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LE NEWSLETTER

October 25, 2007

Lots of Halloween happenings around town this weekend so watch out for those not so little goblins out there! 

And look who's starring with Halle Berry in her new film Things We Lost In the Fire as her son, Micah Berry, Toronto's own Ivan Berry's son!  Check out under FILM NEWS and look for some pictures. 

There is so much news so I will let you get right to it! 

::SCOOP::

Jill Scott Gets Real

Source:  Universal Music Canada

On the heels of a successful box office movie ‘Why Did I Get Married’ and a new CD project entitled The Real Thing: Words and Sounds Vol. 3 Jill Scott proves that she's hasn't missed a beat. Jill Scott is big on collaborations and her new album is no exception. Leroy Hutson, for example, co-wrote four of the tracks, while Adam Blackstone, Andre Harris, and Vidal Davis also pitch in on songwriting duties. But this is still Scott's show, a fact verified by her powerful, often smouldering vocal performances on every track of the album.

http://www.myspace.com/whoisjillscott

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Source:  www.jillscott.com

She is an artist with an abiding, deep commitment to lyrical honesty and musical integrity. Simply put, if Jill Scott feels it, she writes and sings it. While vivid imagery, metaphor and analogy are her stock in trade, there’s no pretense, no hiding. She’s upfront, in-your-face always real, using her own distinctive poetry to breathe life into words, digging inside to bring forth the accompanying emotion. It is that authenticity that has endeared Jill Scott to everyday music buyers who hear what she’s saying through her music and respond according. Folks who know the rough and tumble of life, love right, love wrong, passion misspent, passion fulfilled, lonely nights and empty days and everything in between declare, ‘Yeah, girl!,’ ‘Go ‘head on!’ and ‘I feel ya’. And in the tradition of the four albums that precede it, The Real Thing is another cause for celebration for those who live for the real.

Commenting on her latest, much-awaited Hidden Beach CD – which features production work by Scott Storch (DMX, Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent, Ja Rule), Jill’s musical director Adam Blackstone (The Roots), Carvin “Ransum” Haggins & Ivan “Orthodox” Barias (Musiq, Chris Brown, Mario) and JR Hutson among others – Jill says, “I thought the last album (2004’s Grammy-winning “Beautifully Human,” Words & Sounds, Vol. 2) was more peaceful, an affirmation… On the new record, I feel aggressive about what I want, need and desire and you can hear it in my vocal choices, in the tracks. I’d say in a way, it is a sequel to “Beautifully Human” but it’s grittier, sassier than the last one. I’m feeling gutsier, I’m feeling much more bold, free. In many ways, it’s closer to my first album. My original concept was to show different women – you know, like the housekeeper, the stripper, the congresswoman - but as I started writing and recording, I started taking on all these characters. I put myself in each woman’s place…and found that it became more about me, all of it, with the envy, the anger, the frustration, the loneliness, the joy, the passion and the rapture.
And that’s what makes it juicy…”

Juicy, indeed. The first single, “Hate On Me” (one of the FILL IN NUMBER ON
ALBUM cuts Jill wrote for the album), with its powerhouse production is edgy, intense, exemplifying the kind of work for which Jill is known. “I’m reminded of the biblical scripture, ‘No weapon formed against me shall prosper.’ I realized that there are people who are gonna be haters. That never affected me until I started noticing it, seeing that there were people…family, friends…who were angry to see me revealing my blessings, wishing they were me. I had to let go of some people in my life because of that. It’s been healing for me to say I’m still gonna be me, to say to those people, ‘go right ahead, whatever you say won’t change my destiny.’ We spend too much time ‘hating’ the hater. If I’m mean to shine and glow, I will. That’s what the song is saying…”

Jill – who has her first major starring role in Tyler Perry’s fall 2007 “Why Did I Get Married?” movie – agrees that many of the tracks on THE REAL THING have an autobiographical ring.
The smooth’n’mellow “Wanna Be Loved” is an example: “I want to be appreciated, liked for who I am, respected. The song reflects that aching yearning I have to be loved and I know that’s what all people want…” The midnight love-flavored slow jam “All I” is about “being in a lonely marriage. There has to be a level of passion in a relationship. As a wife, you can become the
‘good girl’ and your love life can get really repetitive, sex can be very clinical. I’m saying [inside a marriage] I can still be your ‘nasty’ baby…”

Never one to shy away from truth, “Just A Song” is straight up, no-holds-barred honesty. “That’s a difficult one for me because the track was produced by my then-about-to-be-ex-husband. I got insanely honest when I recorded it. Everything that has gone on with us from my perspective in is in there. It’s hard for me to listen to it. I did the best I could to write in images but there’s some anger in there. It hurts to hear it and I know it hurt him when he heard it. But if you deal with an artist, the good, the bad and the ugly is going to come out in the music. I do feel a sense of responsibility: I don’t believe that words that get me up in the middle of the night are meant to be hidden – it’s an artist’s duty to share and affirm, to celebrate every human condition. I’m a writer, that’s what I do and I want the people who hear “Just A Song” to listen to what it is I’m saying, to feel the intensity in every line…”

Jill’s “Come See Me” evokes lyrical comparisons with Marvin Gaye’s classic “Distant Lover” from his “Let’s Get It On” LP which – much like THE REAL THING – dealt with topics of fire and desire, joy and pain. The soulful poetess accepts the comparison gladly (“I love the way Marvin was willing to look at his life”) noting, “My song is about distance, about being far away from someone who gives you great pleasure. It’s almost like a plea. I love the line that says ‘I know it’s hard over there’ because it has more than one meaning! I write stories where some things are clear…and some you don’t get until the fifteenth listen!”

Ever provocative, Jill uses “How It Make You Feel” (CHECK CORRECT SPELLING) to pose a thoughtful if jarring question: “What if,” she asks, “every black female disappeared? That’s a question to the world but particularly to black men. I love to talk to my brothers, not at them not to them. Think about it…how would it be if black women vanished tomorrow?” Expressing female bravado is yet another ingredient in this multi-faceted artist’s musical palette and two songs come to mind. The rock-oriented title track, like the interlude “Breathe” are what Jill terms “crotch-holding songs! With ‘The Real Thing,’ I’m like smellin’ myself…and ‘Breathe’ reminds me of the storytellers in rap and hip-hop, LL, Kanye West, Jay-Z, Nas so it’s like I’m going to be cocky right now!”

Erotic love, the reality of sex and sensual satisfaction form the basis for a number of cuts and memorable interludes that have been an integral part of Jill’s recorded work since her groundbreaking 2000’s “Who Is Jill Scott?” Words & Sounds Vol. 1, which earned Jill four Grammy nominations, including a Best New Artist nomination. With its Southern hip-hop feel, “Do It Babe” (featuring Slim) is “a request to keep it up, the keep the intensity you had before, to rock with that.” The highly-charged, heavily percussive “Epiphany” is, Jill says, “explicit without being vulgar. The tricky thing about sex is that it’s so explosive physically and everything seems right at the time but the moment – and I mean the moment – after, you’re left with a longing…especially if you want more, like I do!” Equally explicit: “Crown Royal On Ice” which Jill declares is her “favorite piece of writing on the album. In R&B, sometimes people just say things just to be sexual or to be nasty but they’re not necessarily poetic. . I wrote this as one consistent stream of consciousness, as one sentence. There are harsh words, soft words, lots and lots of images…”

On the same tip, “Celibacy Blues” – reminiscent of the jazz style of the late, great Billie Holiday (whose “God Bless The Child” was one of the highpoints of 2006’s Al Jarreau/George Benson project “Givin’ It Up” and a featured cut on “Collaborations,” Jill’s 2007 collection of tracks on which she’s appeared as a guest artist and recorded with others) – was inspired by a year-long self-imposed period of sexual abstinence that Jill experienced. “I had my feelings hurt and I said, ‘just let me pull back and focus on myself.’ I know a lot of women who did that and they go to God, they become celibate, they want to wipe all that hurt away. But it’s hard. I know we are sexual beings but that’s not to say you have to act on every urge. Personally, I need that chemical, spiritual connection [from sex] and I prefer it with someone I love. During the time I was celibate, it was blue, a lot of mind over matter where I had to stay away from situations that I could get in that were trouble…” With its cosmic, futuristic sound, “Imagination” is “part of the celibacy thing,” Jill explains, “what it would be like, he most lovely love-making I could imagine where we’re not controlling ourselves, we’re on a wave. It’s just ‘wow’…you know, I don’t want to bite your face off but I appreciate the raw passion…”

And, indeed, passion as expressed through her music has been the essence of what has made Jill Scott one of the most important artists of the new millennium. The North Philly native became part of the international music consciousness with the release of “Who Is Jill Scott?” Words & Sounds Vol. 1, which achieved double-platinum status and earned her NAACP Image Awards, trophies from both Billboard and Soul Train and the honor of sharing the stage with Aretha Franklin for VH1’s Divas Live. She graced magazine covers (and was voted among People’s 50 Most Beautiful for 2001), contributed editorials and blessed the national television stages of Oprah, David Letterman, Jay Leno and “The View.” After touring the world, she released a real, live album with some new cuts, 2001’s “Experience: Jill Scott 826+” which spawned the Grammy-nominated “A Long Walk.”

