If you’re looking for some great new music to discover this weekend, look no further…
Tag: Brandee Younger
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In the history of jazz harp — from Casper Reardon and Adele Girard to Dorothy…
The Week in Jazz is your roundup of new and noteworthy stories from the jazz…
The Week in Jazz is your roundup of new and noteworthy stories from the jazz…
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Discover great new music this weekend with our weekly roundup of new songs and albums!…
Discover great new music this weekend with our weekly roundup of new songs and albums!…
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In this episode, JAZZIZ Backstage Pass host Brian Zimmerman is joined by JAZZIZ online editor…
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Genre-defying harpist Brandee Younger’s fourth album, Soul Awakening, is a collection of eight unearthed gems…
Photo: Erin O'Brien[/caption]
Is it difficult to improvise on a harp?
Absolutely. The harp is a diatonic instrument. It's sort of like the white keys of a piano. Every time we have to change key or play a note outside the key, we have to change pedal. This is why you don't see harpists playing "Giant Steps." It's funny because Gary Bartz recorded "Giant Steps" on his album Love Affair with Dorothy Ashby. It was really cool to talk to him about it. He told me he'd just say to her to come in and out as she pleased, because "Giant Steps" is basically constantly changing key every bar.
Also, for me, modal music is for the win. Modal music is always helpful. But some things, I approach like a piece of classical music, where I just have to learn things note for note in order to execute it.
Were there any key figures who helped you overcome some of those challenges during your formative years?
I feel like I'm forever in my "formative years." But Soul Awakening really has many of my mentors on it. Antoine Roney and Ravi Coltrane have been huge mentors to me. And then, there's Dezron Douglas, who produced the album. So yeah, nothing happened alone, I'll tell you that!
The title of this album, Soul Awakening, evokes a type of spiritual journey. Is that the process you feel you went through while making the record?
Absolutely! At the time, I didn't realize it but looking back, absolutely. I was initially hesitant to put the record out and it was Ravi Coltrane who made me look at it differently. He said a record is literally a documentation of where you are at that time. As a musician, one of the hardest things to do is to get out of your own head but looking at it that way helped me realize it was time to put it out there. And it was literally a process of getting out of my own head and go, "This is where I am now and it's not where you're going to be next year, and the year after that and the year after that." So, for the title, I used the original title of the first track, a Dezron original, which he retitled to "Soulris." In coming to a title for the record, I just couldn't find anything more fitting.
Was your hesitance the main reason why you did not release Soul Awakening right away?
There were many different reasons. At one point, it was my hesitance. At one point, I just didn't have enough music. That's why we recorded it in two sessions and in two different years. Then, I did a live album because I needed merchandise but also because I didn't want to just haphazardly release a studio album. After that, Supreme Sonacy happened. And then, after that, Anne Drummond the flute player told me she wanted to record an album just like that. So, we recorded Wax & Wane with and that took about a year and a half to complete.
So, all that kept pushing Soul Awakening further down. That and the fact that I'm self-released, so I'm always doing everything myself. Finally, late last year, I said to myself that it was time. But I never meant for it to reach the three-year mark before I released it.
What was it like to rediscover the music on this album?
It was one of the reasons I decided to finally release it. A few of the songs on it, like "Respected Destroyer," "Games" and "Blue Nile," I perform on a regular basis. They're in my regular rotation with my band. But with the other songs, I did take a big vacation of not listening to them for years and it was fun to rediscover them. It was interesting because I'm in a different place than I was, career-wise. Also, I never studied composition in school, so these are some of the first pieces I ever composed. It will be interesting to hear play them at the 
Photo: Erin O'Brien[/caption]
Featured photo by Erin O'Brien.
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