Kevin Morby: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

 by BOB BOILEN • The music of Kevin Morby is fairly straightforward and acoustic for the most part, with traditional, folk-based rock at its core. The mystery and intensity lies in the lyrics. His biting song "I Have Been To The Mountain," performed here at the Tiny Desk and on his 2016 album Singing Saw, was inspired by the 2014 chokehold death of Eric Garner at the hands of a New York City police officer.

That man lived in this town
Till that pig took him down
And have you heard the sound
Of a man stop breathing, pleading?

In this set, Meg Duffy's guitar provides a strong example of the care and craft that goes into these songs — and there's even more of that on Singing Saw, the album that finally hooked me on Morby's music even after good records he'd made with the bands Woods and The Babies, as well as two other solo albums. If you're a latecomer like me, dig in here. If you're already a convert, you'll likely love the clarity of these songs and their stark arrangements.

Singing Saw is available now:
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/sin...
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Singing-Saw-Ke...

Set List:
"Cut Me Down"
"Dorothy"
"I Have Been To The Mountain"

René Marie: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

by PATRICK JARENWATTANANON • The Colorado River — better known for running through majestic National Parks and powering hydroelectric dams — forms an unlikely backdrop for the creation of a jazz song. But René Marie was answering phones at Denver's jazz radio station KUVO when she sat down across from a fellow volunteer fundraiser. He would soon invite her on a canoeing trip and, without yet having seen the eponymous river, she wrote the giddy "Colorado River Song" on the way there.

René Marie's is the sort of voice which first comes to mind when someone asks for a jazz singer — big and expressive, at home in classic swinging settings and comfortable in crowds. There's plenty to set her apart, though. She made her first recording in her early 40s, so she's a late bloomer by any standard. Her tastes admit many influences, and she's got a penchant for original songwriting, especially where social justice intersects with personal biography. Her folky story-song "This Is (Not) A Protest Song" addresses homelessness and mental illness even in her own family.

Joined by her Experiment In Truth band (John Chin on piano, Elias Bailey on bass, Quentin Baxter on drums), Marie visited NPR headquarters to play songs from her new album Sound Of Red. She never specified the exact nature of that synesthetic idea, though the title track would seem to indicate that it's about the addictive and lusty blood-rush of performing — of seeing red while singing the blues. In the audience was the bold KUVO volunteer from that day 10 years ago. His name is Jesse, and they're now married and live in her home state of Virginia; they drove up together for this Tiny Desk concert.

Sound Of Red is available now:
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/sou...
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Red-Ren%...

Set List:
"Colorado River Song"
"This Is (Not) A Protest Song"
"Sound Of Red"

Rachel Barton Pine: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

by TOM HUIZENGA • The music of Johann Sebastian Bach is essential, like air and water, for many classical musicians. Pianist András Schiff starts every day with Bach — sometimes before breakfast. "It's like taking care of your inner hygiene. There's something very pure about it," he says. Cellist Matt Haimovitz notes that he's been playing and thinking about the Bach Cello Suites for more than 30 years. He even plays them in bars.


Violinist Rachel Barton Pine began playing Bach in church at age 4. Ever since, she's been mastering and re-mastering Bach's set of six Sonatas and Partitas—more than two hours of solo violin music that looms like a proverbial Mount Everest for any serious fiddler. The trick is getting the details down. Bach left us with the notes but not much else. Pine recently analyzed every measure of these works, and prepared a new edition of the music with her own dynamic markings, phrasing indications, bowings and fingerings.


For this performance, Pine chose three contrasting movements from the set and plays them on her Guarneri del Gesu violin, which was built in 1742 — eight years before Bach died. She highlights the spirit of the dance in the "Tempo di Borea" (a Bourée from the First Partita). She unfolds a serene melody, just lightly accompanied, in the "Largo" (from the Third Sonata), and she closes with the intertwining "Fuga" (from the First Sonata), which sounds like three violinists in deep discussion.


Although the Sonatas and Partitas brim with technical demands, Pine says that every time she plays them, it's as if she's "conversing with the very best of friends."


Testament: Complete Sonatas & Partitas For Solo Violin By J.S. Bach is available now:

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/tes...

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Testament-Comp...


Set List:

J.S. Bach: "Tempo di Borea" (from Partita No. 1)

J.S. Bach: "Largo" (from Sonata No. 3)

J.S. Bach: "Fuga" (from Sonata No. 1)

Gregory Porter: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

 by BOB BOILEN • Gregory Porter's healing soul music sends a message of compassion, and he's got a baritone voice that resonates love. When Porter visited NPR, we'd just learned that our colleague, photojournalist David Gilkey, had been killed while working on a story for NPR in Afghanistan. When Porter began singing the calmly beautiful "No Love Dying," he may not have known how much it would mean to us. Yet this song of compassion and hope, from his Grammy-winning 2013 album Liquid Spirit, was just what we'd needed.

