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Order Audio CD, MP3 or Unlimited Streaming on Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/2h34fe4w
Joanie Pallatto-Fareed Haque Sneak Peek New Songs!
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Order Audio CD, MP3 or Unlimited Streaming on Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/2h34fe4w
Joanie Pallatto 'My Original Plan' is available on all online platforms!
Joanie Pallatto NEWS!
~ Joanie Pallatto CD Release Party October 1st @Pangea, New York
~ Joanie Pallatto Cabaret Scenes Review by Jerry Osterberg
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Lampkin Music Group and Southport Records Present:
Joanie Pallatto's "My Original Plan" CD Party
Friday, October 1, 2021
Pangea
7:00 PM $20 Cover / $20 Food or Drink
Pangea 178 2nd Ave. New York, NY 10003 212-995-0900
www.pangeanyc.com
Joanie Pallatto & Fareed Haque with Sparrow
Singer and Songwriter Joanie Pallatto, Modern Guitar Virtuoso Fareed Haque, Pianist-Composer Sparrow and Special Guest Dancer Tânia Daley with Broadway’s Bill Nolte as “The Priest"
My Original Plan “Unplugged”
Joanie Pallatto and Fareed Haque continue to create NEW arrangements of their recordings and NEW songs!
"The visual and audial Sparrow-Pallatto experience is reminiscent of the beats of the 1950s. With a little imagination one could be transported back to the coffee house days of Greenwich Village when Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac reigned supreme ...a kind of jazz-folk recitative – the music melodic and the lyric direct and often wry." - Marilyn Lester, NiteLife Exchange
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My Original Plan: Joanie Pallatto Featuring Fareed Haque (Southport Records)
July 25, 2021 Reviewed by Jerry Osterberg for Cabaret Scenes Magazine
Having toured with the Glenn Miller Orchestra in the 1970s, singer/songwriter Joanie Pallatto made her debut album in 1986. The latest, My Original Plan, features the renowned jazz and classical guitarist Fareed Haque. This is the second of her 15 records to spotlight only her original songs. Born to parents who were professional musicians, there’s ample evidence that Pallatto was a prodigy. Beginning her musical journey at the age of four, she soon mastered a number of instruments, and her taste in music gradually grew to include everything from Bacharach and Rodgers to Chick Corea and Miles Davis.
The current collection reflects Pallatto’s diversity and demonstrates her solid confidence in what she does. It seems to be a biographical retrospective of her life as told through her music, starting with the title song “My Original Plan.” Here she decides to make a timely analysis of what’s been accomplished before “it’s too late,” admitting that she wanted to “do everything” and “go everywhere.” Essentially, the lyrics suggest that the narrator has not been disappointed and has arrived in a good space.
“Open Your Eyes,” the first of the 14 songs, evokes an exotic Latin charm that underscores a sincere invitation not only to open ones’ eyes, but to “open your heart.” There’s a warmth in this song that is evident in the others, which makes it not only easy to listen to, but brings a strong connection to the singer. “The Photograph” evokes a favorite memory that is from so long ago that it may or may not be true, but is still vivid enough nonetheless to provoke an intense feeling to stay, when a “million things will make me run away.”
Those who find themselves unable to ignore the unavoidable markers of age will know precisely what “Almost 65” is about. The protagonist admits that “as the days were passing by, life ahead is beginning to unwind.” Coincidentally, the year 1965 was an important landmark for the narrator; it was the time of the “British Invasion,” when the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, “changed my life.”
The final song, “Lucky to Belong to You,” is the most personal of all. It is nothing less than an homage to Pallatto’s mother Charlotte, who lived to the age of 97 and who showed her “how to live each day with happiness.” This could well be a loving anthem for every adult child who truly appreciates why they are who they are and gives credit for the joy: “I’ll find a way to do the very best for you.”
