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Amikaeyla

The ten selections on Being in Love, singer-songwriter Amikaeyla’s latest CD, are both spiritually uplifting and soothing to the soul. They are in many ways an extension of her years of experience in a wide variety of musical genres from around the world and her use of music as a healing force as Executive Director of the Oakland, California–based International Cultural Arts and Healing Sciences Institute (ICAHSI).

Recorded in both Washington, DC and Oakland, Being in Love finds Amikaeyla surrounded by an all-star cast of world-class musicians. Members of Trio Globo—pianist, harmonica virtuoso, and pennywhistle blower Howard Levy, cellist Eugene Friesen, and percussionist Glen Velez—are present, individually and together, on all but one of the songs. Other contributors include bassist Esperanza Spalding, percussionists Sheila E., her brother Peter Michael Escovedo, John Santos, and Michael Spiro, guitarists Ray Obiedo and Theresa Perez, and singing percussionist Linda Tillery.

Amikaeyla applies her glowing mezzo-soprano pipes to four original compositions and deeply personal readings of six time-honored classics. “Abre Mi Corazón” (“Open My Heart”), sung in Spanish and English, is her salute to Afro-Peruvian vocalist Susana Baca, whose musical director, David Pinto, plays bass on Amikaeyla’s recording of the song. “Say Yes” is a love ballad written in collaboration with her friend Anderson Allen, and the title track, a lilting voice-and-cello duet, features new lyrics by the singer set to the melody of the famous “Flower Duet” from the 1883 French opera Lakmé by Léo Delibes.

On “Hambone,” a vocal collaboration with Linda Tillery, Amikaeyla revisits a folkloric game involving the rhythmic slapping of the chest and thighs that she played during childhood visits to her grandparents in Sheffield, Alabama. The lyrics are part traditional and part improvised.

“We’d sit on the front porch, drink lemonade, and make up lyrics for hambone,” Amikaeyla recalls. “We’d have hambone-offs.” Bill Withers’s “Lovely Day” has been a longtime favorite of Amikaeyla’s. “That was truly one of the songs in my childhood that made me happy,” she says. Her rendition features a pizzicato solo by Esperanza Spalding, the most celebrated jazz bassist of her generation.

Amikaeyla delivers Antonio Carlos Jobim’s lovely “Dreamer” in English and Portuguese over a laid-back bossa nova beat. “I was driving down the road in Washington, DC and heard this song playing on the jazz station, and I was literally moved to tears,” she says of Jobim’s recording. Howard Levy, also known for his work with Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, blows a wonderfully fluid harmonica solo on the song, as he does on several other selections. “Howard Levy is a super genius,” Amikaeyla says. “He does chord colors and modulations that I never, ever could imagine. He would actually sit down and play the piece on the piano and then pick up his harmonica and play it while he was playing the piano. It was absolutely amazing.”

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Recording

Vocalist Amikaeyla To Release New CD, "Being In Love," August 28

Vocalist Amikaeyla To Release New CD, "Being In Love," August 28

Source: Terri Hinte Publicity

The big, broad, joyful musical vision of jazz vocalist and renaissance woman Amikaeyla is conveyed with grace and soulful authority on her new CD, Being in Love, which will be released on August 28 by RootsJazz Records. Last year’s Eva Cassidy tribute CD on Patois Records, made with her singing partner Trelawny Rose, introduced national audiences to Amikaeyla’s glowing mezzo-soprano pipes and her embrace of unexpected repertoire choices. On Being in Love, those choices range from Lionel Hampton, Tom Jobim, ...

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Recording

"To Eva, with Love," New Eva Cassidy Tribute CD by Bay Area Vocal Duo Amikaeyla & Trelawny Rose, Set for National Release June 14 by Patois Records

"To Eva, with Love," New Eva Cassidy Tribute CD by Bay Area Vocal Duo Amikaeyla & Trelawny Rose, Set for National Release June 14 by Patois Records

Source: Terri Hinte Publicity

For Bay Area jazz singers Amikaeyla and Trelawny Rose, the late Eva Cassidy is a potent source of inspiration, a shared passion, and a profound influence on their respective musical paths. They pay tribute to Cassidy on their new CD To Eva, With Love, which was recorded live at Kuumbwa Jazz Center in Santa Cruz, California, and will be released nationally by Wayne Wallace's Patois Records on June 14. In the works for three years, the CD has been a ...

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Performance / Tour

Bay Area Vocal Duo Amikaeyla & Trelawny Rose Plan Eva Cassidy Tribute Shows

Bay Area Vocal Duo Amikaeyla & Trelawny Rose Plan Eva Cassidy Tribute Shows

Source: Terri Hinte Publicity

To celebrate the January 11 release of their Patois Records CD, To Eva, With Love, vocalists Amikaeyla and Trelawny Rose will be making two Bay Area appearances next month—Friday 1/21 at the Jazzschool in Berkeley, and Saturday 1/29 at Santa Cruz's Kuumbwa Jazz Center, where the new CD was recorded live. The stellar band heard on the CD will be making both January shows with Amikaeyla and Trelawny: trombonist Wayne Wallace, whose Patois label is releasing the new CD and ...

“...an innate ability to interpret and convey her musical objectives with such infinite 
grace and authenticity...” 
Jayne Sanchez - KCSM FM 91 Jazz Oasis

“..one of the purest contemporary voices...” National Public Radio

“Amikaeyla’s voice is like listening to velvet waterfalls...”
MTV

“An amazing and magical performer!”
Pete Seeger

“...best of all, Amikaeyla’s voice, 
sinuous and spirited by turns...” Mike Joyce, Washington Post

"beautiful singing and flawless production...” -Mal Sharpe, KCSM

Primary Instrument

Vocals

Willing to teach

Intermediate to advanced

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Being In Love

RootsJazz Records
2012

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