Dee Bell
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Love for Sailin’ Over Seas: Then & Now plus Lins, Lennox, & Life Combination Dee Bell CD Release Show
9th July 2022 | 8:00 pm | Throckmorton Theatre | downtown Mill Valley
“That’s a fine sound Mama, just keep on singin,’” commented the now deceased Eddie Jefferson, as Dee left the Kuumbwa Club jazz jam stage in Santa Cruz, CA, after singing with Richie Cole. So she did, and a year later, that “husky, warm, intimate, unfussy, honest” sound [as described by Matthias Kirsch, James Gavin, Derrick-Stewart Baxter, Jesse Hamlin, and the late Leonard Feather] was championed by Eddie Duran and Stan Getz for a Valentine’s Day vinyl release called Let There Be Love on Carl Jefferson’s Concord Label. This was followed by One by One, featuring Tom Harrell and Eddie Duran. Both Concord albums were in the top ten & twenty in National Jazz Airplay, and Let There Be Love was a number one hit in DC for several months. Three more albums followed on the Laser Records label out of South Carolina: Sagacious Grace, Silva.Bell.Elation, and Lins, Lennox & Life all in or bubbling at the top 50. A few cuts from these last three Laser Records albums fill out Bell’s recent CD release from 3 January 2022. Songs from both this CD and Bell’s pre-Covid CD, Lins, Lennox, & Life will be featured in this celebration show.
Love for Sailin’ Over Seas | Then & Now begins with two songs recorded on 5 July 2021 at the 1332 Recording Studio, in Berkeley, CA. Abbey Lincoln’s I Got Thunder [and it Rings] features the esteemed Brazilian guitarist Romero Lubambo on a masterfully energetic solo. I’ll String Along with You begins with graceful counterpoint harmonies, again featuring the mellifluous Romero on guitar. Marcos Silva fashioned these arrangements based on Dee’s ideas and put together a crew of Brazilian music experts. To complete the sound, Marcos played electric piano/synthesizer, Scott Thompson played electric bass, and Celso Alberti played drums to back Dee Bell’s vocals. This is the “Now “part of the CD. It was a joyfully inspired session engineered by Alberto Hernandez.
“Then” is a compilation from three previous Laser Records albums. Harvest Moon, Beijo Partido [Broken Kiss], and The Face I Love were released on Silva.Bell.Elation in 2014, By Chance [Dee’s translated prose] and Boa Nova were part of the Lins, Lennox, & Life release in 2018; You’re My Thrill, You Can’t Go Home Again [Dee’s lyrics], and Watch What Happens were part of the Sagacious Grace historic release, recorded in 1990, with misplaced microphone issues resolved in 2011 by the late Bud Spangler and Dan Feiszli.
The Lins, Lennox, & Life album was never fully promoted due to time spent with a necessary shoulder surgery rehabilitation sustained from an auto accident, with the Covid lockdown soon thereafter. Silva.Bell.Elation was recorded after Dee and Marcos discovered elation in the merging of her laid-back swing vocals, and his exciting Brazilian rhythms that Dee calls Brazilian Swing Jazz.
Bell, a former Mill Valley music teacher [Mrs B], and Silva, professor of Brazilian jazz at the Berkeley California Jazz Conservatory, will perform a two-set show of delight, joy, and ease, on Saturday, 9th July at 8:00p at the Throckmorton Theatre, 142 Throckmorton Ave, Mill Valley, CA 94941. They will share the stage with the skillful and enthusiastic bassist, Richard Lindsey, featured on bass and guitar in the soundtracks of several independent films, including The Fort Fisher Hermit & A Touch of Fate, and bassist with the Brazil East Bay Ensemble; and with the energetic drummer, Kelly Fasman, who is trained in Brazilian rhythms, and who has performed with Kenny Loggins, Joan Rivers, The Moody Blues, The Jimmy Dorsey Band, Teatro Zinzanni, starring Joan Baez, to name a few. Grammy nominated Silva has been musical director for many top musicians including Flora & Airto, Toninho Horta, Edu Lobo and more.
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The connection redirected Silva’s career, including his place of residence. He soon followed his new employers to their home base of Santa Barbara, California, relocating again three years later to the San Francisco Bay Area. He continued working with Purim and Airto, as well as joining guitarist Ricardo Peixoto’s Voz do Samba and later collaborating with Claudio Amaral’s Viva Brasil, and working with Brazil’s elite composers such as guitarist Toninho Horta and Dori Caymmi. In 1987 he made his debut album, “Here We Go,” following it two years later with “White & Black.”
In the ensuing years, Silva became an active partner in the Bay Area jazz scene, helping to fuel a surge in its Brazilian jazz contingent and giving a boost to vocalists like Claudio Gomez, Claudia Villela, and Sandy Cressman. In the late 1990s he joined the faculty at The Jazzschool (now the California Jazz Conservatory) in Berkeley, helping to establish the new institution’s Brazilian Music department. He has remained there ever since as department head while also continuing to compose and perform actively.
As both keyboardist and composer Marcos Silva returns to the recording spotlight after 30 years with his CD “Brasil From Head to Toe,” released 3 May 2019 release on his Goose Egg Productions imprint. The third album from the Brazilian-born, Bay Area-based musician and educator features an extensive cast of musicians, anchored by a core quartet with saxophonist Gary Meek, bassist Scott Thompson, and drummer Mauricio Zottarelli. It also includes 10 original compositions of invigorating Brazilian jazz fusion by the master himself.
Silva spent the three decades since recording his first two albums, 1987’s “Here We Go” and 1989’s “White & Black,” touring and recording with the likes of Flora Purim and Airto (for whom he also served a 24-year stint as music director), Paquito D’Rivera, and Jon Lucien, as well as keeping busy on the Bay Area’s ascendant Brazilian jazz scene and teaching for more than two decades in the Brazilian Music department at Berkeley’s California Jazz Conservatory (formerly The Jazzschool). With Brasil From Head to Toe, he summarizes everything he’s done and learned in that long and accomplished career.
“It’s a chance to learn where I’m coming from,” Silva says. “This is who I am. All of my DNA is in there.”
Richard Lindsey | Bassist | Richard Lindsey has plied his trade on both coasts in a wide range of settings, from NYC jazz drummer Art Lillard’s Heavenly Band to the Celtic rock group Kips Bay to Croatian singer-songwriter Nenad Bach. First taught guitar by David Amaro (Airto, Flora Purim), and Seiko Sesoko, he picked up a bass in high school and immediately fell in love with the instrument. Richard has been featured on bass and guitar in the soundtracks of several independent films, including The Fort Fisher Hermit and A Touch of Fate. For the past few years, he has focused on Brazilian jazz, with the help of Marcos Silva. He currently plays with the Brazil/East Bay Ensemble (BEBE) and maintains several musical side projects.
Kelly Fasman | Drummer | Kelly Fasman is a drummer, teacher, and clinician in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has performed with Kenny Loggins, Peter Cetera, Joan Rivers, Don Rickles, and musical directed/played The Rich Little Show. Kelly was the House drummer of the American Musical Theater of San Jose for 20 years, musical directed/played The Moscow Circus in Japan, and currently plays and teaches in the East Bay.