Lisa B on Grammy Nominating Ballot in 3 Rap Categories: NARAS Members Mail Ballots by 10/2

I'm overjoyed that my new CD and title track "The Poetry of Groove," coproduced and cowriitten with James (Jim) Gardiner of Oakland's Pajama Studios, is on the 52nd Grammy Awards Nominating Ballot for Best Rap Solo Performance, Best Rap Song, and Best Rap Album. I'm honored to be joined by Queen Latifah, Mos Def, and many other exciting artists in this genre.

If you're a NARAS member (or if you're not!), please check it out at http://www.lisabmusic.com/cds_books.html. Or write me and I'll send you the mp3!

If you don't usually vote in the Rap field — if you usually hang in the R&B or Jazz or World or Alternative category — this is your chance to wander over to Rap and cast your vote for something creative that draws from those genres. This jazzy hip-hop CD has reminded listeners of such diverse artists as Gil Scott-Heron, Sade, Bob Dylan, Ani Difranco, Grace Slick, Jill Scott, John Coltrane (one tune is based on "Naima"), and Eric B & Rakim. I'm not kidding! I was a poet first, then a singer who released three CDs in the jazz and jazz-soul vein, but in "The Poetry of Groove" I feel I've found a unified sound that melds both poetry and the groove in a unique and memorable way. It's joyful and rich, playful and deep — or at least I hope you find it that way.

Ballots are due in L.A. (NOT postmarked) Oct. 9, so please mail early. Thanks for your support, and for helping achieve the further small miracle of making me one of the five actual nominees in one of these categories!
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www.itunes.com/lisab
www.cdbaby.com/Artist/LisaBLisaBernstein
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Isley Meets Bacharach

Reveling in the memory of Ronald Isley singing Burt Bacharach on a great CD I re-heard recently, "Here I Am." One of the most moving vocal records in existence. If maple syrup had a heart and sang rich and sweet. With impeccable control. Every word an authentic expression.

Who knew there was so much heartache and depth in Isley, not to mention Bacharach/David? With Bacharach's gorgeous orchestra & arrangements (& piano). Get it!

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www.itunes.com/lisab

www.cdbaby.com/Artist/LisaBLisaBernstein

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11/6/09 Lisa B & Her Poetic Groove Trio at Anna's Jazz Island, Berkeley (and Thanks for Last Saturday at Armando's)

Thanks to the audience and the wonderful folks at Armando's music club in Martinez, Calif., for the great gig — the best of my life! The top-quality sound man and sound system helped all of us soar. It was great to test the improved vocal chops I'd been working toward for the past year and to discover that they really were accessible on the night of the gig. That meant more tones, resonance, range, dramatic capability, musical flexibility, and joy. And Armando's is a fun, authentic, welcoming, relaxed place to play.

The band killed. Bryan Bowman on drums, Jeremy Cohen on electric bass, and keyboardist Ben Flint at the top of his form, plus chiming in on vocals! Someone in the audience also commented on our "witty banter."

I was glad to hear that performing with a couple of instrumental versions of tracks from my new CD (along with Jeremy, in one case) worked well — and was even the favorite of some folks in the house!

And we're ready to do it all again (except differently, as ever) at Anna's Jazz Island in downtown Berkeley, Calif., on Friday, November 6, 2009. Mark your calendars!

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www.itunes.com/lisab

www.cdbaby.com/Artist/LisaBLisaBernstein
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New CD Out! Aug. 22 Gig. And More!

ONE. The CD is out! "The Poetry of Groove" is now available — an entire set of playful, poetic rap and sultry choruses over jazzy hip-hop grooves.

It's five tracks of new material in various mixes, and five tracks of remixed and/or remastered spoken-word groove tunes from my previous three CDs.

You can get a physical disk from my website (that means me) at the special sale price of $10.99 — an offer good for the next 10 days: http://www.lisabmusic.com/cds_books.html

And you can get physical CDs, MP3 albums, and MP3 tracks at iTunes, Amazon, or CDBaby. Pretty links are on my site, unadorned ones at the bottom of this email, for you impetuous ones.

