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This CD is a crossover adventure — a musical cocktail of classic jazz standards with a dash of continental, a Latin twist and a splash of the blues. This eclectic atmosphere has always been my home.
My father, a contemporary classical composer, conductor and pianist, took me to see Ray Charles, played and analyzed Duke Ellington songs with me and pointed out the brilliance of a young guitarist named Jimi Hendrix as we discussed Mozart, Bach and Schoenberg. My mother was a coloratura soprano who had performed classical lieder and show tunes in New York supper clubs. I myself have moved from classical, folk and pop music to musical theater and ultimately to jazz.
“Autumn Leaves,” or “Les Feuilles Mortes,” the first song on the CD, was a natural crossover, a standard written in French and English. It set the stage for a trip to Paris in “Padam, Padam,” the frenetic confession about a string of meaningless love affairs. “Blue By the River,” a song I wrote with Galt MacDermot, tells the story in a bluesy fashion of love in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Billy Strayhorn's “Lush Life,” evoking an American demimonde, inspired the title track, “One More Rhyme,” which I wrote with James Weidman. “All or Nothing at All” and “But Beautiful” are here rendered with a Latin beat. The very same dilemma of perilous love that they portray overpowers Joana Francesa in a Brazilian waltz, who pours out her heart in French, in Portuguese and back. When the work was done and the tracks had been assembled and sequenced from the red leaves of autumn to “Red Sails in the Sunset,” I realized I had been on a voyage, a road that I always travel when I sing the songs I love. I hope you will enjoy the passage as well. The songs on this CD are gathered to celebrate the journey of the human heart in an international spirit.
In addition to her many New York nightclub appearances, Lisa Kirchner wrote her own songs for and appeared regularly on NBC's “Another World.” Her varied performance background has included Broadway appearances in the role of Lucy Brown in The Threepenny Opera opposite Raul Julia and Phil Bosco and in various featured roles in William Dumaresque and Galt MacDermot's The Human Comedy. Off-Broadway Ms. Kirchner originated the role of Irma Vep in Richard Foreman and Stanley Silverman's Hotel For Criminals and its sequel, The American Imagination. She has been featured in numerous off and off-off Broadway productions. On television she appeared as Undine Spragg in the Bravo channel's Songs from the Heart and as a ballad singer in Out of Our Father's House on WNET's Great Performances. As a dancer she appeared with the James Waring Dance Company.
Ms. Kirchner has been invited to sing at Gracie Mansion and at the White House. With Judy Collins she has appeared as a featured soloist at Carnegie Hall.
Lisa Kirchner is the daughter of composer Leon Kirchner, winner of a 1967 Pulitzer Prize and a 1999 Grammy Award.
Autumn Leaves (Les Feuilles Mortes)
The falling leaves drift by my window,
The autumn leaves of red and gold.
I see your lips, the summer kisses,
The sun burned hands I use to hold.
Since you went away the days grow long,
And soon I'll hear old winter's song.
But I miss you most of all my darling,
When autumn leaves start to fall.
Mais la vie sépare ceux qui s'aiment
Tous doucement san faire de bruit.
Et la mer efface sur le sable
Les pas des amants désunis.
But life separates those who love,
And the sea erases on the sand
The footsteps of lovers no longer together.
Coração Vagabundo / Berimbau
De um dia ser tudo que quer
De um vulto feliz de mulher
Que passou por meu sonho sem dizer adeus
E fez dos olhos meus um chorar mais sem fim
Quer guardar o mundo em mim.
Berimbau berimbau berimbau,
Berimbau berimbau berimbau,
Quem é homem de bem não trai
o amor que lhe quer seu bem
Quem diz muito que vai, não vai
e assim como não vai, não vem
Quem de dentro de si não sai
vai morrer sem amar ningém
E o dinheiro de quem não dá
E o trabalho de quem não tem
Capoeira que é bom, não cai
e se um dia ele cai, cai bem
Berimbau, berimbau, berimbau,
Berimbau, berimbau, berimbau
My Vagabond Heart / Berimbau
It will be all that it wants;
Is not only the remembrance
Of a happy face of a woman
Who passed through my dreams
A weeping that never ends;
Wants to guard the world in me.
He who is really a man doesn't betray
The love that his beloved holds for him.
He who says often he goes, goes not,
And as he doesn't go, he comes not.
He who from inside himself doesn't emerge
Will die without loving anyone.
And the money of the one who doesn't give
Is the labor of the one who has none.