During the ensuing three years, Jill stayed busy, touring consistently, directing a video for Hidden Beach labelmate, trombonist Jeff Bradshaw, appearing on “Sesame Street” in celebration of its 33rd year. Her original compositions were featured on the soundtracks for “Brown Sugar,” “Rush Hour 2,” “Down to Earth,” “Kingdom Come” and the “Red Star Sounds” compilation. Jill made her primetime sitcom debut with a four-episode run on UPN’s “Girlfriends,” starred in Showtime’s “Cave Dwellers” and crafted a book of poetry, entitled simply, “The Minutes, The Moments, The Hours” (St. Martin Press). Reflecting on her accomplishment-filled career, she says, “Honestly, I didn’t expect anything when I did my first record. I just hoped and so far I am floored with the things. I’ve been able to do as a writer and vocalist. I’ve learned a lot…”

With the 2004 release of “Beautifully Human,” Words & Sounds, Vol. 2), Jill experienced a continuation of the acceptance and recognition she enjoyed with her first two albums; the anthemic standout cut “Golden” reflected her life experience, “After taking time off, I felt like I was just living my life like it was golden – it was as if I could polish it, like I could walk past a mirror and just marvel at it. So when I heard the track for the first time, the words just came to me and all I could do was just write them down.” The album was nominated for a Grammy for Best R&B Album and won the Best Urban/Alternative Performance Grammy for the single “Cross My Mind.”

After another stint on the road, Jill began working on THE REAL THING in 2006, stopping during the procees to appear in the Dakota Fanning movie “Hounddog,” in which she plays Big Momma Thornton, the artist who originally sang the Elvis Presley hit. “I’m normally on the road for a year and a half at a time and in between recording projects, I like to live so I have something to talk about. I might be gardening, clubbing real hard…and then when I feel the juice, the force telling me it’s time to record, I do that. I’m fortunate to be with a record label that understands my creative process. I started at the beginning of 2006 and I declared I was done in June 2007.”

THE REAL THING is filled with impactful cuts that will resonate with Jill’s loyal existing audience – and beyond. There’s “I Don’t Know” which Jill describes as a song based on “seeing someone and being blown away by them, not knowing why you connect with them but you do.”

The real life experience of “being the woman and being the ‘other woman,’ feeling extreme pain and extreme happiness” is expressed with “My Love.” A lament for a man who’s ‘disappeared’ “Insomnia” is a song Jill wrote “when I was around twenty, when I was feeling that kind of desperate, sad longing you feel for someone that you can’t get out of your head”; while “Whenever You’re Around” is an ode to “the loneliness that can exist inside of a marriage which is the worst kind, when stay in a marriage for the sake of staying there.”

Summing it all up, “Let It Be” is “for the critics. I say, whatever it is, let it be that, if it’s be-bop, hip-hop, if I stretch my wings and sing country, don’t say I’m an R&B singer singing country, say I’m a singer, period. The great artist Salvador Dali one of my favorites and you could watching his life change as you saw his art. That’s how I feel about my music. It’s an evolution.”

While the consistent theme of Jill’s latest work centers on relationships, she’s says, “I’m not oblivious to the realities of what’s going on in the world. I just felt it necessary to delve into some other things with this record and create a connection with people. What makes this record any different? Well, it’s me, sexy, harsh, simple…and growing.” Indeed, indeed.

::TOP STORIES::

Jully Black: Making Her Own Destiny

Excerpt from www.thestar.com - Ashante Infantry, Pop & Jazz Critic

(October 21, 2007) After the pre-dawn wake-up call, morning radio is typically a cakewalk for pop artists: a few minutes of frivolous banter with perky announcers who spin snippets from their latest disc and help them chat it up.

That was pretty much the start of Jully Black's recent Tuesday – when her sophomore disc Revival went on sale.

The morning after the CD release at Supermarket, she was up at 6 a.m. and live on 99.9 Mix FM by 8:03 waxing irreverent with hosts Mad Dog and Billie.

Black was chock full o' zingers, along the lines of this revelation about the hunky co-star in the video for her new album's lead single, a remake of Etta James' "Seven Day Fool:" "Good thing his breath didn't stink, he got real close."

Half an hour later, she strode down the halls of Standard Radio's headquarters to 1010 CFRB for an interview on The Bill Carroll Show.

That's when things took an interesting turn.

Black, 29, who stands 5' 11," has an Amazonian bearing, bolstered by a formidable handshake and brash, ‘round the way girl demeanour.

Clad in sunglasses, a grey knit dress, matching boots and purple tights, she took a seat opposite the provocative news-talk jock, BlackBerry in one palm, chamomile tea in the other. Carroll opened with the revelation that he initially balked at having her on the show, because hers was "not really the kind of music I listen to," but acquiesced after hearing the album.

Black smiled indulgently.

Then the host wanted to know why the singer's current bio identifies her as being from Toronto, instead of the Jane St.-Finch Ave. area where she grew up.

If Black, who now resides in Markham, was taken aback, she didn't show it, retorting instead that she's going to start denoting her origins as Mount Sinai – the hospital where she was born.

Everybody laughed. But Carroll stuck with the `girl from the hood' theme. "Our family came from Scotland, we were poor, but not as poor as you were," he said.

Black's exasperation was palpable. Her divorced mother, she patiently explained, made a decent living at General Motors, but with nine children, they pinched pennies, without ever going hungry.

"I think everyone should buy a place in the 'hood and raise kids there and let them appreciate what they have. When I went to Bangladesh a few years ago I realized that Jane-Finch was like Bel-Air."

The conversation finally turned to music. Black heeded Carroll's request for an a cappella sample with a few stirring verses of "At Last."

"That's how you know someone can really sing," said Carroll.

Was there ever any question?

Black began singing in church at age 7. She attended Oakwood Collegiate for its music program and got her professional start recording hooks for rappers like Choclair and Kardinal Offishall.

She's a multiple Juno nominee whose 2005 solo debut This Is Me landed her opening acts slots for A-Listers, such as Jay-Z, Usher and Black Eyed Peas. She also starred in the Princess of Wales Theatre version of `Da Kink in My Hair and as a celebrity reporter on eTalk.

And no less than Beyoncé's manager-dad Mathew Knowles touted her abilities to the Star a few years ago – "Before she even opened her mouth, I knew she was a star." Yet her career has never reached the heights of her redoubtable alto.

With a slate of TV appearances ahead, there was barely time for a mid-morning snack and this interview. She bowed her head in prayer before biting into a sandwich.

"I just think that it wasn't my time," she said of past disappointments. "If I'm to be honest and say my life is anchored in faith, then I just have to keep going. I'm not saying it doesn't get frustrating, but every time something doesn't happen for me, I'm going to study and research it and be 10 times better."

IF BLACK'S EFFORTS don't pay off, Revival is not to blame. It's a tight, expertly assembled collection of mostly up-tempo songs that succeed in being both retro and contemporary. Black co-wrote all the tunes (save the Etta James cover), which have a more mature outlook than previous efforts.

"Music is therapy for me," she explained. "Every song is real; if it's not about me, it's about someone I know, or it was on the news."

(That personal approach is responsible for the record's one misstep, "Catch Me When I Fall" about the death of Black's sister from liver failure in 1990, a maudlin ballad which stalls the momentum.)

The key to the crack live instrumentation which supports Black's raspy belting is producer and Black Eyed Peas drummer Keith Harris.

"We're like Bonnie and Clyde, like Ike and Tina – without the abuse," she said. Harris has been identified as Black's boyfriend. She simply says "he is a very special man" and that they have "a strong friendship."