Finally, beginning with Fareed Haque on guitar, credit must be given to an extraordinary band of musicians: John Devlin (six-string electric bass), Luiz Ewerling (drums), Juan Pastor (bongos), Kurt Schweitz (acoustic bass), Howard Levy (piano and harmonica), Bobby Lewis (trumpet), Bradley Parker-Sparrow (piano), Bill Nolte (vocal), and Steve Eisen (flute).
https://cabaretscenes.org/2021/07/31/joanie-pallatto-my-original-plan/?fbclid=IwAR240K69oYuHfQvkmsrjET2Rj97J61ktgrZPdbhbcY5KloHxn6G7tFV-9DY
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Sunday, July 18, 2021 at the Green Mill, Chicago
“Back Live with Life Long Friends at the Greatest Jazz Club in the Universe”
Joanie Pallatto Record Release Concert Review
-by Jeffrey Kowalkowski: Musical Artist, Composer and Instructor at Northeastern Illinois University and DePaul School of Music
The Green Mill is filling up as I find my way into the dark room which I have missed so much during the quarantine, I gaze at Von Freeman’s larger than life image, presiding over the piano, next to the iconic female statue. My mind fills with all of the music I have performed next to that statue and I smile to myself in reverie, hazed in the green glow of the lights behind the stage. I see composer Janice Misurell-Mitchell greeting everyone as she finds a seat. Sid Kleinman, the great patron of composers is seated, also in the main section. Wonderful Wizards Trudy Leong and Bill Morton from WZRD are MCs, and live-streaming. Ahh. Back at the Green Mill! For musicians in Chicago it is a glorious evening.
I find a table to take notes, next to the Juke Box. Dave Jemilo is serving drinks, making jokes, greeting people, and setting up folding chairs for the increasing crowd, making sure everyone is seated comfortably. I am seeing a lot of friends I have not seen in over a year or more. Joanie introduces me to the legendary guitarist George Freeman and his family, who are sitting directly in front of the stage. Then, composer George Flynn and his wife Rita join me at the table, with my piano student from Korea, Hyunmin Kim and her mom, Kyong. Flynn always cracks me up and brightens my mood with his seemingly improvised and endless stream of jokes and on the spot poems. I am suddenly in a very
happy mood. Green Mill is filled to capacity, and the cameras are rolling. Engineer wunderkind Todd Carter is making the recording, along with the gifted videographer Sam Paakkonen. I think Billy Branch and his wife Rosa are here too, and many fans of Joanie.
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We all have gathered for the performance of Joanie Pallatto’s “My Original Plan”; a fantastic album of songs featuring the powerful guitar of Fareed Haque, and “Sparrow the Great” playing piano on several songs, along with a few duets. The set begins with a tune that is not on “My Original Plan” but instead a song by Pallatto with lyrics from Sparrow, the composer, “Violets are Blue.” A song about “not transparent love” and “I take the melody and give it back to you.” A great opening tune. Joanie’s voice on some tunes reminds me of Joni Mitchell, or Rickie Lee-Jones, some of my favorite singers. Joanie’s voice is low and sometimes sad and then joyful one beat later, yearning lyrics about inseparable love and learning lessons of trust in a lover’s love. “I have found the meaning of forever-more.” This tune is “not a trick question”—don’t google it!
Then begins the title track tune “My Original Plan” which is a great song about finding a life-long friend before it’s too late. It is in a Brazilian style with great scat singing included. In fact, one of my favorite aspects of Joanie’s immense talent is her scat singing, she adds virtuosic riffs and ornaments that fit perfectly with the songs. The song is about original plans like being a movie star, traveling wide and far, and then realizing there is no need to roam. The crowd is doubly pleased with the music, and the exquisite dance stylings of Tânia Daley who twirls around the small dance floor in perfect sync with the music, in complete sparkly costume attire. This segues into “Do Butterflies Cry?” Do Butterflies dance, or cry, or sleep? The song is choreographed, and when Joanie sings the lines you “flutter and tease me with romance, and gently kiss my right hand”, the singer and dancer are motioning gracefully with the rhythms.
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Joanie’s life-long friend Fareed Haque then plays something that sounds like a mix of Flamenco and a Bach Sonata, and sometimes The Who, or Michael Hedges, or Pat Metheny, or maybe The Edge from U2, all on Acoustic Guitar! “Manresa/Elvizan medly” — a composition by Fareed Haque.