Porter and pianist Chip Crawford continued their thoughtful, entrancing set with "Take Me To The Alley" (the title track to Porter's new album), a song about how we treat and think about those who live on society's margins. Closing this Tiny Desk concert is "Don't Be A Fool," another new song of love, loyalty and trust. For us, Porter's set provided a timely reminder that we can all use comfort, counsel and guidance — and that music can be serious and heartwarming without losing its sense of wonder and delight.

Take Me To The Alley is available now:
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/tak...
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Take-Me-Alley-...

Set List:
"No Love Dying"
"Take Me To The Alley"
"Don't Be A Fool"

Alessio Bax: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

by TOM HUIZENGA • The practice of lulling a child to sleep through music must be about the oldest tradition imaginable. All parents have wanted their children to sleep at some point, if only to have a little peace and quiet — and to plot strategies for getting their own shuteye.

Pianist Alessio Bax knows all about sleep — and lack thereof. He's a first-time parent, and his 22-month-old daughter Mila is, like any child that age, a handful, not to mention impossibly cute.

For Father's Day, we invited Bax and his daughter behind Bob Boilen's desk for a few lullabies from the award-winning pianist's recent album Lullabies For Mila. Sensing attention from the crowd and the cameras, Mila is anything but sleepy. On the contrary, with her own running commentary — and some fast fingering on a toy keyboard — she does her best to steal the show.

Bax begins with a rendition of J.S. Bach's "Sheep May Safely Graze," explaining that the composer asks the performer to do three things at once, which is not unlike the duties a new parent must juggle. Mila's mom, Lucille Chung, joins her husband at the piano for a brief Brahms Waltz (Op. 39 in A-flat) often referred to as a lullaby. As if on cue, Mila eagerly introduces Chung with a sweet "Mama, too." Bax closes with a ravishing Prelude by Rachmaninoff. As the undulating music begins to heat up, Mila pounds away at her own mini-keyboard — that is, until Mom plucks the toy from her lap.

Lullabies for Mila is available now:
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/lul...
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Lullabies-Mila...

SET LIST:
"J.S. Bach (arr. Petri): Sheep May Safely Graze"
"Brahms: Waltz No. 15 in A-flat major, Op. 39"
"Rachmaninoff: Prelude No. 4 in D, Op. 23"

Chick Corea & Gary Burton: Tiny Desk Concert

Yo ví estos dos gigantes en 1984 en el Centro de Bellas Artes de Santurce.



June 13, 2016 by SURAYA MOHAMED • Sometimes big-name artists need special attention. But in this case, it wasn't because they've been jazz pioneers and innovators since the 1960s and are considered to be founding fathers of jazz fusion, not to mention two of the most important jazz figures performing today. It's not because they've collectively recorded more than 100 albums and won 29 Grammy Awards. The agitation was because both of their instruments couldn't fit behind Bob Boilen's Tiny Desk.

There were logistical hurdles to overcome before the jazz giants' arrival. We had to move the desk to make a bigger "stage." Piano movers hauled the 900-pound Yamaha C7 grand piano from our first-floor performance studio up the freight elevator to the fourth-floor Tiny Desk area. But weeks of meticulous measuring and planning paid off when the rented vibes were delivered and just fit alongside the piano.

Gary Burton and Chick Corea were in town for the 2016 NEA Jazz Masters Concert. The NEA Jazz Masters fellowship is the highest honor our nation bestows on jazz artists. Each year, the program honors a select few living legends who have made exceptional contributions to the advancement of jazz. Burton was a newly appointed 2016 recipient, while Corea received the honor in 2006.

These friends first played together 44 years ago, when they recorded their very first album, Crystal Silence. In his autobiography, Gary Burton tells the story:

We set aside three days for the recording. Except for ... one tune in Munich, Chick and I hadn't worked together before Berlin, so we figured we would need a fair amount of time to choose songs and finalize arrangements. But to our amazement, it all went incredibly fast. We would spend maybe twenty minutes creating an arrangement, and then record. We did every song in just one take, except that we required a second spin through "Senor Mouse."
The record was finished in just a few hours, and the two realized they had a unique musical chemistry with the ability to anticipate each other's improvisational ideas. That album went on to become a classic: flawless yet fresh and forever new.