TWO. Free tracks. Some of you helped me a couple of years ago by voting for me in the Downbeat Listeners Poll. I promised you a free MP3 track in return. Write me now and remind me that I should send you one, and whether you prefer a jazzy hip-hop, electronica, or world flavor, or even which one you want, if you know!

THREE: CD release gig! Mark your calendars! I'm performing

Saturday, August 22, 8 - 11 p.m.$8 each or $15 for 2
The intimate, great-sound-system, friendly place Armando's
707 Marina Vista, Martinez, CA 94553, (925) 228-6985
(over 21 only)

Drive on out, it's only about 1/2 hour from Oakland and very relaxing. With ace trio Ben Flint on keys, Bryan Bowman on drums, and Jeremy Cohen on bass. Come celebrate with us! New material and old favorites.

FOUR: Your help with reviews and gigs. Please go over to the sites below and review the new CD! It really helps. Also, I'm booking lots of events in the Bay Area and beyond. Contact me if you run a reading or performance series/venue. Thanks in advance!

FIVE: The FREE LisaB app (prototype of Band App!) for the iPhone and iPod Touch. I'm excited to be the demo and face of the new Band App! for those i-Things. Perfect for bands and other performers who want to be carried around in your fans' pockets. 

SIX: (I love tunes in 6/8!) Follow, befriend, comment. I'm digging the 140-character genre of Twitter for poetic outbursts and prosaic updates. You don't need a cell phone; just read it on the web. And, who knew?, it turns out Facebook really does feel like an electronic village. Finally, I'm blogging on topics such as teaching poetry to my third-graders, a poignant real-life Father's Day soundtrack, Billie vs. Carmen on "Good Morning, Heartache," and tuning up your own vibration. Lend your responses and link me to your own efforts.

SEVEN: (OK, we're going odd-meter): Finally, my go-getter publicist has pushed me way out of the closet as a clairvoyant reader and healer — not that I hid it, I just didn't blast it to the world. Too late now, thanks to a forthcoming story in a national women's mag! If you're interested in a phone reading/healing, or have questions about it, please get in touch. Happy references available.

Thank you, my darlings! All my best, Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein)

Get "The Poetry of Groove" at:

Lisa-land: http://www.lisabmusic.com/cds_books.html

iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=317598375&s=143441

CDBaby: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/lisab4

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Poetry-Groove-Lisa-B-Bernstein/dp/B002BEXISE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1248759638&sr=1-1

I Rhyme in the Shower

Just told someone I'm a singer-poet. He replied, Does that mean you rhyme in the shower? ;-)

(Appeals to my Groucho Marxian sensibility.)

(I love how "rhyme" is a verb here rather than a characteristic — something I do rather than some aspect of me. Now that I think about it, it's fun to wonder what I rhyme with. Actually, my record label name comes out of a nickname someone had for me that rhymes with my first name: Lisa / Piece of.

On a more poetic level, I rhyme with — orange, ocean, flower, cinnamon, purring, old-style metronome...)

On another note, I'm fighting off a cold and just exhausted myself by taking some online personality tests. How silly! Back to more online prep for CD launch (website, BMI registration, etc.) — being a performing artist means spending more time online than singing or writing!?

Someone on Facebook just suggested I post some of the online test outcomes. OK: I'm an ENFJ in the Myers-Briggs personality spectrum.

And the kind of guy I like: Tough Guy. (All roads lead back to Dad.)

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www.itunes.com/lisab

www.cdbaby.com/Artist/LisaBLisaBernstein

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Luckily

I hear Latin percussion in the knocking washing machine, altered chords in the Amtrak whistle, a silent operatic soprano when I say hello to God… in an earlier era, I’d be institutionalized. Luckily, in this one, I'm just a musician and writer.

And I have a mockingbird. I mean, she lives nearby, but I feel possessive about her. She's busy all day long transiting loudly through different bird soundbytes. She invented the soundbyte. She's a Puritan bird, she doesn't take a break. No need for a PA either!

"Bird flying high, You know how I feel." That's the first line of "Feeling Good," the song I'm learning, by Newley/Bricusse. Nice to sing a happy song that's deep. With the refrain, "feeling good." Yes!

