I’ve found what I think may be and remain my favorite little jazz club in Santiago. El Perseguidor is an intimate, softly-lit club in the heart of the Bellavista Barrio in Santiago’s north-central area of Providencia, just a short walk from Pablo Neruda’s famous house in the city called La Chascona. The service at El Perseguidor is kind, quick and professional, the line-up is the best in the city and often features heavy-hitting Chilean and international jazz favorites the likes of Angel Parra Trio, Cristian Cuturrufo and Los Titulare.

I had the pleasure of meeting owner Carolina Fernandez last week. We talked about the Santiago jazz scene a little, about some of the piano players here (I’m looking for one), and a bit about the club of course. I caught a great show by Cuturrufo and band last weekend, too. Meeting Cutu after the show was a lot of fun. He’s a talented man with a lot of heart (apparent very quickly when you hear him play, and again when he hugs you – or me, as the case were – hello), as is his partner in much, the great saxophonist Jimmy Coll, and I’m looking forward to accepting their invitation to sit in with them for a song or two this weekend. Should be a lot of fun! I’m thinking Summertime, Autumn Leaves and My Funny Valentine, though we’ll we what the spirit hits us with…

If you’re in Santiago, I hope you’ll give this great club your support and the stellar musicians who play there your kind appreciation. Heck, maybe I’ll even see you there (if so, please say hello)!

~ Heather

Photo by Pablo Arenas.

I’ve had some really special moments singing and listening that I’ll look forward to sharing soon, but for now I send a warm hello from Santiago… abrazos y besos grande!

~ Heather

I heard from Walter Fordham today, the Director of The Chronicles of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, that he has chosen my jazz track Clear Blue Sky for a series of online radio broadcasts for The Chronicles. The series is called  The Essential Chogyam Trungpa and features talks by Carolyn Gimian and Barry Boyce on dharma teachings and meditation techniques, as well as recordings by musicians who are buddhist meditation students, like myself.

The Chronicles honors the lineage and teaching of a beloved Buddhist meditation teacher and founder of Shambhala International, Venerable Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. His teachings inspired Clear Blue Sky (his “dharma” name Chokyi Gyatso can be found in the lyrics). I am happy, honored and humbled to be included on the site and in the broadcast of the second installment of the series. Thank you to Walter and his team.

Please visit the radio series and other great pages at The Chronicles of Chogyam Trungpa.

Listen to Clear Blue Sky on my Music Page (#7 of Under the Apple).

http://blog.dharma.art.br

Notice that the site is in Portuguese, but English versions are accessible by clicking on the English titles of posts where available.

The article also includes some beautiful, poignant photos by Corey Kohn, such as the one above.

Dharma/Arte is a on-profit in Brazil and its activities explore the connection between contemplative teachings and practice, and the creative processes, in the arts and other fields also.

Not so simple to elaborate upon, my answer.

Really, I don’t. I don’t write music. The music writes me. I don’t sing songs, mine or another’s. The song, yours or mine, sings me. If you think that sounds cliche or affected, just stop reading, because honestly, that is how it works for me, and I dare say, for others if not everyone.

I, according only to my friends, musicians with whom I’ve discussed it, am an odd kind of writer. Funny, I am always embarrassed to talk about it, even with said friends, because I think it must illustrate that I am not a musician’s musician. I write, capture, sing, lyrics and melody simultaneously – at exactly the same time. They are a package deal. One that I cannot wholly or competently explain.

I cannot explain in detail or with any real expert understanding why the songs sit truly, accurately between keys, or why one of them is driven to rhythmically modulate from 3/4 to 5/4 and back again in only the first half of every verse. I do not know. It is simply the way it writes itself. And it does. It. Writes. Itself. And I would like to bang my head against every misunderstood piano key sometimes, as if I could pound in the “musicianship” to make these songs less odd and more communicable. But I don’t – bang my head, nor make them more easy for the band of five to play.

That is not my job. My job is just to let the song write itself. Let it go ahead and sit up, like a queen meerkat, sniff the breeze of my life and loves and loss, to climb inside and around, and toss, throw, hurl the lines and their intervals at me, graciously in their fall or not. That’s all. Why do I write? Because the songs might form a mutiny of debilitation should I go about my corporate or depressive business without them. I write because the things that “I” write… give. me. no. choice.

Does it sound overly dramatic? Does it sound, annoyingly, of fog horns over-indulgent with artistic torture buffered by the middle class upbringing I received? It is almost petulant, this spoiled frustration. And some of the songs sound just like that, too. Some of them sound none-so-other-worldly, some perfectly at home in a country bar with Michelobe in-hand. Some, they are at home nowhere and so will never be heard but by my own ears in the car and maybe, if especially brave, by my cat.

I point you now to a most wonderful conversation led by Elizabeth Gilbert at TED. She talks of creativity as a partnership between self and genius, that mystical entity that brings us the goods if not simply collaborating on the ones we invent. I get very teary every time I watch this. A couple of key quotes, then the video itself. Please, watch it all. The end is worth it.

