Canadian vocalist Holly Cole isn’t one of those artists who falls into any one category. Cole is experimenting with jazz and pop elements and became one of Canada’s musical darlings. Cole’s choice to cover classics by Tom Waits was ambitious. The formula worked for her, and she reworked material by Joni Mitchell, Mary Margaret O’Hara and The Beatles.
Rufus Wainwright plays Avo Session
Especially since his composition contract at the famous Metropolitan Opera of New York, he is one of the most famous songwriters of our time. Rufus Wainwright is also an exceptionally gifted singer and piano player. With Release the Stars, his fifth album in a decade, Wainwright artfully establishes the intimacy he was reaching for. The hard-working Wainwright tours the world in support of Release the Stars and will perform in Basel in an intimate atmosphere in front of only 1530 fans.
Suzanne Vega plays Avo Session
On “Beauty & Crime”, the Manhattan native Suzanne Vega uses New York City as the backdrop for a collection of eleven new songs that juxtapose acoustic guitar-driven melodies with coolly synthesized beats. “Beauty & Crime” is her first new studio album in six years. The album has the warmth of analog but the technology of the digital world. Among the players joining Vega and members of her touring band are guitarists Gerry Leonard (David Bowie, Rufus Wainwright) and Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth; Scottish singer-songwriter KT Tunstall contributed background vocals and vocal arrangements.
The Hooters play Avo Session
debut release Nervous Night sold in excess of 2 million copies and included Billboard Top 40 hits such as Day By Day, And We Danced and Where Do The Children Go. With a total of six albums, The Hooters achieved worldwide superstar status throughout the 80’s and 90’s. The Hooters recorded their first album of new material since 1993. Time Stand Still was released in 2007, preceded by a tour of Europe, with shows in Germany, Sweden, The Netherlands and: Basel – Switzerland!
Lucinda Williams plays Avo Session
Lucinda Williams received the Grammy Award for Best Country Song in 1994. The long-awaited release, 1998’s Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, was Williams’ breakthrough to the mainstream and received a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. She moved further from the country music establishment while winning fans in the alternative music world. She won the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Female Rock performance for the single Get Right With God. Her last album titled West was released in 2007. Vanity Fair has praised it, saying ‘Lucinda Williams has made the record of a lifetime – part Hank Williams, part Bob Dylan, part Keith Richards circa Exile On Main Street…’
Patti Austin Plays Avo Session
Patti Austin crosses all musical genres, has many solo albums to her credit, has performed her award nominated hit songs on the Grammys and Oscars. Her 1998 Jazz Album “In and out of Love” spent almost two years on the contemporary jazz charts. With live performances, along with her appearances with symphony orchestras throughout the world, Austin can look at her latest accomplishments with much justifiable pride. And Patti Austin continues to create milestones in an incredible career as a Jazz singer.
Kronos Quartet & Kimmo Pohjohnen – Uniko
Kimmo Pohjonen is one of the cutting-edge accordion virtuosi and composers of our time. After having heard a record of Pohjonen’s during their concert tour in Finland, Kronos Quartet – who is well known for breaking new musical grounds – decided to get in touch with him. The Kronos/Kluster project entitled “Uniko” is a mutually beneficial sonic/visual adventure with this goal: to create unique and never-before-heard-of sounds from accordion and strings. The Making-Of is a short documentary giving an insight into the collaboration between Kimmo Pohjonen, who has taken the accordion to new dimensions, his Kluster-partner Samuli Kosminen, Finland’s sampling guru, and the world’s most revolutionary string quartet – the Kronos quartet.
Summer of Love
In four (two) creatively composed episodes provided with clips from Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, The Rolling Stones, Cat Stevens, Led Zeppelin and many other legendary artists of that time, the documentary deals with the central topics of this unique phenomenon in pop history: The Summer of Love. The sexual liberation and the search for new, spiritual ways were most important for an attitude towards life that established its own event- and party culture for the first time in history. The documentary is based on interviews with vocalists like Donovan, Art Garfunkel, Adam Green, Bob Marley, Yoko Ono and Michelle Philipps from „The Mamas & The Papas”. As a leitmotif we pose the question of actuality of the cultural achievements in which the hippies succeeded.
La Vedova Scaltra
Wolf-Ferrari wrotes La vedova scaltra as pure amusement, a portrayal of fine intrigue that is, in itself, without any idealistic echoes, following the uncritical line of eighteenth-century comedy – nostalgia for a civilization with ancient roots, which the musician still felt he was part of.
Sunshine Superman – The Story of Donovan
From shaggy-haired, demin-clad Dylan Apostle to brocade-robed, hitmaking folk-rock guru, Donovan’s ascension to 60s pop royalty was meteoric. From mediating with the Beatles in India to recording with Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page or Jack Bruce, everything this gentle Glasgow born troubadour touched turned to gold. Over the last three years, Hannes Rossacher from DoRo Productions has filmed Donovan at all the locations that have had the highest significance in this extraordinary singer/songwriter’s life, weaving together a comprehensive documentary about the life and work of Donovan.