Boston-Based Jazz Vocalist Agachiko
Debuts on CD July 9
With "Yes!"
On Accurate Records
Debuts on CD July 9
With "Yes!"
On Accurate Records
Gabrielle Agachiko Backed by
Russ Gershon, Tenor Saxophone & Arranger;
Scott Getchell, Trumpet;
Ken Field, Flute; Sam Davis, Guitar; Blake Newman, Bass;
Phil Neighbors, Drums
Russ Gershon, Tenor Saxophone & Arranger;
Scott Getchell, Trumpet;
Ken Field, Flute; Sam Davis, Guitar; Blake Newman, Bass;
Phil Neighbors, Drums
Appearing July 13, Accurate Records, Somerville, MA,
& August 10, Somethin' Jazz, New York City
Agachiko has been turning heads since 2008, when the septet led by Kenyan-born, Boston-based vocalist Gabrielle Agachiko was formed. On her debut album Yes!, to be released July 9 by Accurate Records, she brings an international sensibility to the incantatory spirit of Nina Simone and Abbey Lincoln.
Whether gracefully delivering a pointed political message on "Words," soulfully crooning Buddy Johnson's love-struck blues ballad "Since I Fell for You" (complete with the rarely sung verse), investing Nina Simone's "Four Women" with empathy and anger, or adding lyrics to a new piece by Ethiopian jazz legend Mulatu Astatke at his invitation, Agachiko is first and foremost a master storyteller.
"I've loved these
songs and styles since I was in my 20s, for their emotional depth and
musical complexity," says the vocalist, who had a long and fruitful
career in indie rock and Off-Broadway musical theater before circling
back to jazz. "However, at 20-something, I didn't feel I had the life
experience needed to truly convey the meaning. Like any important
conversation, jazz must be engaged in at length in order to be well
understood. Now, it seems the conversation of life has enabled me to
fill these songs with what they deserve."
By the album's title track closer, a wary but insistently upbeat affirmation, Agachiko
leaves no doubt about her prowess as a jazz musician, her skills as a
songwriter, and her vision as a bandleader who knows how to bring out
the best in her collaborators. "I'm always listening to these guys
having a conversation," she says. "When you add vocals, you have to
make the words count. It has to be about something -- love, loss, pain,
sorrow, or joy."
Agachiko the band features guitarist Sam Davis, bassist Blake Newman of the Lizard Lounge poetry band, and drummer Phil Neighbors, as well as an unusual flute-trumpet-sax configuration comprised of Revolutionary Snake Ensemble flutist Ken Field, trumpeter Scott Getchell, and Either/Orchestra tenor saxophonist and founder Russ Gershon, who also wrote most of the album's arrangements.
L. to r.: Sam Davis, g; Blake Newman, b; Scott Getchell, tpt; Agachiko;
Phil Neighbors, d; Ken Field, fl; Russ Gershon, ts.
"Gabrielle holds a
universe of sound in her voice," Gershon says. "It's so rich and subtle
and controlled. Her voice will just do anything, and she knows a
gazillion songs. As an arranger who's very concerned with timbre,
voicings, and the emotional content of intervals, I appreciate that she
hears it all and can wrap around a chord sequence. It's very different
from writing for a blues shouter who wants a lot of punch and Basie
flourishes."
Born in Nakuru, Kenya in 1958 to a Kenyan father and African-American mother from Georgia via New York City, Gabrielle Agachiko
spent her childhood in East Africa and experienced the rush of optimism
and energy following Kenya's independence in 1963. She grew up hearing
her father play percussion along with Max Roach albums and her mother
blast James Brown on the hi-fi, and felt called to the stage as a
performer. At the age of 12 she moved to England to study, but spent
several summers and two intermittent years in the U.S., culminating with
a move to New York City at 17.
Agachiko completed her studies at Juilliard as a voice student, and had the opportunity to spend several weeks singing with Steve Lacy
in Paris. She found herself drawn to musical theater, realizing that
acting helped her find her voice as a singer. In the early 1990s, while
working with the Boston rock band Atom Said, she got
to know Gershon, who was also active on the Boston rock scene. In fact,
he didn't realize she had deep jazz roots until almost two decades
later, when she resurfaced in Boston after several years away. Greatly impressed by the first incarnation of the band Agachiko,
which was primarily a Nina Simone project, he realized that "she's not a
jazz singer in the daughters-of-Ella mainstream. She wasn't singing the
same 50 tunes as so many jazz vocalists. She's not working out of the
same playbook."
Photos: KellyDavidsonStudio.com
www.agachiko.com
www.accuraterecords.com
www.allegro-music.com
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Media Contact:Terri Hinte
510-234-8781
hudba@sbcglobal.net
www.terrihinte.com
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