With a huge push from Universal Music, Black wraps up promotional duties this week and begins rehearsals for a Canadian tour, which hits the Mod Club Nov. 9.

"We're going platinum plus," she declared, rising to attend to the business of selling her record.

"Don't get it twisted. This is not a hobby any more."

Mario Reveals Mother's Drug Addiction

Excerpt from www.eurweb.com

(October 22, 2007) *R&B singer Mario had MTV cameras shadow him this summer to chronicle his efforts to save his mother from a crippling drug addiction.

"I Won't Love You to Death: The Story of Mario and His Mom," which aired on the music channel last night, followed the artist and his mother, Shawn Hardaway, as she struggled to kick her dependence to heroin.

"It's a documentary showing the relationship with my mother, and her obstacles that she had to overcome as an addict, a drug addict. She was addicted to heroin most of her life — she's clean now," Mario told The Associated Press in an interview this week.

Hardaway, a pianist, was Mario's early inspiration to delve into music, he said.

"She had a lot to do with me acknowledging music in the first place. She kept good music around," said Mario. "She was the person who encouraged me to do those talent shows, and ultimately allowed people to see my talent."

But his mom's addiction kept him from fully celebrating his various professional achievements. And it was her addiction that caused his childhood to be cut short.

"I was about nine or 10. I remember seeing needles on the dresser, and her with like — I can't remember if it was a belt — something around her arm and she was just like, sleep on the bed," said Mario. "That was the first time I ever noticed anything weird and after that it was just, I guess, her personality and her mood swings, and that type of thing. And just her not being around for long periods of time."

Hardaway's journey toward sobriety began with an on-camera intervention attended by her famous son, her boyfriend, a close family friend and an interventionist. When offered the chance to get clean, she accepted the challenge and is now nearly four months drug free, says Mario. 

The intervention was sparked by the singer's decision not to support his mother's lifestyle anymore. He said the camera presence was very difficult at first.

"I didn't want people to see how I was sometimes aggressive with my mother, or sometimes I would have to raise my voice or I would say things that I really didn't mean," he said. "It was really difficult but it got to the point where I felt like the camera was almost like a book. I was telling a story. I was releasing all of these feelings that I had inside for so long."

He said that both he and his mother hope their story is one that others can relate to.

"I was kinda surprised because I didn't know so many people had gone through the same thing," he said. "It kind of uplifted me a little bit more. And I really felt good about it. And I feel like it's gonna help to save some lives."

South African Reggae Star Killed In Carjacking

Excerpt from www.globeandmail.com - Marius Bosch, Reuters

(October 19, 2007) JOHANNESBURG — Gunmen shot and killed South African reggae star Lucky Dube in front of his son and daughter in one of the highest-profile murders in the country, police said on Friday.

Dube, 43, was killed in an apparent carjacking attempt on Thursday evening and police were searching for three suspects, police spokesman Eugene Opperman said.

“They allegedly tried to take his vehicle, but then shots were fired and he was fatally wounded,” Opperman said.

The murder of South Africa's biggest-selling reggae singer cast a pall over the national mood a day before the country's rugby union team face England in the final of the World Cup.

Some callers to radio stations said the South African team should play wearing black armbands as a sign of mourning for Dube.

Opperman said the singer was attacked in Johannesburg's Rossettenville suburb. Police earlier said he was dropping his son off when the attack took place.

Dube's killing is one of the most high-profile killings in South Africa, which has one of the world's worst murder rates.

The number of rapes, carjackings and assaults also are high, with some of the most violent types of crime rising last year despite efforts to beef up police forces.

Dube recorded more than 20 albums in his career and won over 20 awards locally and internationally. His first album, released in 1984 with the title Rastas Never Die, was banned by the country's apartheid government.

"Lucky wasn't just big in South Africa, he was big in Africa and the rest of the world where he had a huge fan base. He was a fantastic ambassador for South African music, because he was always out there promoting South African music and reggae music around the world," said Gallo Music chief executive officer Ivor Haarburger.

According to Dube's website, the singer had just completed a month-long tour of the U.S.

During his career he performed across the world and shared the stage with music stars such as Sinead O'Connor, Peter Gabriel and Sting among others.

Paul Boateng, Britain's ambassador to South Africa, told Talk Radio 702 he was shocked by Dube's death. “Both my wife and I are big fans ... It is a great loss to music internationally.”

Writer In Shock After Rescuer Dies

Excerpt from www.thestar.com - The Canadian Press

(October 24, 2007) Canadian mystery novelist Maureen Jennings says she's in "delayed shock" after being rescued from powerful Florida currents by a stranger who drowned in the rescue effort.

Although still shaken, the Toronto writer said yesterday that she's full of admiration for the bravery of two good Samaritans who rushed to her aid when a leisurely morning swim suddenly turned harrowing earlier this week.

"Physically I'm all right, but yes, it's been very difficult," Jennings said by phone from Cocoa Beach, Fla., her voice halting occasionally with emotion.

"I just want to replay it (in my mind). It's so flukey, you know. If I hadn't gone in at that moment and if he hadn't been walking by at that moment, etc., etc., etc., etc ..."

Fred (Ted) Hunt of Burwick, Me., 51, was found floating in the water after rushing into fierce waves to save a floundering Jennings on Monday morning.

The mystery writer says she was swimming with her husband, photographer Iden Ford, when a strong riptide kept her from returning to shore. Ford managed to get to land and call for help.

Jennings – who admits she's not a very strong swimmer – said passersby Hunt and another man, Qemal Agaj, rushed into the waves.

"He didn't hesitate, he just whipped off his shirt, jumped into the water and I could see him and he looked like a very strong swimmer," Jennings recalled of Hunt, describing him as a husky man.

But the two men struggled against strong currents to push her to shore, and Jennings says that waves soon overtook them. Agaj let go and seemed to get swept away, she said.

Rescue workers rushed in to retrieve the floundering Agaj, who was brought in with a blood pressure of 200, but Hunt was nowhere to be seen. Lifeguards later retrieved his body.

Jennings expects to return to Toronto this weekend.

::MUSIC NEWS::

Soprano Bids Toronto A Cool, Warm Farewell

Excerpt from www.thestar.com - John Terauds, Classical Music Critic

(October 20, 2007) The soprano who thrilled 600 million people at the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana more than a quarter of a century ago has decided it's time to sing goodbye.

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa returned for her eighth – and final – visit to Roy Thomson Hall last night, in the company of pianist Warren Jones.

Her appearance, surrounded by a capacity-plus crowd filling all the seats, plus extra places right on the stage, was less of a regular classical music recital than a mutual, warm thank-you session between audience and performer.

The golden, creamy voice that has thrilled and enamoured both pop and classical music lovers since the late 1960s sounds a bit brittle now. The top notes are less piercing. The transitions from high to low and back again are less agile.

But one would be hard-pressed to guess from either the voice or stage presence that Te Kanawa is 63 years old.

The colours of the music were more muted. The dynamics less broad. But this great diva brought a lifetime of art to bear on each musical phrase – impeccably and elegantly backed by pianist Jones.

It seemed that there were two Kiri Te Kanawas on stage – that there had been a personality shift (or a big glass of wine) to go with the change of gown during intermission.

In the first half, devoted to a short Mozart cantata and art songs by Richard Strauss and Henri Duparc, this diva was all icy reserve. It was as if she were singing to us from behind a thin sheet of glass that threatened to shatter if she made too bold a move.

But in the second half, Te Kanawa dived into English- and Italian-language repertoire that raised the temperature. She also chatted amiably about her Toronto visits and the music she had chosen.

The single most meaningful event in the evening came when Te Kanawa sang the "Final Monologue" from Terrence McNally's play Master Class.

In the play, a middle-aged Maria Callas confronts herself and her art as she tries to teach a younger generation the art of singing. There was probably no irony in Te Kanawa delivering these powerful words:

"The sun will not fall down from the sky/ If there are no more Traviatas./ The world can and will go on without us./ But I have to think that we have made/ This world a better place./ That we have left it richer, wiser/ Than had we not chosen the way of art."

Improvising Musical Genius, One Key At A Time

Excerpt from www.globeandmail.com - Guy Dixon

(October 20, 2007) For 15-year-old prodigy Matt Savage, battling autism at a young age to become an accomplished jazz pianist has been an obvious claim to fame. But Savage says he has closed the book on the condition. He's not one to talk at length about how he might process music differently than do other older or non-autistic musicians.