A few thousand concerts later, the jazz masters showed up at NPR HQ to perform a concert at our newly expanded Tiny Desk. On this day, it had been almost two years since Chick Corea and Gary Burton had played together — the longest break they'd ever had. But once again, their remarkable ability to connect was demonstrated in two songs they play together all the time.

Hot House is available now:
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/hot...
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Hot-House-Chic...

SET LIST:
"Love Castle"
"Crystal Silence"

Jane Bunnett and Maqueque: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

by FELIX CONTRERAS 


Jane Bunnett knows a few things about Cuban music. She and her husband, trumpeter Larry Kramer, have been traveling to the island from their home base of Toronto for more than 30 years. They've collaborated with musicians there, as well as back home in Canada and on tours around the globe.

So it should come as no surprise that when Bunnett chose to perform with some of the top young women musicians from the island, she'd choose some of the best of their generation. As you can sense from this video, the members of Maqueque are conservatory-trained, but also schooled in Afro-Cuban tradition.

If you want to hear what Cuba sounds like today, then be sure to listen. It's a pleasure to watch and listen as Jane Bunnett and Maqueque share their passion with the world.

Jane Bunnett & Maqueque is available now: 
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/jan...
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Jane-Bunnett-M...

Set List:
"Little Feet"
"Maqueque"
"25 New Moves"

Charles Lloyd y Jason Moran: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

June 28, 2016 by FELIX CONTRERAS • Together, saxophonist Charles Lloyd and pianist Jason Moran make jazz that draws from the past while looking to the future. Lloyd's body of work stretches back to the mid-1960s, and has always shown a disregard for boundaries and cliches. He seems determined to work through the later part of his career with artistically and spiritually motivated playing that simply astounds.

Moran is the sound of today and tomorrow. You can hear reverence in his duo playing with Lloyd — and you may also notice playing that taps into Lloyd's ever-present youthful spirit. Together, their performance behind Bob Boilen's Tiny Desk was as refreshing and energizing as deep meditation.

Hagar's Song is available now:
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/hag...
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Hagars-Song-Ch...

Set List:
"Hagar's Lullaby" (by Charles Lloyd)
"Prayer" (by Charles Lloyd)
"Sand Rhythm" (by Charles Lloyd & Jason Moran)

Valley Queen: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

At first it was simply the voice that shook me. I was in Austin, Texas, during SXSW, and my buddy Sean Moeller of Daytrotter told me he was recording a new favorite band and I should come by. The house/makeshift studio on Austin's East Side was saturated with the alluring voice of Natalie Carol and her solid yet rattling Neil Young-ish band. That was my introduction to Valley Queen, and I've seen them shake the walls at a few venues around the country now, one of which was here at NPR. When this band, which has only put out a few singles on Bandcamp so far, came to the Tiny Desk, its members played like veterans. Valley Queen's music is rich with nuance and depth, rooted deep in California country. They are working toward that debut record, and three songs they played at the Tiny Desk were unreleased. Here is an early glimpse of some growing talent.

- Bob Boilen

For more information about Valley Queen, visit its website: http://www.valleyqueenmusic.com/


Set List:

"In My Place"
"Hold On You"
"Ride"

Adia Victoria: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

At first, I was drawn in by Adia Victoria's languid guitar sound: In her hands, it practically has a drawl of its own. Then I heard her stories — never trite, often personal, always potent — which you can hear in the words that open her Tiny Desk concert. "I don't know nothing 'bout Southern belles," she sings in "Stuck In The South," adding, "but I can tell you something 'bout Southern hell."

Adia Victoria's voice is powerful and direct, with no artifice; it carries the singular perspective of a Southern black woman with a Seventh Day Adventist upbringing, who never felt like she'd fit in. She recently put out her first album, Beyond The Bloodhounds, and two of the songs here ("Stuck In The South" and "And Then You Die") are from that record. It's a brilliant debut, though I highly recommend seeing her perform live for the full experience.

- Bob Boilen, NPR


Beyond The Bloodhounds is available now:
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/bey...
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Bloodho...

Set List:
"Stuck In The South"
"And Then You Die"
"Heathen"

Brandy Clark: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

There's no explicit narrative threading together Brandy Clark's second album, Big Day In A Small Town. Instead, the 11 interconnected songs map a small collection of streets, landmarks, loves, betrayals and heartbreaks that cohere into a place as particular and as universal as Winesburg or Grover's Corners.

