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| Kathy Sanborn Plants Some Musical Seeds Of Hope With Her New Recordings For her latest album, Lights of Laniakea, composer, singer, producer and American Songwriting Awards Winner Kathy Sanborn worked with musician, arranger and Grammy Award Winner Ricky Kej to create a new age vocal album inflected with world-fusion elements. The lyrics, which thematically cover light throughout the cosmos, move from the intimate (the light within us) to the grand and majestic (starlight reaching us from far-flung galaxies). This is Sanborn's seventh album and it once again features her trademark sultry, sensuous, velvety voice. She sings in English on eight of the songs plus creates wordless vocalizing on three others ("On those I just wanted my voice to be another instrument in the band."). The recording also contains the Spanish-language "Fantasy" which won an American Songwriting Award in the World category when it was released as a single (it additionally was nominated for a Hollywood Music in Media Award). More information on Kathy Sanborn is available at her website (kathysanborn dot com). Her CDs - Lights of Laniakea, Fantasia, Sultry Night, Six Degrees of Cool, Blues for Breakfast, Small Galaxy and Peaceful Sounds - and digital download tracks from those recordings are available at online sales sites such as CDbaby, Amazon, iTunes, Barnes & Noble, eMusic, Rhapsody and many others. On those previous albums Sanborn showed her versatility by mastering many styles lyrically, vocally and musically - new age (Peaceful Sounds), jazzy pop and R&B (Small Galaxy and Blues for Breakfast), straight-ahead jazz (Six Degrees of Cool), Hollywood film noir (Sultry Night) and Latin-jazz (Fantasia). "I like tackling different genres and finding inspiration from many sources, " explains Sanborn. "I don't want to sound like or emulate anyone else, and I want to produce something artistically fresh in the world. My musical arc is a natural evolution. I am a versatile stylist and I like to change my vocal approach to whatever works best on a particular song. Just like an actor might take on varied roles, I look at each song as a different performance." Sanborn writes her own music and lyrics, does all the singing and vocal arrangements, and produces her recordings. On Lights of Laniakea, she teamed with Ricky Kej who arranged the music, played keyboards and bass, and brought in some world musicians - Varsha Kej on sitar, Butto on flute, Vanil Veigas on santoor and keyboards, Karthik K. on percussion, and Keerthy Narayan also on keyboards. Sanborn invited trumpet player Wayne Ricci whom she has worked with previously on numerous recordings. The result is a global synthesis especially spotlighting sounds from both India and the United States, and featuring gentle world rhythms. Kej is a master at producing these sounds having worked with many other musicians over the years, releasing his own CDs, and winning a 2015 Best New Age Album Grammy for his world-fusion duet recording with flutist Wouter Kellerman. Sanborn explains the inspiration behind Lights of Laniakea: "Back in 2014 at the University of Hawaii, scientists mapped a new supercluster in space that contains our own galaxy, the Milky Way. They named it Laniakea which means 'Immeasurable Heaven.' The name pays homage to the Polynesian navigators who used knowledge about the stars to navigate the Pacific Ocean. So Lights of Laniakea musically explores our universal desire to live in the light - in the 'immeasurable heaven' that is our home. "That is exactly what I wanted to evoke with this album. I wanted to write about light - the spiritual light we are always seeking, but also how light is our connection with the stars throughout the cosmos. Their light is what reaches us and touches us. Symbolically we do not want to be in the darkness with war and hate and all the bad things to be found on our planet. We want the light, positivity, love and goodness. On the grand scale we want heaven on earth, so why not 'immeasurable heaven.' Why not dream big and call on the forces of the universe to bless us?" Her lyrics expand upon these sentiments. Regarding "Star Catcher, " Sanborn says, "Catch the light and spread some light, " and about the next tune "Follow the Light" she states, "You have light, goodness and a voice inside you which will tell you what to do if you listen, so turn that into a radiant purpose and passion for life." She addresses deep relationships with "Soul Dancing" and "Fantasy" which both relate love to flying across the galaxy together. The song "Abundant Love" is about the spiritual light always around us while two tunes with wordless vocals, "Immeasurable Sky" and "Akea, " aim to relate the idea of an expanding universe to expanding our inner light in a positive way. She describes children as bright lights in our lives ("Little Candle" and "Lani Heaven"). Sanborn titles one composition "The Stuff of Stars" and explains, "Carl Sagan said everyone and everything are made of the same cosmic material, but the truth is we are each, individually, much more than that and we must work to achieve our full potential as beings." With two songs, Sanborn spotlights her positive outlook on life. "Someday" states her belief that human beings "will see the light and stop wars and killing people and all the horrible things that go on in society because our collective light is powerful and we can carry the torch to victory." With the wordless "Seeds of Hope, " Sanborn dedicates the music to the environmental activist Dr. Vandana Shiva, who strives to protect the earth's resources. "The one common thread through all of my musical evolution is optimism, something I truly believe in, " explains Sanborn. "I know we can make a better world and that each of our lives can be improved for greater personal fulfillment. We need to move out of the darkness into the light. I have explored these lyrical themes before. On my first album, Peaceful Sounds, I aired anti-war sentiments. On my second album, Small Galaxy, I was very positive lyrically, telling listeners to keep going and encouraging them to achieve their dreams. In some ways that album was smaller in scope, about just our galaxy, while Lights of Laniakea, as the title implies, is broader and deeper and relates to many galaxies, even more stars, more light and more knowledge. But I try to make my messages soft, like helpful hints for living, rather than hitting the listener over the head with force. With this new music, because the lyrics are universal, I thought it made sense to have the music broaden into a world sound that helps cross cultural boundaries." Sanborn remembers that, as a child growing up in California, one of her earliest and most influential musical experiences was hearing repeatedly the albums that her parents played by the Latin pop-jazz group Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66 which featured female lead singer Lani Hall. "I was entranced by that sound, " says Sanborn. In school Sanborn performed in school choirs, plays and musicals, and her extracurricular activities included years of dance and ballet study. Her father, a saxophone player, also exposed her to Big Band music from the 1930s and 1940s. Sanborn attended California State University at Sacramento where she studied psychology, philosophy, Spanish, French and music. "The most fascinating music course I took was 'The History of Jazz'." She graduated with honors earning a BA degree in Psychology. While working various jobs, Sanborn took piano lessons. Soon she began composing on keyboards. "Writing came naturally to me. In fact, I primarily consider myself a songwriter although I enjoy singing and especially using my voice as an instrument to express different styles of music and lyrics. I let the music dictate how I sing rather than simply singing in one style." She released her first album in 2007 and began making music fulltime. “My main philosophy about music is that I believe in creating new music rather than re-creating old stuff. I am not interested in parroting someone else’s music or style.” write your comments about the article :: © 2015 Jazz News :: home page |