Carmen Lundy - In Conversation

• Written by  Asha Brodie

Singer Carmen Lundy has returned to the scene with an album that can easily be categorized as one of her best yet. With music that is both consistent and a pleasure to listen to, this nine-track collection is entitled ‘Changes’ and features eight original compositions. It is a CD that will charm you, encourage you to dance, sing along and quite simply will brighten your mood. The tracks speak about love from all angles and include themes ranging from love for neighbors and friends, new love and breakups. With a CD launch planned for March 8 – 11 at the Jazz Standard in New York, and another in LA on March 29 and 30, Carmen took time out to speak to JazzReview about the new CD and her upcoming work.

JazzReview: Carmen, thanks so much for taking time to speak to us. In my book, this recording is indeed one of a high caliber. How did the ideas come together for it? What was the inspiration?

Carmen Lundy: Inspiration, well as you can tell, the songs come from a lot of different points of view and I think what happens to me is that I'm always in the discipline of working at my craft in between my performances and travel. I make sure everything stays oiled. It’s a musical experience that never leaves you alone. It is always hovering somewhere, asking you to do something else. I think in this case I had to narrow it down to a few songs, some that I have been performing, you know I like to try out songs on the audience before recording them. That way I can get that instant ‘you-can't-even-pretend’ kind of feedback. It is what it is. So there were a few songs like that, which I had written prior to recording but with the intention that they would be recorded. Certainly the audience helped to determine whether or not it was time to take them into the studio. I had started to record ‘The Night Is Young’ as the first song on the album because I had done a demo back in the late 80s on a cassette tape that my manager at the time had shared with a friend of his who is a disc jockey in London. The disc jockey played the cassette on the air and I guess people heard it! After that I kept getting emails about the song, which they referred to as ‘The Ni Ya’ song (since these are the vowels I sing in the song), from listeners in London. About three weeks before I actually started recording I got another email about the song and that prompted me to include it. I reworked it from the original way I had done it because it didn't feel right. It just felt heavy so I wanted to give it a lighter flavor. I started fooling around with the song on the guitar and it turned out to be what it is now. It's funny how that is, that songs happen when they're supposed to. So yeah, I've been teaching myself to play guitar, and there are a few songs that were born on the guitar such as ‘So Beautiful’, ‘Sleeping Alone’, ‘When Love Surrounds Us’ and ‘Dance the Dance’. Those songs were all written on the guitar and this is a whole new discovery for me. Wow! The whole feeling of how the melodies evolve and kind of jump out is quite different from the way I've experienced writing music from the piano for all these years. So yeah, everything was kind of being in the moment. Then there is the whole idea of taking the songs and adding musicians to them and then asking the musicians to be themselves with the music, not telling them too much of what to do but allowing them to play and to be themselves. That's why we got these really organic and strong performances, because everyone was totally approaching things from both an individualistic and collective way of playing.

Read more: http://www.jazzreview.com/index.php/reviews/jazz-artist-interviews/item/29008-carmen-lundy-in-conversation