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www.cdbaby.com/Artist/LisaBLisaBernstein
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Solstice Father's Day: "Tempus Fugit"

After leaving my jazz fan Dad, listened to brilliant bebop beauty of pianist Bud Powell's “Tempus Fugit” (time flees) on this longest day of the year. Nothing like hearing time in a new way, filled with more notes than we knew it had. But bittersweet to feel its fullness stretch out on the road ahead when waving goodbye one more time to my aging folks.

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www.itunes.com/lisab
www.cdbaby.com/Artist/LisaBLisaBernstein
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25 Years of Successful Diabetic Care! Deserves a Poem!

In January was the 25th anniversary of my diagnosis of what used to be called juvenile diabetes, now called Type 1. I'm still healthy!

Diabetes has been a great teacher for me. Here's a poem I wrote a couple of years after the diagnosis. It's published in my book from Wesleyan University Press called The Transparent Body, which you can order from my website http://www.lisabmusic.com/cds_books.html .

For the Wordless Body

Mute

the muscle constricts with thirst.

The scent of citrus in the urine,

sugar leaking

into a film across the eyes.

Morning fills the windowpane,

a lit rectangle to be hungry in. I hurry

past buildings, counting out streets,

a self with words

and a hollowing silence of cells.

Language punctures

the skin.

Slimmer than a pen

the syringe shoots the insulin.

The sweetness of tangerines

lingers in the bloodstream. The injection

combusts it into strength and heat.

Body, christened again

you burn too well, flushed

as an infant and shaking for food.

A frantic mother, I bend to you.

At night I fake the bravado

of a teenage boy pinching

a girl's bare leg,

the needle poised above my thigh.

For years you absorbed what I fed you,

then denied.

Now you try to refuse

the sweet essence that keeps us alive.

So I am vigilant
for the sake of eyesight and limbs,

grateful to have seen this particular death

and to walk away. I forgive us

this defect, the first defection

to the dissolving silence

trailing me like a cloak.

It falls from my shoulders

when my arms rise, awkward

and bare, a child's A

against the light.

copyright 1989 Lisa Bernstein

“Good Morning, Heartache” with Carmen McRae on Memorial Day

Memorial Day, and the masculine smell of barbeque wafts through the air. A cool sunny Oakland afternoon on which, as usual, I’m a contrarian — here with only my cat, working.

But I’m satisfied. I had some fun and healing yesterday in Sacramento with a friend who’s known me since our first year of college. The kind of friend who’s seen me up, down, and in between, who knows my parents and who’s seen a husband and boyfriends come and go. Who loves me no matter what. We talked, laughed, almost cried, walked, threw the ball for the dog, hot-tubbed, and then ate barbecued steak, salad, artichokes, and a few cherries with her sweet husband.

Yesterday started out differently. Driving up Highway 80 to Sacramento as a night person barely awake, it took all I had in the bright 11 a.m. sunlight to forge ahead through the green-brown-billboard-filled landscape, holding my own amid the jostling aggressive SUVs.

I was listening to a 1995 Decca reissue of some of Carmen McRae’s songs. She has influenced me tremendously. Dan Morgenstern writes in the liner notes, “No jazz singer has paid more attention to words than Carmen McRae, and she bluntly stated that ‘lyrics are more important than melody to me.’… in a very real sense, she was a singing actress.”

Compounding the morning’s incongruity was Carmen’s 1955 take on “Good Morning, Heartache,” which seemed to resonate the darkness of evening. But as I listened, I realized how fitting it was – it’s about the strangeness of finding the night’s sorrow still there in the morning.

Of course, Billie owns the tune. I haven’t heard her sing it in awhile, but in my mind’s ear Billie’s voice on it is searing, plaintive, her tone as raw as a fresh wound. Carmen is more nuanced. She expresses pain, but she has some distance from it. She takes stock of her situation, she bargains. Even when she pleads, “Stop haunting me now,” her voice, with more bottom than Billie’s, radiates self-possession. Then she gives the slightest of laughs — ironic and intimate — when finally inviting heartache to sit down. Billie is tragic, whereas, as Dan Morgenstern writes, “Unlike Billie, Carmen is not resigned to fate.”

Carmen descended musically from Billie, and she always paid her homage. We descend from each other in music as well as life.