The capoeira who is good doesn't fall
And if one day he falls, he falls well.
To say that he's just come
The berimbau confirmed to me
There will be a fight of love.
Love is funny or it's sad
Or it's quiet or it's mad:
It's a good thing or it's bad,
Beautiful to take the chance and if you fall you fall
And I'm thinking I wouldn't mind at all.
Love is tearful or it's gay:
It's a problem or it's play:
It's a heart-ache either way,
And I'm thinking if you were mine I'd never let you go
And that would be but beautiful I know.
Assim se passaram dez anos
Sem beijar teus lábios assim
Recordo junto à uma fonte nos encontramos
Que alegre foi aquela tarde para nós dois
Recordo quando a noite abriu seu manto
E o canto daquela fonte nos envolveu
O sono fechou meus olhos me adormecendo
Senti tua boca linda a murmurar
“Abraça me, por favor, minha vida”
E o resto desse romance só sabe Deus.
This way, ten years passed
Without looking in your eyes
Without kissing your lips, this way:
I remember we met together by a fountain,
How happy was that afternoon for us two.
I remember as night opened its mantle
And the song of the fountain drew us in.
Drowsiness closed my eyes, I slept,
I heard your pretty mouth whispering:
“Embrace me, please, my darling.”
And the rest of this romance, God alone knows.
Cet air qui m'obsèd' jours et nuit
Pourtant, n'est pas né d'aujourd'hui;
Il vient d'aussi loin que je viens
Traîné par cent mill' musiciens.
Un jour cet air me rendra folle,
Cent fois j'ai voulu dir' pourquoi:
Mais il m'a coupé la parole
Il parle toujours avant moi
Et sa voix couvre ma voix.
Il arrive en courant derrièr' mois
Il m'a fait la coup du “souviens tois”
C'est un air qui me montre du doigt
Et je traîne après mois comme un' drôle d'erreur
Cet air qui sait tout par coeur.
It dit: Rapell' tois tes amours,
Rappell' tois puisque c'est ton tour;
Ya pas d'raison que tu n'pleur's pas
Avec tes souv'nirs sur les bras.
Et moi, je revois ce qui reste,
Mes vingt ans font battre tambour,
Je vois s'entre battrent des gestes
Tout' la comédie des amours
Sur un air qui va toujours
Des “je t'aim'” de quartorze Juillet
Des “toujour'” qu'on achète au rabais
Des “veux-tu, en voilà” par paquet,
Et tout çà pour tomber juste au coin d'la rue
Sur l'air qui m'a reconnue.
Ecoutez le chahut qu'il me fait.
Comme si tout mon passe defilait,
Faut garder du chagrin pour après
J'en ai tout un solfèg' dans cet air qui bat,
Qui bat, comme un coeur de bois.
This song, an obsession night and day,
It comes from as far back as I do
Trailed by one hundred thousand musicians.
One day this song will make me crazy.
One hundred times I've said “Why?”
But it cuts off my words.
It always speaks ahead of me
And its voice covers my voice.
It hits me with “Remember!”
It's an air that points the way
And I trip over myself like a bad mistake
This tune that knows it all by heart.
It says, “Remember your loves,
Remember because it's your ride.
There's no reason why you shouldn't cry
With those memories in your arms.”
And I see all that remains,
My twenty years beating on a tambourine.
I see all the moves entangled and flailing,
Above a tune that never ceases.
The “I love you” of the 14th of July
The “always” that one buys at a discount
The “Want to? Let's go” by the package
and all that in order to stumble
at the corner of the street
Over a tune that knows me.
Listen to the uproar it makes
As though my past were on parade.
I must save the shame for later,
I have a veritable “solfège” with this tune that beats,
That beats like a heart of wood.
It's easy to start and so hard to part
Down this river we know if we go with the flow,
One more time, one more bend
One more rhyme, what then?
It's heaven to gaze through a mystical haze
Into eyes we adore but we've been there before,
One sad verse, one refrain
We've rehearsed, what's to gain?
What's the pleasure in sorrow, the past in tomorrow
What bliss in a kiss will answer all this?
Love once was all we danced to the call,
Two hearts of one mind for a ripple in time.
Though now and again we may rewrite the end,
We're two streams at one bend.
It's easy to start and much harder to part
The current we know but how strong is the flow,
One more time, one more bend
One more rhyme, what then?
the moon is hanging down.
It's full to overflowing raining silver on the town.
