Jazz Guitar Bible

If you call it praise music or New Jack gospel, this genre is most often a classic case of "preaching to the choir", a song with lyrics lifted artlessly from the King James bible and histrionic music calculated to "reach out and touch someone's hand." Dear God. Fortunately, Charles Laster II and Silvia Pratesi do not make this mistake in your record life's journey. Their songs reference salvation, heaven, and live the Christian life, but as secular soul music, have an uplifting universality. Those of us who are not Christian - agnostics, Muslims, those whose spirituality can not be classified - can still understand the positive spirituality that is the source of the music Laster and Pratesi, and yet our groove on. Laster, who composed the excellent lyrics, and Pratesi, who created most of the songs with a perfect combination of live musicians and samples, remind us how gospel and rhythm and blues gave birth to soul music in the early sixties and how a new kind of soul is still possible.

You can also have, in this era of implementation on CD (dude, you really do not have to fill every second of a 74-minute CD-R) and the random mix of the iPod, a record that has a theme and takes the listener on a journey. "Journey of Life" does just that in a way that resembles a work of Stevie Wonder in the early 70s, and a melting pot of influences that forged a personal style, while familiar and completely different.

The first cuts have a rock and dance music flavor, but have their roots in old soul music. The title track begins with the strings of the sample, and a drum by David Heddon that is all about Motown and Philly soul. The vocal melody has a perfect simplicity in tune with the message of the song, sung on chords keyboard expansive: "Life is a journey full of many things / It can bring some pain will be some rain / not be afraid to explore it ... now imagine the understanding the past days / ... have a little faith. "This song is an opening for the entire record, and is composed of excerpts from different styles Laster and Pratesi withdraw. This song is a journey in itself: the voice sounds with the complexity smooth one minute after breaking a gospel stomp, with funky percussion and a drum unpleasant next line. Fuzz Guitar by Brett Farkas and wailing synths to get Laster strongly after sliding down in a quiet section ish ballad, followed by a soft chorus. A next song "I Believe" comes with hard-hitting funk rock, with a line of low fat, scratchy wah-wah guitar and blaring brass. Then it goes to a section jazz vocals influenced by muscle and Laster, playing in another element of left field, a verse from rap speed. The song ends with a coda of BB King, blues guitar style.

This album is based on the idea of change and spiritual growth and revelation. From the opening song, the trip goes through faith ( "I Believe") to question ( "In My Mind"), then the moment of revelation ( "Wrong To Right"). Stylistically the music reflects the emotions of music, ranging from intense and raucous rock to Latin-pensive ballad to a sparse Neptunes-style electro pop groove.

This flow leads to the show stopping climax of the album "Eternal Dancing. This song describes the party that awaits the promised land of Christian paradise, where there will be dancing and joyful experience. This is certainly more attractive than the vacancy by preachers told Sky TV grave, where "you will sit down with the left hand of God, while angels play trumpets of heaven, blah, blah, boooring. Now, dancing in a land of eternal love with other people, especially women, and celebrating the union on the dance floor? This is a sky that you can feel: "This life is full of history / life rhapsody / mysteries are even / I know you agree / One day we'll have this dance / and will never end / we'll step back and everywhere will be vibing / life in paradise / I can not wait that will be beautiful .. . When we walk through the doors of heaven ... and see the faces of those we love / Dance to the groove eternal ... "

Addition to music and joy, Laster is the complete lack of bravado, deception and underlying cynicism that plagues pop music and the evangelical movement in chunks unpleasant. Positivity, mad skills and music, music that is not dumbed down to attract and manipulate the masses, "are a thousand times more effective in disseminating and celebrating the Gospel of any fire and brimstone huckster ranting on TV. Journey to Life is an evocation of the modern spirit expressed in the passage from the Bible to Psalm 95:1 states: "O come, let us sing to the Lord: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation."

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About the Author:

Mark Kirby received his B.A. from Oberlin College back in the days when heroin was harder to find than pot and sex didn't kill you. He is a drummer, screenwriter, and fixture in the bars and clubs of N.Y.'s Lower East Side and the current mecca of the New Bohemia, Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

When not mining his past for the bizarre, weird and unseemly experiences that are the impetus of his short fiction, Kirby is hard at work writing paranoid, political rants and cultural criticism for various printed and online magazines such as Agree/Disagree, AltarNative, and Dream Forge online magazines. He is currently serving beers at various bars in Brooklyn and Manhattan, N.Y.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Charles Laster II & Silvia Pratesi: Believe What You Say and See

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