Low-key and wry, Clark is a meticulous songwriter who made hits for Reba McEntire, Miranda Lambert, LeAnn Rimes and Kacey Musgraves before she put her own name on an album. (It's hard to believe that nobody wrote the instant-classic line, "If you want the girl next door, then go next door," before she did.) But when Clark steps in front of a mic and turns on the charm, her humor pulls the audience right into every single joke — watch for the knowing smile she shoots guitarist Miles Aubrey just before she drops a bomb at the end of the first chorus of "Daughter." In anyone else's hands, that song might have been a bitter revenge fantasy, but Clark's gently swooping verses and puckered choruses sketch the bemused, from-the-front-porch distance of wronged party who knows that fate is likely to do more damage to a cad than a key would ever do to his car's glossy paint job.

"I really developed a love for small towns when my dad died and I went home for his memorial service, and there were so many people they had to have it in a gym," Clark said before introducing "Since You've Gone To Heaven," the heartbreaker that closes Big Day. "And that's not an uncommon thing in a small town, but anywhere else in the world, that only happens for a celebrity." Clark's gift as a performer is making any room — even a newsroom on a cold, rainy spring afternoon — feel as warmly human.

- JACOB GANZ

Peter Frampton: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

by BOB BOILEN • I could walk by Peter Frampton on the street and not recognize him. His long blond hair, which shines like a halo on his album Frampton Comes Alive! may be gone, but as soon as he sat behind the Tiny Desk and began singing, 1976 came rushing back. I worked in a record store the year Frampton Comes Alive! came out, and it was one of those records that seemed to have universal appeal. We sold a ton of copies of that double live album and I can still remember the label and number (A&M 3703) from having written it on countless sales tickets.

Forty years later, on the new album Acoustic Classics, Peter Frampton has taken those electric guitar songs, some linked forever to that unmistakable talk box effect, and stripped them down to their essence, just a few acoustic guitars and his voice. At the Tiny Desk, played by Peter and guitarist Gordon Kennedy, these songs still thrill. We had a lot of coworkers and friends come watch Frampton come alive again. It was electrifying to hear a room full of people spontaneously burst out singing on the chorus of "Baby, I Love Your Way" especially when many of those singing weren't alive when that song came out.

Songwriters could spend their lives hoping to write a song that connects for the ages, but Peter Frampton told the NPR crowd that two of his biggest hits came to him on a beach on the same day. The notion that one day the magic is there and the next it's gone could haunt a songwriter, but not Peter Frampton. On this day I saw one of the happiest musicians walk into our building, a man filled with joy, eager to share his tunes he's sung over and over for much of his adult life, with a fresh attitude. It was enchanting.

Robert Ellis: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

Andy Shauf: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

May 20, 2016 by ROBIN HILTON • Saskatchewan singer-songwriter Andy Shauf is the kind of guy you'd find laying low at a party, maybe tucked into the corner of a room with a drink in his hand, keeping to himself but taking everything in. He's soft-spoken and reserved, more comfortable delivering the news than being a part of it (though "comfortable" may be too strong a word).

Shauf's latest album is, appropriately enough, called The Party. It's an emotionally remote collection of character studies and bent observations made during a gathering of drunken fools, smooth operators and the painfully self-aware.

Andy Shauf recently brought The Party to the NPR Music offices for this quietly affecting Tiny Desk performance. His set opens with "The Magician," a song about a poser schmoozing his way through a crowd, followed by "To You," a slightly comical but awkward confession of unrequited love. Shauf closes with the relatively propulsive "You're Out Wasting," a meditation on greed, selling out and late-night anxiety; it's from his 2015 album The Bearer Of Bad News.

Florist: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

by BOB BOILEN • In Florist, Emily Sprague and her Catskills friends sing quiet, delicate songs filled with vivid memories. "Vacation" is about growing up and learning about love.

"Like when I used to ride roller coasters with my dad
When a swimming pool in a hotel
Was a gift from God
Like, love, we're like a family
I don't know how to be"

"Cool And Refreshing" finds Sprague singing about the childhood memories that we lose one by one.

"Think of me by the creek in cutoff jeans holding onto
Something that has meaning to me
I don't really think my life will ever make me
As happy as Kaaterskill Creek"

These two songs are from Florist's 2015 EP, Holdly, while the band closes its Tiny Desk concert with "1914," a track from its new debut full-length, The Birds Outside Sang. On drums, you'll find a Tiny Desk alum in Felix Walworth, who was first here with Bellows, then Eskimeaux; all of these musicians are connected in some way to the Epoch, a collective from New York City. It's a creative friendship with stories to share, and its members' songs feel best in intimate settings, like a desk surrounded by old and new friends.

Julia Holter: Tiny Desk Concert

 Julia Holter's music exists in tiny universes, colliding in torch songs and bits of cosmic cabaret that are as reverent as they are perverse. The most minute details and the plainest words suddenly form a grandiose spectacle. Last year's Have You In My Wilderness saw Holter playing with subtle songs that unraveled more with each experience; in the NPR Music offices, those songs were given quiet and bombastic arrangements that felt close and distant at once, with a throwback to the bouncy "In The Green Wild" from 2013's Loud City Song.