Half a mind I had for Texas, you know or Mexico Whatever plain would heal my pain
But it's blue by the river
Where thoughts are free as dreams.
The water soothes like wine and so
I'll stay in New Orleans.
Smooth, untouched by love.
They laugh you see but love like me
And stars rain silver down.
But it's blue by the river
Where swirling kings and queens
Toast the ships, your lips and say
“That's one for New Orleans”
One day the tears will fall,
You'll sing the sky by numbers
To a tune you've never heard.
Keep in mind the time you spend
The call to noon will haunt you soon
But it's blue by the river,
The vein of time redeems.
Laugh but oh! one day you'll know
This port at New Orleans.
Tu pleures tu meures trop
Tu a le tropique dans le sang et surs le peau
Geme de locura de de torpor
Acorda, acorda, acorda, acorda
Geme de prazer e de pavor
Acorda, acorda, acorda, acorda
Tu as le parfum de la cachaça e de suor
Geme de preguiça e de calor
Acorda, acorda, acorda, acorda
You laugh, you lie too much
You cry, you die too much.
You have the tropics in your blood and on your skin
Moan of madness and torpor
Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up.
Kill me with mirth, talk to me of love,
I know you from afar and by heart.
Moan of pleasure and fear,
Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up.
Come, black boy and tell me,
Who cast this spell on me?
You have the perfume of rum and sweat.
Moan of pleasure and warmth,
Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up.
Half a love never appealed to me.
If your heart never could yield to me,
Then I'd rather have nothing at all!
If it's love there is no in between.
Why begin, then cry for something
No I'd rather have nothing at all.
But, please don't bring your lips
Don't smile or I'll be lost beyond recall.
the touch of your hand makes me weak,
And my heart may grow dizzy and fall.
And if I fell under the spell of your call,
I would be caught in the undertow.
So you see I've got to say no!
No! All or nothing at all!
Solidão é lava que cobre tudo
sorri seus dentes de chumbo
Solitude is lava that covers all,
A bitterness in the mouth
That smiles with its teeth of lead.
Solitude, a word carved in my heart,
In the circle of disillusionment.
Disillusionment I dance, you dance in the dance of solitude.
Maria tried to take her life
For the cause of her love.
My father always told me,
When I think of the future
I don't forget about the past.”
Disillusionment I dance, you dance in the dance of solitude.
With the dawn my thoughts wander,
I run my fingers on the guitar
Contemplating the full moon.
Despite it all a fountain of pure water exists,
Whoever drinks of that water
Will have no more bitterness.
Disillusionment I dance, you dance in the dance of solitude.
All that has already disappeared
Forget the moments of misunderstanding
Forget the hours that can kill
With the constant blow of “Why?”
As it hits the heart of happiness.
from countries where it doesn't rain.
To cover your body with gold and light.
That you will understand.
Leurs coeurs s'embrasser,
Qu'on croyait trops vieux:
Pour qu'un ciel flambloie
Ne me quitte pas, Ne me quitte pas,
Ne me quitte pas, Ne me quitte pas.
Who died from never having met you.
Than the most fruitful April
And when the evening comes
Do not the red and the black
The shadow of your shadow,
Swift wings you must borrow
Make straight for the shore
And he goes sailing no more
James Weidman has appeared with Abbey Lincoln, Woody Herman, Max Roach and Archie Schepp among others. He has accompanied and collaborated with Cassandra Wilson and is a pianist and Musical Director for Kevin Mahogany. James Weidman's auartet TAJA tours internationally. James Weidman's own recordings include A Night at Birdland.
Marcus McLaurine has appeared with The Count Basie Orchestra, Kenny Burrell, John Hendricks, McCoy tyner, Cleo Laine and Lou Donaldson among others. Recordings include appearances with Clark Terry, Abbey Lincoln, Grover Mitchell, Vincent Herring and Jay Hoggard. He has appeared with the Cab Calloway Band in the film, “The Cotton Club.”
Dave Gibson has appeared with The Count Basie Orchestra under the direction of Frank Foster, with Joe Williams, Rosemary Clooney, George Shearing, Archie Shepp, Stanley Turrentine and George Benson among others. Recordings include appearances with Diane Schuur, Harry “Sweets” Edison and the Joe Sudler Swing Machine featuring Clark Terry.