Of course, there are still those determined to write the story of how therapy as a young boy helped turn Savage's difficulties - involving communication, and intolerance to loud noises - into musical brilliance. And inevitably high up on his bio is the fact that he was invited into the inner circles of such greats as Dave Brubeck, Chick Corea and McCoy Tyner, jamming with them at age 8 or 9.

But it's a musical maturity beyond the prodigy or autism labels that he's after. "That would be a pretty good way to describe it," he says. "Sometimes I think of autism as a thing people say I have." As for his approach to his playing, he notes, "It's something fun. It seems to be inside me, and I just let it out with my fingers. I don't think about it much."

And while he may be able to do far more complicated math in his head than most of us can do on paper, don't assume that directly relates to how he plays. "Jazz musicians," says Savage, "need to know how to improvise." Above all, he stresses that his focus is on maturing musically, not on any special skills or mental processes. "The novelty about being a child prodigy isn't there any more."

The Matt Savage Trio (featuring an adult bassist and drummer) will be performing next Friday and Saturday at the Abilities Arts Festival, which runs Oct. 25 to Nov. 4, and showcases visual and performing artists with disabilities.

Musician's Hard Drive With Master Tracks For Album Seized At Border

Excerpt from www.globeandmail.com - Gene Johnson, Associated Press

(October 17, 2007) SEATTLE — The guitarist for indie pop rockers Death Cab for Cutie still expects to release his solo album in January even though federal border agents seized a computer hard drive containing the master tracks.

A courier was headed to Seattle-based Barsuk Records from a studio in Vancouver when U.S. Border Patrol agents seized the hard drive Sept. 19, Chris Walla said Wednesday.

“I don't know what red flag could possibly have gone up at the border,” Walla said in a phone interview from Portland, Ore. “It's so baffling to me.”

Walla said he had been in British Columbia working on the album called Field Manual. Barsuk needed the music to meet its production schedule, and a Hipposonic Studios employee volunteered to drive the mixed songs, on tape, and the original master tracks, on a computer hard drive.

Guards at the Peace Arch border crossing in Blaine let the courier keep the tapes, but seized the hard drive for examination by computer forensics experts, according to Walla and Hipposonic president Rob Darch.

Mike Milne, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said late Wednesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement forensics experts had examined it and decided it could be released.

“We have attempted to make two notifications to the importer to pick it up, that it's free to go, but we haven't heard back from him,” Milne said, adding it appeared phone messages were left between Sept. 19 and Oct. 1.

Walla said he believed the confiscation was random, but Barsuk and some music publications hinted that the seizure of such a politically charged album may have been more than a coincidence. The album includes songs criticizing the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina, the Iraq war and the firings of U.S. attorneys by former attorney-general Alberto Gonzales.

“Interestingly, a strong political thread runs through the record's lyrics; Walla takes more than a few shots at U.S. policy, both at home and abroad, and challenges at least one senator to find the exit door,” said a statement on Barsuk's website. “For whatever reason, the drive has still not been returned.”

Milne brushed off any suggestion of political motivation for taking the hard drive.

“These guys don't even know who Death Cab for Cutie is, let alone that he's doing political music,” Milne said of the border guards.

Walla had the seized files on a backup hard drive on Vancouver Island, which was copied and shipped to Seattle. The lost time prevented Walla from finishing the album on time, but it's still expected to be released Jan. 29, Rosenfeld said.

Manitoba Musicians Tops At Western Canadian Music Awards

Excerpt from www.globeandmail.com - Jennifer Graham, The Canadian Press

(October 21, 2007) MOOSE JAW, SASK. — Music artists from Manitoba took home the most hardware at the Western Canadian Music Awards presented Sunday night in Moose Jaw, Sask., capturing eight trophies.

Among them was country band Doc Walker who won Outstanding Country Recording and Outstanding Independent Album of the Year.

“It's always unexpected,” said Doc Walker's Dave Wasyliw.

In September, Doc Walker took album of the year honours at the Canadian Country Music Awards that were held in nearby Regina.

They dedicated their win Sunday night to leader singer Chris Thorsteinson's mother, who died last week, calling her the “backbone” of the band.

Other Manitobans who won were Romi Mayes for outstanding roots recording solo and songwriter of the year. The quartet Nathan — which had a leading five nominations — won outstanding roots recording duo or group for their album “Key Principles.”

“It feels great, cause we're just gonna continue to pump out what we do so if people are willing to put up with it,” said singer and guitarist Shelley Marshall.

“It's awesome, we're really happy.”

Not to be outdone, artists from British Columbia followed closely with six awards.

Joel Kroeker won outstanding pop recording and Jim Byrnes won outstanding blues recording.

Saskatchewan-born The Blood Lines made their home province proud, capturing the award for outstanding rock recording.

The awards, held at the Snowbirds Hangar 6, opened with a highly charged emotional presentation as Buffy Sainte-Marie was honoured with her induction into the Western Canadian Music Hall of Fame.

With a career spanning more than 40 years and numerous international awards, honours and platinum recordings to her credit, Sainte-Marie proudly remembered her roots.

“I'm very proud, very proud to be a working musician from Western Canada,” Sainte-Marie told the crowd, which gave her a standing ovation.

“I've had a lifetime of going back-and-forth from Canada, across Canada, through Canada and I'm so very proud of the traditions that are coming to light so that all Canadians might understand and appreciate the music that comes from this area.”

This year's awards ceremony saw Nelly Furtado, Diana Krall and Jann Arden all receive international achievement awards. All three accepted their honours via pre-recorded video.

The Western Canadian Music Awards recognizes and celebrates the best recording artists from Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, B.C. and the Yukon in 18 categories.

List of winners

Outstanding Aboriginal Recording: Leela Gilday, Sedze.
Outstanding Blues Recording: Jim Byrnes, House of Refuge.
Outstanding Children's Recording: Pied Pumkin, Pumkids.
Outstanding Christian Recording: Fresh I.E., The Warren Project.
Outstanding Classical Composition: Owen Underhill., Canzone di Petra.
Outstanding Classical Recording: James Ehnes, Barber Korngold Walton.
Outstanding Country Recording: Doc Walker, Doc Walker.
Outstanding Francophone Recording: Johnny Cajun, Johnny Cajun.
Outstanding Instrumental Recording: Moses Mayes, Second Ring.
Outstanding Jazz Recording: Kent Sangster, Obsession.
Outstanding Pop Recording: Joel Kroeker, Closer To The Flame.
Outstanding Rock Recording: The Blood Lines, The Blood Lines.
Outstanding Roots Recording, Duo/Group: Nathan, Key Principles.
Outstanding Roots Recording, Solo: Romi Mayes, Sweet Somethin' Steady.
Outstanding Urban Recording: Skavenjah, El Ritmo de la Vida.
Outstanding Album/Independent Artist: Doc Walker, Doc Walker.
Songwriter of the Year: Romi Mayes, Sweet Somethin' Steady.
Video of the Year: Kris Demeanor, I Have Seen The Future.
International Achievement Awards: Jann Arden, Nelly Furtado, Diana Krall.
Hall of Fame: Buffy Sainte-Marie, Queen City Kids.

Melodic Medication

Excerpt from www.thestar.com - John Terauds, Staff Reporter

(October 21, 2007) Look down any bus, subway car or sidewalk and you'll see many a pair of slim wires dangling from earlobes, the telltale signs of our obsession with music.

We pipe it directly to our eardrums. We surround ourselves with it at home, in the car and while shopping.

We instinctively know our favourite song or the perfect piece to fit or change a mood. We pump up volume and tempo to get our adrenaline flowing. We look for slow melodies and easy harmonies to unwind after a stressful day.

Could it be that this is the ultimate in psychological self-medication?

Although most of us don't know why we choose to listen to a particular kind of music at any given time, we know it affects how we feel. And we know how and when to administer the right dose.

Filmmakers have worked the art of emotional manipulation through music from the days when the soundtrack came from a live piano or organ player in the theatre.

Consumer marketers know how to push these buttons as well. Next time you walk through Ikea, stop to listen how the ambient music is different in each department.

But this is nothing new.

Three hundred years ago, William Congreve wrote the now-immortal words in his play The Mourning Bride: "Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast/To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak."

