OooooWeeee Where Do I Start?

"My cherie amour, lovely as a summer's day.  My cherie amour, distant as the Milky Way..."  My Cherie Amour - Stevie Wonder 

I had to take a borrow from Ms. Grapevine.  This is just so beautiful and sexy, it emanates so many things.  Intimacy, devotion, adoration, tenderness, warmth, and so much more.

I want a love like that.

So many tidbits - but first I have to state that Jennifer Hudson and her family will stay in my prayers for a time to come.  That is all I will say on the matter because quite frankly, I just do not understand it and I am very angry about the whole situation.  It should not have come to this...

Last Saturday I attended a listening party for Yahzarah, Angela Johnson and Tre Williams and The Revelations at Frank's Cocktail in Brooklyn.  Let me tell you that was a soulful soiree and a half.  There was an overflow of funk n' soul in the house that night, I know the foundation of Frank's was jolted to the core.  I will not say too much about the show, because you should be able to read my review on 4dasoul.com sometime soon.  However, I will say that each artist is fierce in their own right and should not be slept on.  I know there are a lot of links to click, but if you are interested in serious soul music to add to your collection, you should check out the aforementioned artists.  All the links included are to their MySpace page.  You will also get full tracks of their work on their page too, so no excuses!  Yahzarah has a new album on the horizon entitled "The Ballad of Purple St. James" that will be sure to get your juices going.  She's quite a funky chocolate sista who can saaaang her ass off.  Angela Johnson is one 'bad shut your mouth' if you ask me.  That woman plays the hell out of her keyboards and is no joke vocally and lyrically either.  Her release "A Woman's Touch" is a compilation of tracks with some of today's amazing indie soul artists.  And lastly, this was the first time I heard and saw Tre Williams and The Revelations and they are The Truth.  Talk about a sprinkle of Al Green, Anthony Hamilton and some nasty, gritty, dirty FUNK!  Just check it out, because nothing I say will come remotely close to what you will hear.

I also finally made it though the gates (FINALLY) at the Chanel Contemporary Art Container, after I witnessed a bird fly right into the orb and go down for the count.  It wasn't a pretty sight y'all - poor thing.  It was a visual candy store up in there.  Colors, textures, containers and videos all in abundance, with the mundane sounds of creaks and daunting phrases being catapulted at you from hidden speakers.  Interesting indeed.  

Not to give anything away to all of you who will actually attend, but I had two special pieces in there that made me eyes grow big and make me smile.  I will say that one of them is the Wish Tree.  A place where you are to take a minute and think of that one thing that you would like to come true at the point and time you stand in the exhibition.  You write it down on the ticket they provide and place it on the branch of a tree.  Think of it as a birthday cake with roots, roots to grow and expand up and outward.  I twisted my little ticket of hope on a lower branch and headed out of the orb quite content, thinking about how I would intertwine this exhibit with the love of music that I have.  Well, nothing came to mind.  However, always plugged into my orange iPod - Tangie, I had Raphael Saadiq bumping that Motown groove in my head and with that, I headed up to 72nd to get some Dim Sum.  After all, a woman has to eat. :)

Flashback of the day: I am feeling a bit blaxploitation-ish today. 

See y'all soon...

Tha Conoisseur