Ron Jackson has performed with Randy Weston, Babatunde Olatunjl, James Spaulding, Oliver Lake, Rufus Reid, Jimmy McGriff and Jaki Byard among others. Appearances in Broadway pit orchestras include “Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da funk,”“Fosse” and :Rent.” Under his own name he has two CDs entitled, A Guitar Thing and Thinking of You.
Yosuke Inoue has appeared with Hank Jones, Eddie Daniels, Cyrus Chestnut, Don Friedman, Junior Mance, Carmen Lundy and Terumasa Hinoamong others. He made his debut as a leader on the album Inside Out. His first album is entitled Speak Up. With his own group he has appeared at Carnegie Hall in New York. Recording appearances include Hank Jones and for JVC, Eddie Daniels.
Jimmy Madison has toured, recorded and played in concert with among others, Lionel Hampton, Marian McPartland, James Brown, Gerry Mulligan, Nina Simone, George Benson, Richie Havens, Stan Getz, and Chet Baker. He was an integral member of the Red Rodney Quintet. Jimmy Madison's latest CD is entitled, 90 Degrees With 100% Humidity.
Walter Kuehr is the leader of a nine piece Latin lounge band called The Last of the International Playboys. They have recorded a CD entitled Vegas Jazz and Latin Lounge. The group appears regularly at various New York clubs and has toured in the United States. Walter Kuehr owns an accordion shop called Main Squeeze in New York City.
Tracks 3, 4, 5 and 10 recorded and mixed at Tom Tom Recording Studio, NYC.
Vocal tracks 1, 6, 9 and 12 recorded at Arf, NYC.
Vocal tracks 2, 7, 1 and 12 recorded by and vocal tracks 1, 2, 6, 7, 9, 11 and 12 mixed by, John Guth - Nyack, New York.
Instrumental tracks 1, 2, 6, 7, 9, 11 and 12 recorded at Tedesco Studio, New Jersey.
Mastered by Alan Silverman
Cover Photo and CDPhoto by Robert Vance Blosser
With deep gratitude to James Weidman, Ron Jackson, Marcus McLaurine, Yosuke Inoue, Dave Gibson, Jimmy Madison and Walter Kuehr for committing their formidable talent to this project. They are the poets and painters of this musical voyage. Thanks to Alan Silverman, John Guth and Tom McGrath for their impeccable attention to detail and their discerning ears, to Christian Steiner, Nick Haddow and Robert Vance Blosser for their excellent photography, to Lenny Triola for his time and advice, to Danny Emerman and Alex Silva for their help with interpretations and transcriptions of the Brazilian songs, to Tara Deal for editing liner notes, to Galt MacDermot and James Weidman for their partnership in songwriting, to my brother Paul Kirchner for his exotic scenic painting and his mysterious and insightful portrait, revealing unspoken understanding, and to my dearest dad, Leon Kirchner, a beacon of honesty and profound artistry in music who has shown me by power of example to what I might aspire. With gratitude to, and in memory of, my mother, Gertrude Kirchner.
1 The Autumn Leaves (Feuilles Mortes) [4:04]
Jacques Prévert (French), Johnny Mercer (English),
and Joseph Kosma (Énoch et Cie, Morley Music Co.)
2 Coraçao Vagabundo / Berimbau [5:27]
Caetano Veloso / Vinicius de Moraes, Ray Gilbert and
Baden Powell de Aquino (Musicael / Ipanema Music
3 But Beautiful [4:31] Jimmy Van Huesan & Johnny
Burke (Bourne Co. Music Sales Corp.)
4 Dez Anos (Dez Años) [2:58] Lourival Faissal
(Rafael Hernandez - Portuguese translation) (Vitale)
5 Padam, Padam [2:52] Henri Contet and Norman
Glazenberg (Universal on Backstreet Music ASCAP,
Francis Salabert Editions SACEM, EMI Virgin Music)
6 One More Rhyme [6:02] Lisa Kirchner and James
Weidman (Lisa Kirchner Music, WIDE JAM Music)
7 Blue By The River [3:37] Lisa Kirchner and Galt
MacDermot (Lisa Kirchner Music, Galt MacDermot
8 Joana Francesa [3:11] Chico Buarque
9 All or Nothing at All [4:48] Jack
Lawrence (Range Road Music)
10 Dança da Solidão [3:53] Pauliñho da
11 Ne Me Quitte Pas [5:10] Jacques Brel
12 Red Sails [5:21] Jimmy Kennedy and
Hugh Williams (Bernstein Shapiro & Co.)
Tracks 1, 2, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12:
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