And so as I drove up Highway 80 with the morning holiday road warriors, I was not only taking notes as a singer, I was also comforted as a person, a woman. I thought, so I’m not alone in my incongruous gloom. So heartache does linger for you too, day after day. It’s not a flaw or a sin. Sometimes it’s a condition of life. You too are obsessive, disappointed, unable to forget. Well, we make music out of this, don’t we — and the song is our memorial day.

Oh, and despite Carmen’s assertion about lyrics being more important than melody to her, she ends the song on a gorgeous note — a major 7 against a dominant chord (in which the 7 is flatted by the musicians), it sounds like to me. It has a haunting feel, a dissonance that doesn’t quite align with what the musicians are playing — her very own note, evoking her solitary condition, in the end.

Fittingly, I’m still plowing ahead — plowing through the many tasks related to setting up the release of “The Poetry of Groove” on August 1. In the past week, I’ve made great strides in putting together my promo team for print, radio, gigs, and more (a leading-edge Lisa B iPhone app is even on the horizon!). After months of work on the music and its package, it’s been exciting to talk with some great folks in the music business who dig what I’ve done and have creative, enthusiastic ideas about how to get it out there. (Keyed-up sigh of relief.)

Now it dawns on me that my new title track starts with a spoken lyric of heartache (“I walked down the street,/I was one into two./I split like a faultline, I split into you./My mind closed in/like a girl in the dark/and my legs sliced the sky/while you chewed on my heart”). But it moves through it (“I remembered how to swim/up through the dark water,/rise to the light/where the sun burns hotter…), and finally finds the poetry of my own groove, singing to the listener about how s/he can do the same.

So in my negotiation with heartache, I descend from Billie and Carmen, extending their legacies into modern territory. I’m deeply comforted to know it as I drive ahead. I may be steering the car alone for stretches, but I carry their wisdom beside me in the front seat.

copyright 2009 Lisa Bernstein

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www.itunes.com/lisab
www.cdbaby.com/Artist/LisaBLisaBernstein
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A Vibration That Matches Your Desire

“Offer a vibration that matches your desire rather than offering a vibration that matches what is.”

What a great piece of advice, and how deceptively simple!

As a trained energy worker (I like that term — it sound so Marxist) — that is, an intuitive reader and healer — I have a lot of techniques and experience up my sleeve to read what’s going on energetically/spiritually in myself or others; move out unwelcome or hampering influences; and reset my or someone else’s space in a way that’s harmonious and growthful.

But like everyone, I get stuck. So I enjoy the helpful advice from the folks at Abraham-Hicks. Usually I don’t like spiritual advisors who get most of their information from a channelled being. I’m already plenty transcendental, and I want to balance that; I find that my greatest power as a reader, and as a performer, comes from channelling myself instead of some other entity alive or passed on (whether this being is my lovely Mom or some spiritual guide).

But Esther Hicks is an exception: She’s a channeller, but she still seems real and helpful.

Here are some tips from me that build on her phrase quoted above:

• You might want to work with the idea of “vibration” as a color. Imagine that a bar at the top of your head is a color you want to be vibrating at, a color that feels good. Notice how you feel. Probably better already!
• Experience the vibration of a note or a part of a song you like. Hum it or sing a few words.
• Think of one thing you want. How would you feel if you got it? Feel that way now. Just pretend. Now you’re more likely to attract the thing you’re wanting.
• What you desire feels good to you. If you feel bad while desiring it, it’s probably not something you really want (maybe someone else told you to want it).

It’s been a tough time for me personally the last few days. Some complicated communications cast a shadow of disappointment, about someone else and about myself, and this shadow in turn dredged up longer shadows from my past. Secrets and betrayal was the theme. And the usual source of these things reared its head: pre-existing (stuck) pain in someone else, and in myself.
So after a lot of crying and thinking – which have their precious place as one moves through difficult events and emotions – and using other energy tools, I’m resetting my own personal space.

Bringing desire back into my space.

Setting a vibration for myself that matches my desire: Certainty, turquoise, forgiveness, a chord I hear in my head right now, joy.

copyright 2009 Lisa Bernstein (Lisa B)

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www.itunes.com/lisab
www.cdbaby.com/Artist/LisaBLisaBernstein
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