Holter is joined by Devin Hoff (bass), Corey Fogel (drums, vocals) and Dina Maccabee (viola, vocals), and herself plays upright piano, which is a rare treat live. On tour, her keyboard allows synthetic textures to accentuate her clear voice, but when she hits the chorus in "Sea Calls Me Home" here, Holter floors the sustain pedal and pounds atonal chords with wild abandon as she sings, "I can't swim / It's lucidity / So clear!" The solo highlight "Betsy On The Roof" also benefits from the upright, but is quickly joined by light viola and bass as the song builds to a dramatic climax that has no choice but to fall apart in broken chords and desperate pleas.

- LARS GOTRICH

Christopher Paul Stelling: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

After spending time with Christopher Paul Stelling's third album, Labor Against Waste, I expected a certain intensity to his performance. But I didn't expect him to nearly implode behind my desk, as the fierceness of his heartfelt songs was set against deft fingerpicking on his beat-to-hell '64 Gibson gut-string classical guitar. That guitar, bought in Asheville, looks like a well-worn friend, with its dark bruised wood and his initials hand-carved into its body. Stelling marked the instrument a year after he bought it, when he made New York City his home in 2007.

By the time he played "Horse," his third song at the Tiny Desk, Stelling seemed overtaken by the song he wrote. Watch him lean in as if he's about to lunge, his eyes bugged out, sometimes rolled back in his head revealing just the whites, skin blood-red, voice like a preacher on fire. His music feels undeniable: Best witnessed live, it's steeped in tradition yet filled with vitality, immediacy and soul — all the reasons worth discovering someone new.

- Bob Boilen

Julien Baker: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

There are nine spare, simple songs on Julien Baker's debut album, Sprained Ankle, and every one of them is sad. In fact, she came to the Tiny Desk with an untitled new one — since given the name "Funeral Pyre" — and she appropriately introduced it as "Sad Song #11." But Baker's shimmering electric-guitar picking, the purity of her voice and the yearning way she sings make each of her songs lovely and memorable rather than merely somber. She takes raw emotions and weaves them into perfect bits of memorable poetry like this, from the song "Good News":

In the thin air my ribs creak
Like wooden dining chairs when you see me
Always scared that every situation ends the same
With a blank stare

For fans of Torres, another Tennessee musician, there's a similar intensity to that electric guitar and lonesome sound. But unlike the intensity Torres unleashes with her voice, Baker lets her words carry the volume. It's a tone that lulls you into her world and has me eagerly anticipating "Sad Song #12" and beyond.

- Bob Boilen

Natalie Merchant: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

In the summer of 2014, Natalie Merchant came to Washington, D.C., to perform her first album of all-new material in 13 years. She was supposed to play here at my desk the day after that evening's performance. Instead, she fell ill, wound up in a D.C. hospital, and canceled her upcoming dates.

Now, Merchant has rerecorded her first solo album Tigerlily, complete with strings and different instrumentation. That album is called Paradise Is There: The New Tigerlily Recordings, and she recently came back to town to make a documentary film about that record. And so it was with abundant joy that Natalie Merchant finally made it to the NPR Music offices. This was truly one of the most warmhearted Tiny Desk performances I've ever seen. She sang the title track from 2001's Motherland, "Texas" from that self-titled 2014 release and something from Tigerlily, and then Merchant had the NPR audience join her for a beautiful hymn heard on The House Carpenter's Daughter — so have a tissue handy.

BOB BOILEN, January 12, 2016 

Leon Bridges: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

by BOB BOILEN



We probably should have shot this Tiny Desk Concert in black-and-white. Listening to Leon Bridges, I hear a sound with its heart and soul rooted in 1962. There's purity in his voice that's unadorned, untouched and unaffected by 21st-century pop. It's just soul.



Still, the songs from this 26-year-old Fort Worth singer feel refreshing in the context of the day. Surely there's touches of Sam Cooke's spiritual sound, but Leon Bridges has a way of making the familiar feel adventurous and new. It may be because this is all new to him. He only picked up the guitar around the age of twenty and only began listening to classic soul music after friends told him he sounded like R&B musicians from long ago. What Leon Bridges has tapped into on his debut album with fellow Fort Worth musicians including Austin Jenkins from White Denim is a universal sound, an undeniably heartfelt sound which transcends age, race and musical tastes. He's easy to love and tough to resist and his performance at the Tiny Desk with his fabulous band is a testament to what it means to sing from the heart.