Two thousand years before that, Socrates sat down with his pupils Glaucon and Adeimantus to discuss how to create a good and noble human being. As recorded in Plato's Republic, Socrates stated that, "rhythm and harmony find their way to the inmost soul and take strongest hold upon it, bringing with them and imparting grace..."

Yet for all of history (and iPod playlists), the science of understanding the link between music and the brain is only in its infancy.

Thanks to electronic and magnetic brain-imaging equipment and sophisticated computer data analysis, a cutting edge of scientists is accumulating data that show precisely what is going on between the ear buds and the smile on our lips.

Last year, Montreal cognitive psychologist Daniel Levitin published This Is Your Brain on Music, a lively book based on his research at the Laboratory for Music Perception, Cognition and Expertise at McGill University.

Last week saw the release of prominent American neurologist Oliver Sacks's latest opus, Musicophilia, a riveting compilation of his decades of work with people and music.

A former music producer and punk-rocker, Levitin indulged in such public scientific spectacles as attaching hundreds of electrodes to symphony orchestra conductor Keith Lockhart, five members of the orchestra, and a handful of audience members during a live performance last year.

Levitin's computer screen showed instant physical responses to changes in the music's tempo and pitch.

Sacks's approach is deeply personal, yet the accumulated weight of his experiences is even more compelling.

Somehow the issue remains abstract until someone places electrodes on your own head.

Deep inside a building on the Hamilton's McMaster University campus recently, I sat down in a soundproof studio while a research assistant placed a "cap" containing 128 electrodes on my head.

I sat facing a video monitor so that I could see the 128 lines of data being sent to a computer in the next room.

The slightest twitch of my head or the blink of an eye would send the steady lines into jagged paroxysms. "So try to stay as still as possible," I was instructed. Yeah, right.

I was about to hear sequences of two simple tones. In most instances, the second tone would be higher than the first. But then, without warning, would come a tone manipulated to sound like it was lower than the others.

If my brain worked like everyone else's, it would register the sound of something different as a sudden increase in activity. And, blinking aside, that's exactly what happened. As soon as the tonal pattern was broken, the jagged waves would appear once again on the video monitor.

THIS EXPERIMENT, and dozens like it, is being repeated several times a day in that room, mainly with infants and children, so that we can better learn how young brains develop.

The research is led by Dr. Laurel Trainor, the founding force of the McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind (MIMM).

Started in January 2006, it and the research institute at McGill University are Canada's contribution to unlocking the electro-chemical secrets of how our brains respond to music.

But the focus at MIMM is a bit different than in Montreal, as Trainor has included professors and researchers from other departments and faculties.

"This is an interdisciplinary effort," she says in her office, in which every flat surface testifies to the international conferences she has attended, or is about to visit, and to the reams of research coming out of MIMM and its counterparts.

"Because McMaster's music department is focused on education," says Trainor, "much of our research is aimed at helping improve how music is taught to children." She introduces Dr. Keith Kinder, director of the McMaster School of the Arts, who is keen on building on the institution's reputation in the music-teaching field.

In the course of a day, we also meet Dr. Ian Bruce at the Engineering faculty. As one of the world's experts on electronic signal processing, he is involved in trying to develop better hearing aids.

At the department of Mathematics, Dr. David Earn is honing the language used to compile, interpret and extrapolate research data.

McMaster School of the Arts professor David Gerry also has a part – both as teacher and student.

A professional flutist, Gerry is acknowledged as the world's leading flute teacher using the Suzuki-method (where students learn to play an instrument by imitation and repetition, in a group). His teaching travels regularly take him to Central and South America, where he realized that children from Latin cultures had a much more highly developed sense of rhythm than children in Ontario.

"It has to do with the more complex rhythms that are part of the music," says Gerry. Wanting to find ways to better teach rhythm here, the flute player looked into the research at MIMM and decided he wanted to be a part of it.

"There is so much we can learn," he says as he begins a year of post-graduate work with the institute. "I'm nervous about going back to school, but this is also very exciting."

As with Gerry, observation is at the roots of Oliver Sacks's insights. The son of a musician who still plays his father's vintage Bechstein grand piano, Sacks has always been curious about how our brains and music interact.

In Musicophilia, Sacks describes how his professional, neurological connection to music blossomed after he began working with immobile patients in a long-term-care hospital in the Bronx four decades ago:

"In 1966, there was no medication of any use to these patients – no medication, at least, for their frozenness, their parkinsonian motionlessness. And yet it was common knowledge among the nurses and staff that these patients could move on occasion, with an ease and grace that seemed to belie their parkinsonism – and that the most potent occasioner of such movement was, in fact, music."

In the course of 350-plus pages, Sacks shares the extraordinary stories of people whose personal worlds have been transformed by music – from a non-musical football player who became obsessed with classical music after being struck by lightning, to explaining the nature of musical "brainworms," those nasty little songs that get stuck inside our heads.

Sacks leads us inside the brain to show how and why we combine tone, rhythm and shape into the entity we call music. Along the way, we see how the brain has an almost miraculous ability to adapt to injuries and disease.

The most touching of Sacks's stories is also the most powerful example of music as medicine.

In 1985, British musicologist Clive Wearing, then in his forties, came down with a severe brain infection that left him with a memory span of a few seconds, condemning him to live every moment of his life as if it was his first.

Sacks tells in powerful detail how doctors and Wearing's wife almost gave up hope of giving back Wearing a semblance of meaning to his existence. It took years, but, in the end, salvation lay in reintroducing Wearing to the piano, which he had once played so well.

"The rope that is let down from heaven for Clive comes not with recalling the past, as for Proust, but with performance – and it holds only as long as the performance lasts. Without performance, the thread is broken, and he is thrown back once again into the abyss."

In essence, the melodic line and rhythm carry with them an inevitable momentum that engages our mind in special ways.

"Listening to music is not a passive process but intensely active, involving a stream of inferences, hypotheses, expectations and anticipations," writes Sacks. It's a tonic at once simple and complex that can soothe the savage breast – or straighten a ravaged brain.

Although neither Sacks nor Levitin nor Trainor would ever stoop to such a blunt conclusion, it seems increasingly clear that we are, each in our own way, experts in musical self-medication.

A more elegant summary belongs to Sacks: "Music, uniquely among the arts, is both abstract and profoundly emotional. It has no power to represent anything particular or eternal, but it has a unique power to express inner states or feelings. Music can pierce the heart directly; it needs no mediation."

The Gospel According To Sinead

Excerpt from www.thestar.com - Ben Rayner, Pop Music Critic

(October 21, 2007) "To me, this is a book of theology in musical form. I would like to write a book of theology but I don't know how to write books."

No, sir, Sinead O'Connor shows no signs of lightening up in middle age. As unpredictable and artistically intense as ever, the fearless Irish singer/songwriter has taken it upon herself at 40 to compose an entire album interpreting Biblical scriptures as her own, subtle form of protest against these warlike times.

Not exactly commercial gold, then, is the double-CD set Theology. One disc features nought but that incomparable voice and acoustic guitar on new songs and religious-themed covers; the other's a full-band reprisal of the same songs (plus "I Don't Know How to Love Him" from Jesus Christ Superstar!) lent a curious dub-Celtic flava by London producer RonTom. But commercial gold is the farthest thing from O'Connor's mind in 2007, if indeed it was ever on her mind, as Theology marks only her second, quiet foray into music-making since declaring herself retired, selling her instruments and becoming a full-time mother to her three (since four) children in 2003.

She was sick of celebrity and tired, she says, of feeling "like a square peg in a round hole," posting a statement on her website confessing: "I seek no longer to be a 'famous' person, and instead I wish to live a 'normal' life." Her attempt to cut herself off from the musician's life she'd known since her mid-teens, however, proved more difficult.

"It became apparent that everyone thought it was a joke when I said I'd get a different job," says the easygoing, unpretentious O'Connor, smoking the first of several cigarettes in her downtown hotel room prior to a gig last night at Massey Hall. "Wherever I went, people would just laugh at me, so it seemed like I needed to do something with my creativity.

"My family and my friends started getting nervous, too. They didn't want me to stop making music at all, so they started having chats with me saying: 'Why don't you go back and find the real reason you wanted to be a singer?' Then I realized that, at that young age, that what I wanted to do was this record." Religion, she realized, was the very thing that spurred her to make music. From the time she was seven or eight years old immersed in a typically Catholic Irish upbringing, she says, she'd entertained the idea of putting the scriptures to song while hearing their musical verses read aloud in church.

