User:Luciaiman

'Play it slow...Sellaband's Lucia Iman' I met a new music bro today. Theo the standard poodle had a playdate with his girlfriend Baja who lives just up the street. While we were talking with Baja's parents, the conversation turned to music and Baja's dad, Ron, suddenly asked me, "Do you play music?" Inside of a minute we were in Ron's music room listening to Pat Metheny and discussing the unique way that Metheny can say a great deal without "showing off" his obvious technical skills and harmonic vocabulary.

Ron is an amateur guitar player and has a very interesting and profound take on soloing. At one point he said, "Sometimes it seems like it takes so much more technique to play a slow melodic solo than to blast a flurry of notes. I mean, when you play a fast passage, a wrong note only lasts a split second, but if you play a wrong note in a ballad, you're stuck with it for a long time." What a brilliant insight, and one which takes many players years of blowing over jazz changes at battle speed to finally realize.

The same concept can be applied to singing. Performing a ballad with conviction is not a game for unseasoned singers. I have had the opportunity to play behind a number of excellent singers, but there are only three that could really hold an audience spellbound with a well sung ballad. Lucia Iman is one of these.

Lucia Iman is one of my very favorite artists on the Sellaband roster of potential recording artists. And Lucia is the very essence of deception. She is a soft spoken young woman who takes the stage with great humility. But after the first chorus of the first song, you realize that she has lied. She has allowed the audience to think that she is just another cute lounge singer. Her few words of introduction are delivered as if she were in your living room and anxious not to disturb your evening. And when she begins to play, she almost sneaks into your scope of attention. But then the truth comes out.

From the instant Lucia opens her mouth, she reaches right through the listeners ear and takes a firm hold of the heart. Lucia is very capable of many styles and genre, but like Hulk Hogan's headlock, her best hold is the ballad. Lucia has that special ability that few singers have, the ability to make a ballad sound easy. Indeed, when she sings the opening lines of her song, "Mister Green" the flow is so natural that it seems as if anyone could do it. Nothing could be further from the truth. But her ease of delivery lets the song be the star of the show.

But to really appreciate her deceptiveness, you must log on to the live webcast of the Sellaband "London Calling" show. there is nothing in her manner or appearance that would indicate the soulful mastery with which she sings the bluesy "Dreaming." Her vocal licks weren't learned in a gospel church or mimicked from old school blues recordings. they come straight from inside of her and are pure and heartfelt. There is not a hint of counterfeit or pandering, it is just Lucia singing with honest emotion.

As if just singing weren't enough, Lucia is a very talented songwriter. Her melodic sense is strong enough to stand on its own, but her lyrics set her apart from the crowd. She writes wonderful stories that are unspecific enough that each listener can relate in his own way and make the song his own. Her lyrics evoke the sort of imagery that speaks to a wide audience.

The bottom line from the Bottom-end is that of the 4500-plus artists currently striving to reach their 50 thousand dollar recording budget goal on Sellaband, Lucia Iman is a cut above. She is not looking for an identity or grasping at styles. She is a viable artist, ready to make an impactful album of sensitive songs. Lucia will be a good investment for those lucky enough to have believed in her ability to take her career to the next level of accomplishment.

Posted by Pete Strobl at 03:43 0 comments

Labels: Lucia Iman, Sellaband http://bottom-end.blogspot.com/2007/08/play-it-slowsellabands-lucia-iman.html