on a really street level, growing up in the projects. I think he’s gonna have it in a different way.
How so?
M.I.A.: At the moment, he’s staying with me at my mum’s—her house is in the projects, so the house is like the size of somebody’s closet in California. But at the same time, he’s got his grandpa on the other side, Ben’s dad, who is at the complete opposite end of the spectrum. I think as long as he has both extremes, that’s where his lessons are gonna be learned. I want him to grow up here and spend as much time as possible with his grandma to learn the things I learned growing up in this house. He needs to hang with everybody and meet people and find out what they need and find out what the problems are and what the solutions are. I can’t explain it.

VIA COMPLEX

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I think Alicia Keys could play Lena Horne, looks wise she might be a good match. VIA Wiki..” Oprah Winfrey stated to Alicia Keys during a 2005 interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show that she might possibly consider producing the biopic herself, casting Keys as Horne.”

Let me post the BIO of another one of our Queens, Lena Horne. May Her Soul Rest In Peace and her Family heal with God Speed. Was she in The Talented Tenth ? Do the knowledge, word to W. E. B. Du Bois.
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Lena Mary Calhoun Horne (June 30, 1917 – May 9, 2010) was an American singer, actress and dancer.
Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the films Cabin in the Sky and Stormy Weather . Due to the Red Scare and her progressive political views, Horne found herself blacklisted and unable to get work in Hollywood.

Returning to her roots as a nightclub performer, Horne took part in the March on Washington, and continued to work as a performer, both in nightclubs as well as television, and releasing well received albums. In the early 1970s, her husband, son and father died within a period of twelve months. Horne announced her retirement in March 1980, but the next year starred in a one woman show, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music, which ran for more than three hundred performances on Broadway, and earned her numerous awards and accolades. Horne recorded sporadically following the show, but no longer made public appearances.

Horne left school at age 16 to help support her ailing mother and became a dancer at the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York City. In two years at the Cotton Club she appeared with such entertainers as Cab Calloway and eventually starred in her own shows. In 1935 she joined the Noble Sissle orchestra under the name Helena Horne. Horne was married from 1937 to 1944 to Louis J. Jones. In the early 1940s she was hired to sing for Charlie Barnet’s orchestra. She was discovered by producer John Hammond, and soon after she performed in a solo show at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

In 1942 Horne moved to Los Angeles, after which she appeared in such movies as Cabin in the Sky (1943), Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956), and The Wiz (1978). Her role in the film Stormy Weather (1943) included her rendition of the title song, which became her trademark. A remarkably charismatic entertainer, Horne was one of the most popular singers of her time. One of her albums, Lena Horne at the Waldorf-Astoria (1957), was a long-time best-seller, and her first featured performance on Broadway—in the musical Jamaica (1957)—won her a New York Drama Critics’ Poll Award in 1958.

Though primarily known as an entertainer, Horne also was noted for her work with civil rights and political organizations; as an actress, she refused to play roles that stereotyped African American women. She was married to Lennie Hayton from 1947 until his death in 1971. Her one-woman show, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music (1981), garnered many awards, including a Drama Critics’ Circle Award and a special achievement Tony Award. In 1984 Horne received a Kennedy Center honour for lifetime contribution to the arts, and in 1989 a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement.

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Now understand, this tidbit was via Wikipedia x BIO and does her no justice. Like I said, do the knowledge…I just dropped tidbits so you can understand that knowledge of her greatness is out there.

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Isn’t she lovely ! Mizzz Keriiii Baaabeeeyy
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L-Boogie and Anthony Hamilton @ the Tanzania Education Trust New York Gala hosted by President Jakaya Kikwete of the United Republic of Tanzania.

Dope, L-Boogie looks like she’s ready to give us some more of her magic, I hope she back in that booth !

Jill Scott breaks down the ‘Wince”….in May’s Issue of Essence.
“My new friend is handsome, African-American, intelligent and seemingly wealthy. He is an athlete, loves his momma, and is happily married to a White woman. I admit when I saw his wedding ring, I privately hoped. But something in me just knew he didn’t marry a sister. Although my guess hit the mark, when my friend told me his wife was indeed Caucasian, I felt my spirit…wince. I didn’t immediately understand it. My face read happy for you. My body showed no reaction to my inner pinch, but the sting was there, quiet like a mosquito under a summer dress.

Was I jealous? Did the reality of his relationship somehow diminish his soul’s credibility? The answer is not simple. One could easily dispel the wince as racist or separatist, but that’s not how I was brought up. I was reared in a Jehovah’s Witness household. I was taught that every man should be judged by his deeds and not his color, and I firmly stand where my grandmother left me. African people worldwide are known to be welcoming and open-minded. We share our culture sometimes to our own peril and most of us love the very notion of love. My position is that for women of color, this very common “wince” has solely to do with the African story in America.

When our people were enslaved, “Massa” placed his Caucasian woman on a pedestal. She was spoiled, revered and angelic, while the Black slave woman was overworked, beaten, raped and farmed out like cattle to be mated. She was nothing and neither was our Black man. As slavery died for the greater good of America, and the movement for equality sputtered to life, the White woman was on the cover of every American magazine. She was the dazzling jewel on every movie screen, the glory of every commercial and television show. She was unequivocally the standard of beauty for this country, firmly unattainable to anyone not of her race. We daughters of the dust were seen as ugly, nappy mammies, good for day work and unwanted children, while our men were thought to be thieving, sex-hungry animals with limited brain capacity.

We reflect on this awful past and recall that if a Black man even looked at a White woman, he would have been lynched, beaten, jailed or shot to death. In the midst of this, Black women and Black men struggled together, mourned together, starved together, braved the hoses and vicious police dogs and died untimely on southern back roads together. These harsh truths lead to what we really feel when we see a seemingly together brother with a Caucasian woman and their children. That feeling is betrayed. While we exert efforts to raise our sons and daughters to appreciate themselves and respect others, most of us end up doing this important work alone, with no fathers or like representatives, limited financial support (often court-enforced) and, on top of everything else, an empty bed. It’s frustrating and it hurts!

Our minds do understand that people of all races find genuine love in many places. We dig that the world is full of amazing options. But underneath, there is a bite, no matter the ointment, that has yet to stop burning. Some may find these thoughts to be hurtful. That is not my intent. I’m just sayin’.”

-Jill Scott is a three-time Grammy Award-winning artist, writer, actress, philanthropist and mother.
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