"I'd been kind of religious, anyway, because I was born into a religious country, but I'd also seen Fiddler on the Roof, believe it or not, and that just blew me apart," she says with a laugh. "It was a seminal point . . . The main character, Tevye, used to go on about the Good Book all the time and that made me start to read it."

Before O'Connor could write Theology, though, the longtime student of the Rasta faith cleared her head by making an album of classic reggae songs — many of them of a questing, spiritual nature themselves — with legendary Jamaican rhythm section Sly and Robbie, a couple of friends who don't make reggae albums with anyone who comes calling.

That record, 2005's Throw Down Your Arms, and a subsequent tour with Sly and Robbie (which included a transcendent stop at Kool Haus) convinced O'Connor she could, in fact, make music on her own terms, even in "the spiritual arena," if she so desired.

And thus followed the relatively swift genesis of Theology, an album its author stresses is not necessarily a religious album — O'Connor doesn't even like using the word "God" because "it puts people off" — but one that ponders and discusses various peaceful theological tenets that self-anointed religious crusaders often get wrong.

"The was my response to the world that I'm living in. Not just as a mother or a daughter or a singer or anything else, just as a citizen of the world. And the world I live in now, as I see it, is a war world. This war of terror or War on Terror or whatever is affecting the whole world in all kinds of different ways.

"There are wars within wars. And they're all being conducted by people who one way or another claim to be representing God, be they Christians or Muslims or whoever the hell they are.

"I'm a person who's in love with the idea of God," continues O'Connor, still dogged by the misunderstanding that her shredding of the Pope's photo on Saturday Night Live 15 years ago was a statement against religion rather than abuse in Catholic institutions. "And I feel it is the most maligned and libelled person or entity or energy in history, and that it is continually libelled by people who make war and say somehow that God supports what they’re doing. You always hear them lifting out bits of scriptures which somehow justify war or conditional love and how some people don't deserve it because they're X, Y or Z.

"So the idea was to kind of lift up the scriptures and show the opposite to be true, to show that how much it's a twisting to say that God somehow supports violence." So is the "spiritual arena" the only one in which O'Connor is interested anymore? She is, after all, playing mostly material from older albums, including her 1990’s chart-topping I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, on this tour.

This writer ventures that he'd like to hear Sinead O'Connor "rock out" on record one more time.

"Yeah. Me, too," she concurs, and lets slip a plan for the next album involving Jake Burns of the Irish punk stalwarts Stiff Little Fingers. "I haven't told him this yet or asked him, but I really want to work with him on the next record. I want it to be the polar opposite to this record. A lot of noise.

"I think our voices would work well together, too, but he's a most incredible guitar player. He'll fill a whole room with filthy noise but it looks like his hand isn't even moving.

"I thought I'd call the record Blasphemy."

Smokey Robinson: Smokey’s Back in Town!

Excerpt from www.eurweb.com - By Deardra Shuler

(October 23, 2007) *Two years ago in May 2005, Smokey Robinson made an appearance in the Bronx at the Lehman Center for the Performing Arts.  Well, he’s back! And, he is slated to appear once again at the Concert Hall in Lehman College, located at 250 Bedford Park Boulevard West, Bronx, NY, on Sunday, October 28th at 7:00 p.m.

The last time Smokey appeared at the Bronx venue he packed the house.  Many ardent Smokey fans were disappointed to find there were no tickets left when they showed up at the Box Office the day of the performance to purchase last minute tickets.  There is no doubt that Smokey’s music is smouldering and definitely a hot ticket item, so for all of you readers who plan on making Smokey’s concert this year, call the Box Office at 718-960-8833 early.  Tickets are going for $85, $75, $65, and $55.00.

The Grammy Award winner, who once said he makes his music as a labour of love to his fans, is laboriously toiling to turn out another award winning piece.  Smokey has been hard at work in the recording studio cutting a new album.  Since it is still a work in progress, Smokey, who is a consummate artist when it comes to the creative process, has not yet announced a release date nor chosen a name for the album. 

Known as the ‘poet laureate’ of soul music,” many a fan has claimed to sweetly whisper to their significant other “Ooo Baby, Baby,”  I enjoy “Being with You” and raised up quite a “Quiet Storm” while listening to Robinson’s golden voice and smooth romantic delivery.  People have always gone into high drive when “Crusin” to the sounds and grooves of the Master Crooner.  In fact, some claim that music sung by artists like Luther Vandross and Smokey Robinson was instrumental in bringing future generations into the world.  Whatever the case may be, Smokey has certainly sold numerous records and brought in over $60-million plus sales to the record industry.  In fact, it was Smokey and artists like him who turned Motown Records into one of the largest Black-owned music corporations in the world.

For the gourmets among you, Robinson markets a special brand of gumbo known as  “The Soul is in the Bowl” under his company SFGL Foods.  In fact, he issued a gospel LP entitled “Food for the Spirit” in 2004.  He even appeared as a judge during “Billy Joel Week” on the popular American Idol show.   Robinson was honoured by Howard University at its 138th Commencement Convocation when they conferred on Robinson the degree of Doctor of Music, honoris causa.  Usually this degree is conferred as a way of honouring a distinguished visitor's contributions to a specific field, or to society in general.

Smokey Robinson is only one of the incredible artists that will make an appearance at Lehman Center for the Performing Arts.  Some other artists include:  Danny Rivera, Saturday, October 27th at 8:00 p.m.; Tommy Olivencia, Saturday, November 17 at 8 p.m.; The Nutcracker By the Moscow Classical Ballet, Sunday November 25th at 6:00 p.m.; Christmas from Dublin with the Three Irish Tenors, Thursday, November 29 at 7:00 p.m.; Asalto Navideno, Saturday, December 8 at 8:00 p.m; The Messiah, Sunday, December 16th at 3:00 p.m.; Evita, Sunday, January 13th at 7:00 p.m.; The African Footprint Dance Company” on Sunday, January 17th at 4:00 p.m.; It’s All About Doo Wop, featuring Martha Reeves, The Elgins and Chantels on Saturday, January 19, 8 p.m; Brian McKnight and Tito Nieves, Saturday, February 16 at 8 p.m.; Forever Freestyle 2 with Lisa Lisa, Stevie B, et al on Saturday, March 8 at 8 p.m.; Legends of Salsa on Saturday, April 26 at 8 p.m.;  Natalie Cole, Saturday, May 17 at 8 p.m., and Gladys Knight on a date yet to be announced.   These are only a few of the upcoming performances Lehman Center for the Performing Arts has on its roster for its 2007/2008 performance season.  For more information, call the Box Office at 718-960-8833 or check online tickets at www.lehmancenter.org.

The Gospel, According To Rock

Excerpt from www.globeandmail.com - Brad Wheeler

(October 23, 2007) Kid Rock is many things, but when he meets a reporter in a hotel room, he introduces himself simply as "Bob," extending his arm for a proper handshake. He's in Toronto to promote the chart-topping Rock N Roll Jesus, his first new album in four years. Dressed casually in blue jeans, black cowboy shirt and trademark dark trilby, the American badass is comfortable in Canada. "Growing up, Windsor was pretty much an extension of Michigan," says Rock, raised in Romeo, a middle-class suburb of Detroit.

"Yeah, Hockey Night in Canada, and when I was 19, I used to come over to the bars."

Rock is in the middle of a massive press campaign that brings him to Vancouver's Commodore Ballroom on Nov. 3. He's on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine's Hot 2007 issue, and he got along famously with the host of CNN's Larry King Live earlier in the month. "Have a seat, my man," said the suspendered one. "Welcome to the show."

In addition to that interview - one that salaciously focused on Rock's former wife, Pam Anderson, the bodacious blouse-filler from Ladysmith, B.C. - the broadcast featured a tour of the musician's studio and substantial residence north of Detroit.

"I let the Larry King people into my home," Rock says. "I showed them around, which is something I always said I'd never do."

Through tabloid infatuation and his often outlandish public conduct, we know much about this peculiar rock star. But we don't know it all, according to the man himself. "I only let people see a certain side me," he says. "I don't know if it's good or bad, but I always try to keep a certain image up. At the end of the day, I give people want they want, which is this thing called rock 'n' roll."

Rock says he has received compliments on his CNN appearance - for his easygoing rapport with a pop culture-challenged man twice his age, and for his mature attitude regarding Anderson's sons as well as his own boy, 14-year-old Bobby Junior - but he's not sure of the impact. "I think people are going to come to my concerts because they want to hear the music, not because I was nice to Larry King."

