Lisa Ono?

[Rudy]

Anyone ever hear of Lisa Ono?

I'm listening to some tracks from a Christmas album she recorded, Boas Festas:

http://www.lisaono.homestead.com/Boas_Festas_detail.html

Tell ya what--her voice is more than reminiscent of Astrud Gilberto! Lisa Ono is a Japanese Bossa Nova vocalist, guitarist and composer, and it's more than a "novelty" too--credits on her albums include Steve Sacks, Joao Donato, Tom Jobim, Oscar Castro-Neves...the cream of the crop. From the sounds of these tracks, I'm going to have to seek out a few of her other CDs (she has at least a dozen).

 

[JMK]

Lisa's a well-known Japanese interpreter of Bossa Nova. I have several of her CDs. She's released at least a couple with Joao Donato. To me her voice is more reminiscent of Joyce than Astrud. All of her CDs that I've heard are very nice.

 

[Cotton66]

Hey guys! Happy Christmas and Merry New Years!!!

I'm gonna check out Lisa Ono. Is there anymore artists out there doing Bossa and the like??? I've pretty much come to the end of searching for stuff. I've found practically everything I've wanted to hear, but now I gotta open the gates and let some new in!!! The most recent was Bebel Gilberto's Tanto Tempo CD. What's cool? Bossa, Lounge, Easy Listening, Way Out stuff??? I need something new!!!!!


TRENT
www.lovehaters.com
(check out my jackball cover band. We rock.)

 

[JMK]

Trent, there are TONS of people doing Bossa and Bossa-influenced stuff. I could spend hours listing people, but right off the top of my head: Joyce, Toninho Horta, Torquato Mariano, Kleber Jorge, Joao Donato, Luiz Eca (&/or Tamba Trio), Marcos Valle, Ivan Lins, Milton Nascimento, and on and on and on.....

 

[Rudy]

Trentster: have you ever picked up Manhattan Transfer's album Brasil? It's quite original how they put the songs together. Having heard some of these in their native language, the lyricists for the ManTran versions did not do a translation of the meaning of the lyrics, but the sounds. One song is a bit nonsensical, but it comes off more in the lyric style of someone like Jon Hendricks (or the ManTran's earlier album, Vocalese).

"Seven Nights To Rock", eh? One of my favorites from Big Backyard Beat Show.

 

[Cotton66]

Seven nights, indeed!!!

Yes, our guitarist Johnny put that heinous video clip on the site and slapped a bunch of dorky effects on it. Someday we'll get a better clip on there!

Thanks for the suggestions!!!!!


TRENT

 

[Rudy]

Trent: at least you picked one of the best songs for the video clip! Too bad I'm too far away to hang with the Lovehaters this evening. Rudy (who's too lazy to work, and too nervous to steal) needs a night out! You guys ever cover anything by Setzer's latest rockabilly group ('68 Comeback Special), like "Ignition" or "Malagueña"?

Forgot to mention something about the Manhattan Transfer recording: one of the lyricists was well known in a former "life"...in other words, someone you would not expect to work with a vocal jazz/pop group. He got a chance to write lyrics for Djavan's song "Asa", and came up with some almost nonsensical lyrics for it, called "The Zoo Blues". It's nowhere near being a direct translation, but it's phonetically similar in English. Tim Hauser never thought it would work, but they ended up loving it, and the lyricist, Doug Feiger, wrote lyrics for Djavan's "Sina", aka "Soul Food To Go." (You'd have to hear Djavan's originals to get the "phonetic" near-translations, but since I was already familiar with both songs, I got a kick out of them.)

Doug Feiger sounds familiar for two reasons. First, he was the leader of The Knack, of "My Sharona" fame. A Detroit boy, no less. Second, his pompous-@$$ed brother (as we call him) Jeffrey Feiger, is the notorious attorney of Dr. Death himself...Kevorkian.

Full details of the Brasil album:
http://www.themanhattantransfer.com/Albums/brasil/brasil.htm

Gonna put it on here now, in fact.

And now a shameless plug for some pasta sauce (Tim Hauser's night job, if you will):

http://www.imadesauce.com/