There’s a category of music I like that isn’t a real thing.
I can’t go searching for music under this category, and I would never have even known about had it not been for the Glorious Days of Napster.
Because of Napster, I discovered the beautiful voice and music of Lisa Ekdahl. She’s a Swedish singer and songwriter who records jazz standards in English. I fell in love with her voice and her gentle interpretation of songs I already loved. Since then, I’ve bought all of her music. I can’t understand her songs in Swedish, but I still love them.
The category of music that exists only inside my brain after falling in love with Lisa Ekdahl’s music is “Jazz Sung by Women For Whom English is Not Their Primary Langue.” The category could use a better name.
Jazz with a non-English accent is something I’m always looking for and a few years ago, I found a new favorite on YouTube.
Catalan jazz singer and trumpet player Andrea Motis was 16 the first time I heard her sing. She’s 27 now, and has already recorded several albums and sold out musical venues around Spain with her mentor/teacher Joan Chamorro.
“Motis has the kind of pearly, barely exhaled voice, paced with canny improv swerves and casual timing, from which jazz celebs are made.” -The Guardian
Emotional Dance is Andrea Mostis’ first solo album on the legendary jazz label, Impulse!, (that’s Coltrane’s record lable). It was recorded in New York with a combination of American and Catalan jazz musicians.
Like all of Andrea’s music, it feeds my hunger for jazz with an accent. The accent somehow gives her vocals a quality like an instrument. Maybe it’s because of the accent or perhaps she developed her singing style on how she was learning to play notes on her trumpet and sax? She sometimes cuts off words in the abrupt way that mirrors the way she might stop blowing a note on her trumpet. Whatever the reason, it works for me and made me a fan.
Andrea started playing trumpet at age 7, and started playing jazz with Joan Chamorro, her teacher and collaborative partner, at age 10. At 11, she joined the Sant Andreu Jazz Band in Barcelona.
As a little girl, Andrea thought the idea of being a singer was as ridiculous as the dream of growing up to be a princess.
She started singing in the band reluctantly. No one wanted to volunteer to sing including her, but she tried it, and after being encouraged by Joan, she kept trying. She lost her fear and her love of singing has propelled her to accomplish extraordinary things, and she’s just getting started.
Her first singing inspiration is Billie Holliday. After that came Ella Fitzgerald, then Sarah Vaughn and Dinah Washington.
She’s also an Amy Winehouse fan (which makes me love her even more). I can hear a little bit of all her favorites in her voice.
Andrea’s fame is growing, especially in Spain, but because her genre is jazz, her fame, so far, is very specific to those of us who love jazz. At the same time she’s touring and selling out concert venues, she’s also a university student.
The new album has 13 songs, and it’s a nice mix of jazz standards, original compositions, and three songs she sings in Catalan. It doesn’t matter that I don’t understand Catalan. The songs are gorgeous, especially “Louisiana O Els Camps De Cotó.” It’s become one of my favorite songs.
Standards covered on Emotional Dance include, “He’s Funny that way,” Cole Poter’s “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To,” Johnny Mercer’s “I Remember You,” and a really fun song I’ve never heard before called “Señor Blues.”
Andrea’s three original compositions on the album highlight the breadth of her talent. “Save the Orangutan” is a swinging instrumental number with excellent solos.
“I Didn’t Tell Them Why” is all kinds of fun. It’s her original song, but if I didn’t know that, I would assume it’s some gem of a tune from a 1960s movie I hadn’t heard before.
My favorite of Andrea’s originals is “If You Give Them More Than You Can.”
In contrast to the other two, it’s a gentle, simple song with lyrics that are completely relatable.
It’s about the modern tendency we have to overextend ourselves until we become so overwhelmed that all we can do is cry.
If You Give Them More Than You Can
(Words and Music by Andrea Motis © 2017)
If you give them more than you can give,
You’ll feel so empty that you’ll cry
Even more than what you’ve cried
Everyone just seems to be perfect,
But you only have your hands
Your head and your lonely heart.
That’s you.
But even in the depths
Find the things that makes you live
Find what others have in other ways
And feel what you can be.
If you give them more than you can give,
You will feel so empty that you’ll cry
So much you’ll feel you’ve already died.
But even in the depths
Find the things that makes you live
Find what others have in other ways
And feel what you can be.
If you give them more than you can give,
You’ll feel so empty that you’ll cry
Even more than what you’ve cried.
