JOE SENT ME | Windy City Times review

"Electronica, smooth jazz, drum-and-bass. Poet, chanteuse, painter. Vanessa Daou is one artist who thrives on not being pigeonholed. The New Yorker returns with the self-produced Joe Sent Me, her first album since 2001's Make You Love. The absinthe-inspired trance of Daou's vocals is married to the rhythmic typewriter on "Hurricanes," where she steps forth as the sultriest person at a beat café. "Black & White" has a constant nightclub piano tinkering in the background that suits her breathless singing in a higher pitch. On the title track, Daou seizes listeners with her chiming "strange days" over the interlacing of jazz and electronica. Continuing to morph her artistic approach with minimalism and spoken word, Joe Sent Me is a comeback for Daou that ought to be celebrated. Daou's sixth solo album is currently available on www.daourecords.com before its wide release" David Byrne @ Windy City Times

'Joe Sent M.D.E.'

In May '09, The Mercer Dance Ensemble (M.D.E.) will present Joe Sent M.D.E., a series of dance cycles set to the music of JOE SENT ME, which will premier at Kelsey Theatre on the Mercer County Community College campus in Trenton, New Jersey. Dance Program faculty Janell Byrne will choreograph and direct, with guest choreography by Elixir Productions co-founder Jody P. Person and others. [ Kelsey Theatre ]

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Elizabeth Alexander's Inaugural Poem: Reflections on the Purpose of Poetry

Reflecting on Elizabeth Alexander's Inaugural Poem provided by The New York Times via CQ Transcriptions:

Praise song for the day.

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."

We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's something better down the road."

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.

---

What strikes me the most about this poem are its many references to music and song - its use of repetition to accomplish a rhythm which is inherently musical:

All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din.

The various words that evoke sound:

speak, speaking, noise, din, tongues, drum, cello, boom box, harmonica, voice

The importance of words to conjure and command:

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."

As the poem moves along, repetition of the word 'We' that unites us in our experience of the world:

We encounter each other in words ... We cross dirt roads and highways ... We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk....

Alexander asks us to do more than use our words, but to lift our words as occurs with praise and song:

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here...

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign...

As the poem winds down, Alexander brings us to the place where Poetry makes its purpose known. Poetry resides on the edges of experience, in those perilous places where there is a crystal clarity:

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.

Praise song, poem, a kind of atonement, declaration, proclamation, invitation. Poetry is movement, history, hope, enlightenment, a glimpse, perhaps, of eternity...

"BSOTS 077 - certified no doze..."

"...there are a number of cuts here that scored high on the rewind factor for me, namely joints by longshot, declaime, moka only, chandliers, and the primeridian. also keep tabs on outasight - that kid is going places. expect big things from him in the oh-nine. never pass up a chance to play vanessa daou - i've been in love with her voice since 1993. we're gettin' down with some jazz this time around, too. and don't front on the latin boogaloo classic from alfredo linares - HOT, HOT, HOT." bsots

'Lovechild' {itunes | rhapsody} from Make You Love

Anji Bee's Chillcast #142: Make Out Music

Hear 'Heart of Wax' from upcoming JOE SENT ME on luscious voiced Anji Bee's 'Make Out Music' Chillcast #142






If you don't already know, check out her ever transcendent work with Lovespirals

Link to Anji Bee chillcasts tagged Vanessa Daou

Link to Anji Bee

The Personal is Musical

Reading Typing in Stereo's header tagline "Life is music is personal is political", I am reminded of the the phrase "the personal is political", the mantra that became synonymous with Second Wave Feminist Movement of the 1970's. In this new era, where our protests are logged in the form of Blips & Tweats, it can be said that "the personal is virtual." And while our personal lives intersect with the virtual, one Google search of the Battle of Fallujah, and we can see that so much of the world is still perilously out of reach of our words, becoming distant and diminished.

One of the casualties of the new virtual frontier has been the destruction of the Monolith that was once known as the "Recording Industry"; there stands in its place a crumpled and collapsed edifice. The demise of the Music Business has been a gradual process, like a slow buildup of lava in the dome of a volcano, where after the eruption, the landscape is one that is no longer recognized.

The way we listen to music has also changed, as has the language we use to describe it - songs are downloads, mp3s, wav files, mash-ups - and while there has been a general negation of the physical format of the 'record', there has been no eradication of the listeners' actual need for the physical reality of music, evidenced in the nationwide upsurge in vinyl sales. This fact is not just a reflection of music purchasing preferences, but a silent subversion of the Music Industry.

The quiet vinyl revolution taking place in indie stores nationwide reflects a need to re-affirm Reality and re-connect with History. Although the protests and political fires that inflamed our mothers' generation no longer burn in the same way they used to, the new radicalism can be found in oblique corners, wherever vinyl records are being sold.

But some revolutions are so silent that only advanced sound techniques over time are able to capture. In this new millennium where music, philosophy and art co-mingle in the flummoxes of commercialism, consumerism, marketing and paraphernalia, where "the personal is virtual", it can also be said that it can also be said that "the personal is musical." While our play lists become public along with our Tweats and Blips, the universal mirror that reflects our private lives is still, as it has been since the invention of the gramophone, the vinyl records that we unsheath, rub clean, hold up to the light, play with reverence, and take with us, everywhere.