Fair point. The rugged crowd he drew to his Toronto club gig might arrive at CNN only by mistake, on their way to The Jerry Springer Show. Buxom women in cowboy hats and urban hillbillies in ball caps whooped, whistled and guzzled cans of Coors Light by the mitt-full. Rock put on what King might call a doozy: older rap-rock anthems such as American Bad Ass shared a set list with greasy soul-rockers from the new album, including the title track, where the white-suited showman pitched himself as some sort of a juke joint messiah. "And you can see," Rock sang, with arms spread-eagled, "I practise what I preach."

A foul-mouthed, hell-raising, trailer-trash long-hair as the rock 'n' roll Jesus? Shoot, why not? "The album title is definitely about creating a rock revival," Rock explains. "But it's also about being the voice of working people. I think that's being a little unheard these days." In the gospel-like number Amen, which deplores greed, hypocrisy and soldiers dying, Rock says he wants to create a feeling that would rise during his concerts, "like a gospel church on Saturday night, while drinking beer and having a good time."

The idea of music as religion is not new - Jimi Hendrix envisioned an "electric church," though more as a psychedelic experience than a hooting keg party. An evening with Bruce Springsteen is Pentecostal in energy and near religious, in the best communal way.

Perhaps Springsteen was being overlooked by uber-record producer Rick Rubin, who offered career advice to Rock boldly. "He told me that, with all my genre-hopping, I was positioned to really step in and fill that great classic American songwriter and rock 'n' roll void that seems to be missing."

As Rock rises to the boozy pulpit, he does so with a profile that has never been higher. Plenty of publicity came when he stirred things up at last month's MTV Video Music Awards in Las Vegas, where he backhanded Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee, a fellow former husband of Anderson. Assault charges are pending.

As for the reported offer for the bad boys to lace 'em up for a proper pay-for-view boxing match, Rock dismisses the likelihood. "I would knuckle up with anybody that I had to, but I wouldn't go out and make a mockery of myself."

Of course not. This past Sunday, a little more than a week after his stop in Toronto, Rock and members of his crew were arrested on charges of misdemeanour battery after allegedly putting the boots to a man at a Waffle House in Georgia. So much for the rock 'n' roll Jesus loving thy neighbour.

Rock maintains no relationship with Anderson, who has recently remarried. (Asked if he had any advice for her new hubby, Rick Salomon, the amateur filmmaker and former boyfriend of Paris Hilton, Rock says he does not, but hopes that Anderson's two sons are all right.) If the singer needs to speak to his ex-wife, he does so by putting out a song. Half Your Age, a country-tune kiss-off that's "pretty self-explanatory," according to Rock, referring to lines about finding someone new who is less a drama queen, and "half your age and twice as hot."

Looking beyond that scathing track, and a whole mess of political incorrectness and blunt vulgarity, the album hints at a maturing songwriter. The soulful Roll On has the 36-year-old singer looking back at his younger self and taking stock of his life. "It's a reflective song," he says. "I understand I can't drink and stay high my whole life, and that I'm gonna have to turn things around."

You'll notice that Rock speaks of changing his ways as a prospect, not a current state. He's single (his flirtation with Danish model May Anderson completed) and living life wildly rich. Rolling Stone reported strippers were shipped from Arizona to Rock's $12-million Malibu bachelor pad. In another interview, Rock revealed his drinking regimen to be "beer during the day, wine at dinner, whisky afterward."

It's not all booze and babes, though. The superstar singer will tell you that some of his very best times are spent at his northern Michigan mansion, with his son, family and friends. Musically, he defies easy categorization, with tastes covering rap-rock, new country, soul, hick-hop and classic rock. Album titles reveal his personas, Early Mornin' Stoned Pimp to Devil Without a Cause to Rock N Roll Jesus.

Rock isn't concerned about any confused perceptions. "Whatever people want to make me out to be, it's there," he says with a shrug. "There's enough information, for whatever they're thinking. They can make me out to be whatever they want."

Kid Rock performs in Vancouver on Nov. 3.

Just Be Yourself, Tori

Excerpt from www.thestar.com - Ashante Infantry, Pop & Jazz Critic

(October 24, 2007) Tori Amos sure does try to keep things interesting.  It wasn't enough that the U.K.-based North Carolina native recorded her current disc, American Doll Posse, as five distinct female characters (Isabel, Clyde, Pip, Santa and herself), she trotted out at least two of them for her concert at the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts last night.

The singer/songwriter/keyboardist stalked onto the stage in a severe black wig and clingy emerald green dress, apparently as Pip, the persona denoting Dark Energy.

She also seems to be a naughty girl given to middle-finger salutes, something resembling one-armed push-ups and waving her behind to the audience while perched on all fours on the piano bench – all the while wailing like a banshee beneath the din of the rocking three-piece band on new tunes such as "Teenage Hustling."

I suppose the capacity crowd appreciated the schtick since they applauded heartily after each song; It's just that during the tunes, few feet, heads, or lips moved. Why so serious, folks?

After a costume break, Amos returned as herself, with crimson tresses and in a gold jumpsuit, and launched into "Big Wheel." Playing both keyboards and piano, she still had dominatrix appeal while showing measured vulnerability with her powerful little girl's voice.

After telling the crowd she'd be returning to Canada near the end of the tour, she delivered an improvisational ditty about perusing the children's section at Indigo Books with her 7-year-old daughter.

"What do you do when your daughter is smarter than you?" ran the refrain; the punchline was "Mummy, if Madonna wrote it, I can read it."

A tale told in jest, but Amos, whose music is given to feminist explorations – she is a savvy entrepreneur who owns her merchandise company and a partner in the firm that manages her – is doubtlessly nurturing that feistiness in her child.

The highlight of the two-hour set was the segment titled Tori & Bo (as in Bossendorf, her piano of choice).

No band, no kaleidoscope of lights, no tomfoolery; just a great voice and lyrics exuding political and moral strength. Amos knows how to have fun, but gimmicks aside, she is the real deal.

MUSIC TIDBITS

Lavigne Scores Big With Girlfriend

Excerpt from www.globeandmail.com - Associated Press

(October 20, 2007) Mexico City -- Canadian singer Avril Lavigne won the trophy for song of the year for Girlfriend at the MTV Video Music Awards Latin America in Mexico City on Thursday. Lavigne, 23, tried out her Spanish when receiving the award. "Hola, Gracias, this is awesome!" she told the crowd. Lavigne, a native of Napanee, Ont., who now lives in California, also won the honours for best international pop artist.

Jaheim Leaves Warner Bros. For Atlantic

Excerpt from www.eurweb.com

(October 19, 2007) *R&B singer/songwriter/producer Jaheim has left his home at Warner Bros. Records to set up shop at Atlantic, where he's scheduled to drop a new album on Dec. 18. "This is a milestone project for me, which reflects on changes and growth in my personal and professional life. I produced and wrote half of the album. I'm just focused," Jaheim tells Billboard.com. "I'm with people that understand the market -- no disrespect to anyone over there [Warner Bros.]. At this point in my career, I need a company that understands and they [Atlantic] are taking me to a whole new level." Jaheim's as-yet-untitled label debut features the production talents of Babyface, R. Kelly, KayGee (Naughty By Nature), Jasper Cameron, the Clutch and Nat Adderley Jr. So far, Keyshia Cole is the lone guest artist on the set. The first single is titled "Never."  In addition, Jaheim can be heard on Atlantic's soundtrack to the new Tyler Perry film, "Why Did I Get Married?," released Oct. 2. He is featured on "DJ Don't (Remix)," alongside the late Gerald Levert. Jaheim also plans to go on a U.S. tour later this year.

Meshell Ndegeocello Hits The Road

Excerpt from www.eurweb.com

(October 19, 2007) *Singer/songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello has just launched a 13-city tour behind her new album, "The World Has Made Me the Man of My Dreams."   The trek began Monday night (10/15) in Tucson, AZ, and continues tonight in Los Angeles with a full band that includes Oren Bloedow and Chris Bruce on guitars, Jason Lindner on keyboards, Mark Kelley on bass and Charles Haynes on drums. Released last month, Ndegeocello's latest studio effort features such veteran collaborators as Oliver Lake, Don Byron, Jack DeJohnette, Kenney Garrett and a host of other jazz names. "I've always dreamed about being in a group, being surrounded by musicians like in all those big bands I admired when I was a kid," Ndegeocello said in a press release. "When I play solo I'm often out front, and that's not the place I was really looking for."