“Is it logical that anybody should be afraid of the work they were put on this world to do?”

“In ancient Greece and ancient Rome… people believed that creativity was this divine attendant spirit that came to human beings from some distant and unknowable source for distant and unknowable reasons… The Romans called that sort of disembodied creative spirit a genius… this sort of magical divine entity… that was believed to literally live in the walls of an artist’s studio… and who would come out and invisibly shape to results of an artist’s work…”

Elizabeth goes on to talk about the unfortunate hazards of a world that has disembarked from this perspective and placed sole ownership and responsibility for creative “genius” on humans themselves vs. holding true to the insight that the glimpses of god that are experienced in art are those offered forth in partnership between the human and the divine, sometimes clumsy, oft capricious, genius.

I do not know if this is what I experience, if the songs that sing me alive are of another world, me the simple work horse to deliver them, or if there is simply a piece of my soul that is willing to take responsibility for every word and ounce of melody. Whatever it is, whoever is responsible, I hold true to the knowing that I do not sing songs. I do not write songs. They sing me, they write me and it is from their light, the light of god and living, that I am animate.

I write because the song would have it no other way. And neither would I.

[ted id=453]

I’m dropping notes and ruminations at http://www.mostbeautifulthing.com often. I’d enjoy seeing you there, too.

Warmly,
Heather

It’s been a few months since you heard from me here and my, how time flies! I’ve been immersed in creative projects, writing and re-writing, laying low under the winter snow and wind and watching for what’s next. After a high-energy fall run with The Boyfriend, my favorite six-piece musical lovers, I went into recluse mode a bit. The sound that is coming from the performance respite is emerging as a lighter, more intimate soundscape, I think. I’m letting this lovely, private creative space take me where it wants to for a while longer, but look forward to emerging later in the summer with lots of new material, a new live combo of sounds, and to expressing my deep gratitude to everyone who’s been so supportive of my hiatus.

I just moved into a new, more spacious and airy space in Boulder with an inspiring view and lovely neighbors. I’m excited about how the new space may allow me to open my heart and mind more while workshopping this new material and reworking my old favorites. I love making music. And I love offering song up to the ethers and letting it fall onto me from above and around, too. I hope to see you soon so that I can show you what I’ve been up to. I’ll be reinstating my monthly newsletter soon, to give you more of a taste what’s on my mind. For now, I leave you with all the warmth in my heart. Please drop me a line if you like! I’d love to hear from you.

Warmly,
Heather
heather@heathermariephilipp.com

We had a great time at KGNU last week and I was so appreciative of the hospitality of the crew, the sharpness of the sound team, and the enthusiasm of the Jazz & Beyond host, Sara Dee. The Boyfriend & I played a five-song set the featured music from Under the Apple, a couple of new tunes, and the beloved Disney classic Baby Mine. Sara Dee and I also talked a bit about what I’ve been up to by way of my performance calendar, buzzed about this week’s CD Launch at The b.side Lounge, chatted about my prose blog The Most Beautiful Thing, the story behind some of the songs, and why those six handsome band members are called the Boyfriend.

Get the podcast of Heather Marie Philipp & The Boyfriend at www.KGNU.org. It’s the last listing on the page for Wednesday, December 3 and can be had by simply clicking the yellow speaker icon.

Hope you enjoy it!

~ Heather

Under the Apple
Heather Marie Philipp

Yours is a very eclectic sample. Many styles combine in these haunting tunes, but invariably, they create an inviting canvas for your sensuous vocals. I hear hints of jazzy Cassandra Wilson, feeling-saturated Radiohead, breath-carressing Joss Stone, and delicately-poignant David Sylvian.

I would dare classify this album in the soft-jazz milieu. “To Remember You” and the Miles Davis tinged “clear blue sky” certainly veer in that direction. However, it were the songs that deviate from the readily-classifiable format that moved me the most. My favorite is “Love Blind.” I find it truly amazing: gorgeous melody, and lyrics. the band backs you up perfectly, so very tastefully. A nice, driving beat, thick, syrupy timbres that wonderfully compliment your vocal quality. It reminds me a bit of Fiona Apple and Lizz Wright.

“Courting Stars” accentuates the sensual in your voice, as you trade licks with the stand-up bass. The odd-time passages in the middle are a welcome surprise, bringing a lop-sided roll to the end of the chorus. sweet.

The instruments in “Snow Fell” lay down a melancholy background that allows the space for your voice to soar. Driven by a mysterious and moving string ensemble and a graceful electric piano counterpoint, this track sinks into a mystifying white, wintry landscape, where the only sounds are the softly falling snowflakes. “Under the Apple” seems to have a similar quality, a sparse universe of subtle tones that fall like rain as we walk with you on autumn leaf-strewn streets.

These songs bring out your best. They possess elegant tensions, originality and a seeming frailty that falls away to reveal power in the subtle.

~ J. Miranda
Read more from artist and music writer J. Miranda at Poetrical Musings
Purchase Under the Apple at CDbaby.