“Dreams” by Sparrow is about finding a lost notebook on a park bench, someone who was perhaps musical many years ago. Perhaps the notebook contained the beginnings of an abandoned opera? “A little book with pages and words, a personal mixture of their nouns and verbs.” It is a song about dreams left behind, beyond both time and age. “Give back the dreams that fate took.” On this song, Sparrow plays inside the piano to great effect, and Joanie scats “Chica-Chica” to the completely engaged room. The Green Mill is in near silence while the music is playing, not even a cash register ring or cell phone is heard. Sparrow’s piano sounds like Debussy or even Liszt, though none of it is written down (as far as I know). “Dreams from my mind, slight echoes in my mind. I will follow…..perhaps…..”
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One of my favorite songs on the album is “The Confessional”—“Where is the Angel of Forgiveness?” This song is about Joanie’s last confession (1972), and lost children of the world. It is an epic tune with a lot of emotional changes, reminding me a little of Bohemian Rhapsody in effect, or Baudelliare’s poem “Confessions” from Le Fleur du Mal (The Flowers of Evil).
Something a little lighter closes the first set. This song is from her first album from 1986, with lyrics like “Our harmony was lost, on key constantly” leading into the Benny Golson standard “Whisper Not” with Haque playing a solo reminiscent of Joe Pass with very intricate rhythms, plucking as many notes within the quarter as possible, and Pallatto scatting cadenzas. “Love will linger on eternally!” Here we are at the “Finest Jazz Club in the Universe” Sparrow announces. We are encouraged to search souls and find humanity.
Set 2 begins with a solo from Sparrow sounding like George Flynn, if Flynn played blues or jazz. Joanie and Fareed continue with “You Think You Know.” “Has anxiety taken it’s toll?” “Are we blind to what we ignore?” This is Joanie's song about the end of pandemic. What we all long for.
We are then treated to a Sparrow song, “The Blank Page” played by Joanie and Fareed. His lyrics always kill me, stuff about powdered donuts, wanting something better for the brain, and wanting 10 cents back from a bottle. “Won’t you tell me all about nothing?” “Leaky Etch-A-Sketch.”
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“About A Song” shows the immense stylistic range of Joanie, on this tune she sounds like Barbra Streisand melding with Karen Carpenter. Jemilo offers an extra 15 minutes overtime (as he is often generous to musicians in performances as stellar as this.) The dancer returns feverishly in Sparrow's “The Thin Line” with lyrics “I can hardly breathe” “I can barely move” with Sparrow stabbing syncopated and sforzando minor 9th chords, and Joanie throwing in a perfect white key gliss at the end.
The tune “Rara” by Frantz Casseus features Fareed sounding like Michael Hedges or Steve Howe! Haitian Guitar music, rhythms called “rah-rah.” Harkening back to the 1950s and Harry Belafonte. Voodoo Rhythms! This mash up leads to “Apart” which Joanie wrote on an index card at the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020. “Make a vow, so you'll understand the reason if you dare.” “Make a plan as you close your eyes and wonder what is fair.” Joanie is reading the mind of the audience, friends who can lend an ear and listen. “I love you, and I care.”
The show ends with a return of “Samba Queen” Tânia Daley on Kenny Dorham’s “Blue Bossa,” the standard, with new lyrics by Joanie. There is a dreamy Salsa dance duet between Joanie and Tânia, and the crowd is thrilled.
Great performances make me cry and laugh, sometimes simultaneously. Joanie and ensemble inspire me as a composer to be daring and eclectic. Like life. Open your eyes, and ears!
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Save The Date!
Friday, October 1, 2021 Joanie Pallatto “My Original Plan” CD Release Party at Pangea!
7:00 PM $20 Cover / $20 Food or Drink
Pangea 178 2nd Ave. New York, NY 10003 212-995-0900
http://www.pangeanyc.com/
Singer and Songwriter Joanie Pallatto, Modern Guitar Virtuoso Fareed Haque, Pianist-Composer Sparrow and Special Guest Dancer Tânia Daley with Broadway’s Bill Nolte as “The Priest"
"The visual and audial Sparrow-Pallatto experience is reminiscent of the beats of the 1950s. With a little imagination one could be transported back to the coffee house days of Greenwich Village when Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac reigned supreme ...a kind of jazz-folk recitative – the music melodic and the lyric direct and often wry." - Marilyn Lester, NiteLife Exchange
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Thank you to the photographers who lovingly captured the Green Mill event, including Ralph Lampkin, Lynn Orman-Weiss and Craig Brandt...
Southport Records
www.chicagosound.com
773-281-8510