Alicia Keys Booked For Nobel Prize Concert

Excerpt from www.eurweb.com

(October 22, 2007) *Alicia Keys will be among the talent set to perform at the annual Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Norway on Dec. 11, organizers announced Thursday. Other acts booked include Earth Wind & Fire, Melissa Etheridge, Annie Lennox, Colombian singer Juanes and Scottish singer-songwriter KT Tunstall.  Etheridge was requested by former Vice President Al Gore, who is this year's recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize along with the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for their efforts to help spread awareness about man-made global warming. Etheridge won an Academy Award this year for the song "I Need to Wake Up," which featured in Gore's environmental documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." The singer recently released her ninth studio album, "The Awakening." "The Nobel Committee is pleased to welcome such a talented and eclectic group of artists for this momentous occasion," said Geir Lundestad, secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Keys, a nine-time Grammy Award-winner, is due to release her third studio album, "As I Am," on Nov. 13.

Tupac Bodyguard Says He Was Undercover FBI

Excerpt from www.eurweb.com

(October 19, 2007) *A former bodyguard for Tupac Shakur admitted Tuesday that he was actually an undercover FBI agent at the time of his employment, and not an informant as previously reported.  Kevin Hackie made the claim during a Q&A segment that followed a screening of the new documentary "Tupac: Assassination - Conspiracy or Revenge?" in Los Angeles. Hackie, who was employed as Tupac's bodyguard and part of the security detail for Death Row Records from 1992-1996, made the revelation in response to an alleged Los Angeles Police Department officer who was in the crowd and defended the department's investigation into Tupac's murder. In 2004, Hackie stated in a filed declaration that he had "personal knowledge" about Notorious B.I.G.'s murder and that people within Death Row offered $25,000 dollars to a law enforcement officer to carry out the slaying.  "Tupac Assassination - Conspiracy or Revenge?," available on DVD Oct. 23, examines alleged shortcomings of the Los Angeles Police Dept. in the murder investigation. The DVD also introduces new facts about the rapper's murder. Hackie claimed that former officer David Mack and a number of LAPD officers worked as "covert agents" for Death Row Records and that Shakur was murdered because Death Row CEO Marion "Suge" Knight allegedly owed Shakur millions in unpaid royalties.

Carl Thomas Has A Digital Sweet Tooth

Excerpt from www.eurweb.com

(October 24, 2007) *The state of the recording industry seems to be in constant flux these days.  Artists have far more options open to them than they have ever had and R&B singer Carl Thomas thinks that is a good thing. We ran into the Universal Records artist recently and here's what the man had to say about the wave of the future, digital everything!  "I'm a tech head. So I was a tad bit ahead of the game," Thomas told our reporter. "Before, the major record companies wouldn't accept what was going on. Early on everybody wanted to look at the Internet like a parasite and something that comes to sip life from projects. But it's really the wave of the future. Something like the iPhone."  According to Thomas, fearing our increasingly digitized world can be a hindrance to an artists' success and, he adds, that is something he simply is not going to do.  "You find a lot of individuals who will say 'Oh, I'm not getting that phone,' but the truth of it is, the iPhone is a prototype of what cell phones are going to all become. You can accept it now or you can accept it later." And Thomas has always been an accepting type of guy when it comes to circuitry.  Speaking of electronics, Carl Thomas' most recent set, "So Much Better," is getting rave reviews all over the Internet and features the cuts "2 Pieces" and "So Much Better." The CD is Thomas' first release on Jehryl Busby's Umbrella imprint.

::FILM NEWS::

Berry Says She's Ready For New Role Of Mother

Excerpt from www.thestar.com - John Hiscock, Special To The Star

(October 20, 2007) NEW YORK–For years, Halle Berry has longed for a child of her own. But it was only when she played a mother of two in her latest film, Things We Lost In the Fire, that she was convinced it was destined to happen.

"I've wanted this for so long and I feel happier than I've ever felt before in my entire life," says the 41-year-old Oscar winner, who is expecting a child with her boyfriend of two years, Canadian model Gabriel Aubrey.

"I knew from playing a mother in this movie and having two adorable, smart children around me all the time that I was meant to be a mother. It's no mystery that right after we finished the movie it manifested itself in my life because I think I subconsciously knew, `Yes, I can do this. I'm really, really ready.'"

The actress met Montreal-born Aubry, who is 10 years her junior, while they were shooting a Versace advertisement in Los Angeles in November 2005.

"Take it from me, he's a wonderful man and he will be a wonderful father to our child," she says.

They do not know the sex of the baby, but they have decided the birth will be in America, not Canada, although she says, "the baby will grow up in Los Angeles and New York, and Montreal as well."

In Things We Lost in the Fire, Berry is a young mother reeling from the sudden death of her husband (David Duchovny) in a random act of violence. She turns to her father's friend, played by Benicio Del Toro, in the hope he can help her and her children cope with their sudden loss, but she discovers he is facing a daily battle to stay off drugs.

The movie was originally written with a white actress in mind, but Berry wanted it so much she single-mindedly set about persuading the producers she should have the part.

"I so desperately wanted to be a mother when this script came into my life and I wanted to do it so badly because it gave me a chance to actually be what I wanted onscreen," she said. "Because it wasn't written for a woman of colour, I had the feeling I wouldn't be considered. But I kept dogging them and bugging them and asking for a chance, and they finally allowed me to meet the director."

Fortunately for her the director was Susanna Bier. "My first question to her was, `Do you care that I'm not white?' And she said, `Hell no, I don't care. I'm Danish. It doesn't matter to me at all,'" recalls Berry with a laugh.

Despite her current fame, life has not been easy for Berry, whose mother, an English psychiatric nurse from Liverpool, raised her and her sister after Berry's African-American father left home when she was 4.

A teenage beauty queen, Halle was diagnosed as diabetic when she was 19. She took insulin until a few years ago when, by changing her diet and exercise program, she weaned herself off the drug.

She survived an unhappy marriage to baseball player David Justice and a series of disastrous relationships – one former boyfriend sued her for $80,000 and another hit her so hard she became partially deaf.

Her second marriage, to musician Eric Benet, ended in 2003 after two years because he could not control his roving eye.

Berry's first acting roles were in TV series. Then in 1991 she convinced Spike Lee she could handle the demanding role of a crack addict in Jungle Fever.

She appeared in a number of films with varying success until, in 2000, she won Golden Globe and Emmy awards for portraying Dorothy Dandridge, the singer-actress who broke through racial barriers by becoming the first black woman to be nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, in the HBO movie Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, which Berry also produced.

Then came the first of the three X-Men movies, the thriller Swordfish, in which she appeared topless for the first time in her career, and her Oscar-winning performance as a struggling waitress coping with a husband on death row and an obese child in Monster's Ball. Her most recent role was in Perfect Stranger with Bruce Willis.

Her pregnancy has caused her to put all plans for future movies on hold.

"I'm just focusing on a healthy pregnancy and learning all I can about motherhood and getting the stroller and crib I'm going to need and all that kind of stuff," she says.

"I want to keep working, but my dream is to become the mother I am dreaming to be and I believe I can be, so I'll probably be working on that for the rest of my life."

Deborah Kerr, 86

Excerpt from www.globeandmail.com - Associated Press

(October 18, 2007) LONDON — British actress Deborah Kerr, who shared one of cinema's most famous kisses with Burt Lancaster in From Here to Eternity, has died, her agent said Thursday. She was 86.

Kerr, who suffered from Parkinson's disease, died Tuesday in Suffolk, eastern England, agent Anne Hutton said.

For many, she will be remembered best for that kiss with as waves crashed over them on a Hawaiian beach in the wartime drama.

Kerr's roles as forceful, sometimes frustrated, women pushed the limits of Hollywood's treatment of sex on the screen during the censor-bound 1950s.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated her six times for best actress, but never gave her an Academy Award until it presented an honorary Oscar in 1994 for her distinguished career as an “artist of impeccable grace and beauty, a dedicated actress whose motion picture career has always stood for perfection, discipline and elegance.”

She had the reputation of a “no problem” actress.

“I have never had a fight with any director, good or bad,” she said toward the end of her career. “There is a way around every