Yalin singing live at the legendary Green Mill

Yes, you've read that correctly. I've made it to the Green Mill and sang two songs with a trio as part of the Bloom School of Jazz recital. While I was in Chicago for the past couple of months, I decided I should invest in myself a bit and decided to take the jazz vocal courses offered by Spider Saloff at the Bloom School. After seven sessions and a few rehearsals, I found myself on the stage of the legendary Mill.. what can I say? It feels great!

The two songs I performed are You've Changed by Bill Carey and Carl Fischer and Honeysuckle Rose by Thomas 'Fats' Waller. Feel free to head to the following youtube links to watch the live performance of both songs at the Mill. Hope you enjoy them!

You've Changed - http://youtube.com/watch?v=QY9hIhf4hJo
Honeysuckle Rose - http://youtube.com/watch?v=s4RwFEwBu7A

Lights. Mic. Record. One. Two. One, Two, Three, Four!

I've been quite active with music lately. I recorded four songs for my best friend's birthday in Jan 2008. All four songs are covers and more or less in the style of the original performer, especially the Amy Winehouse covers. They also have a single idea that binds them - longing (for love, for life, etc.). Therefore, I named this CD of covers after my best friend's name - ö·z·l·e·m, which means longing in Turkish. Below are four songs:

1. I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight – Bob Dylan
2. Stronger Than Me – Amy Winehouse
3. Love is a Losing Game – Amy Winehouse
4. C’est L’amour – Carla Bruni

I also signed up for jazz vocal classes at the Bloom School of Jazz at the beginning of the year and have been attending once a week. I've just recorded a demo of the two songs that I'll be performing at the Green Mill in Chicago on March 29 as my graduation ceremony. I'm really excited because I was able to develop my own style for both songs, You've Changed and Honeysuckle Rose. They're not the best right now as I'm still working on them, but they've come a long way... With this demo CD, I can target problem areas and try and improve before the final show at the Green Mill. Let me know if you have any suggestions!

I hope to stay as active as I've been so far on the music front. Hopefully, you'll hear from me again with more songs and maybe jam sessions/open-mic nights, where I'll need your support. ;) Check out the songs at my myspace.com page:

http://www.myspace.com/ysolmaz

Havada Bulut Yok - First Recording

I finally got around to encoding my performance at the 2005 Colors of Rhythm concert at Oberlin College. It has a lot of value for me as it was my first time singing a traditional Turkish turku ever, and it consequently led to my interest in flamenco. Many thanks to Savas, who is playing the guitar, BOzlem, who pulled the Turks of Oberlin together for this performance, Asli, BOzlem, KOzlem and Sercil for the choreography. I encoded two versions of the performance, one with only the song and another one with both the song and the dance sequence.

Turku Only


And here's the link for the version with both the song and the dance sequence:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVkW-hneHXM

Enjoy! There will be more to come! ;)

When will she grow up?...

OK, I absolutely love Amy Winehouse's voice, but when will she grow up? She's wasting her amazing voice by getting wasted or high all the time. Just listen to this video of her performing at EMA. It's disgusting...



And now listen to this, where she sings with Charlotte Church. Church actually sounds better than Winehouse...sad...!

A Very Short Story

Inspired by the Kronos Quartet Concert at the Barbican, 29th July 2007, featuring Wu Man

The pipa shone with a cold blue, almost ethereal, light, bathing the whole stage in stillness. Nothing had felt more alone than sensing the resounding notes all around me at that moment, vibrating, almost echoing in the empty space around me. At that moment, I knew I was alone.

The quartet continued playing...

I breathed in and out with each movement of the viola bow. I would stop breathing when they ceased brushing their bows against their strings. I was partly glad and partly sad about this connection. The viola slowed down in anticipation of the end of the piece, dragging out the last four notes of the last musical phrase, aptly titled "Royal Funeral." I counted as the viola player moved his bow in precise time steps, as I breathed in and out. One. Two. Three. Four.