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Halie Loren — Heart First (2012)

 

Halie Loren — Heart First
Born: Seattle, Washington, U.S.
Occupation: Vocalist, songwriter, producer
Location: Alaska ~ Oregon ~ Nashville ~ 
Album release: March 6, 2012
Record Label: Justin Time Records // JVC/Victor (December 14, 2011 in Japan)
Duration:     61:36
Tracks:
01. Taking A Chance On Love     3:48
02. A Woman’s Way     3:41
03. C’est Si Bon     2:59
04. Waiting In Vain     5:00
05. Sway (Quien Sera)     3:46
06. Heart First     3:15
07. My One An??d Only Love     4:03
08. Feeling Good     4:11
09. Tender To The Touch     4:31
10. Fly Me To The Moon     3:33
11. Lotta Love     3:18
12. In Time     3:36
13. Smile     2:55
14. Crazy Love     3:49
15. Ellie, My Love (Bonus Track)     4:03
16. What A Wonderful World (Bonus Track)     4:55
Personnel:
Halie Loren: vocals, piano (12)
Matt Treder: piano, Rhodes piano
Mark Schneider: bass 
Brian West: drums
William Seiji Marsh: guitars
Sergei Teleshev: accordion (1), button accordion (13)
Rob Birdwell: trumpet (2), flugelhorn (4,11)
Hank Shreve: harmonica (7)
Dale Bradley: cello (12)
Editorial Reviews
Review
Halie is one of the most skilled and gifted vocalists you re likely to hear in your entire life and could be the brightest hope for the future of music. She has an undeniably beautiful and powerful voice that drips with real emotion. -- Songwriters Monthly Reviews:
Loren s singing conveys the wonders of the invisible world: wounded defiance, stubborn love, hard-earned hopefulness. She sounds like someone who knows a thing
or two about a thing or two, and has the chops to make that knowledge a thing of beauty. -- Eugene Weekly
Product Description:
Halie s incredible voice and maturity in writing & phrasing belie her young years. Here, her interpretation of standards and contemporary favorites is flawless!
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Oregon native Halie Loren is an internationally recognized artist, whose rich and sensitively delivered vocals have garnered her numerous awards and fans from around the world. Loren has uniqueness in her music that transcends genres and opens up new ways of thinking about familiar and original songs, whether they are jazz standards, pop, classic rock, or folk. Singing in several languages, with Loren’s artistic interpretations there is no limit to where she can and will go vocally. Loren's performances appeal to music fans on multiple levels around the world. Her busy touring schedule in the past year has included performances in, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, and South Korea. Her newest CD Heart First was released by Justin Time Records in March 2012.
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A singer needs to have the natural ability to make that special connection with the audience unless of course they don't mind their ultimate career destination as singing in the hotel lounge of the local Marriott. Loren not only as that innate gift of connection but the prodigious vocal chops to pull off fresh originals and time tested standards in an intimate setting as comfortable as a favorite sweater.
The search for a genuine identity has tripped up many a vocalist as they opt for the more manufactured vibe appeal that they think the record company may be looking for. Halie Loren is simply herself. Heart First is an eclectic yet personal release that sidesteps some of the more self limiting categories induced by the recording industry in favor of a far more organic approach as a story teller.
Having made significant progress in conquering the Japanese jazz and pop radio stations, Loren is musical proof that talent will indeed win out. There are four Loren originals combined with jazz standards and even some re-invented pop tunes including Neil Young's "Lotta Love." The Loren original "A Woman's Way" invites the listener on a charming somewhat coffee house induced journey of vocal minimalism. A stellar voice with great tone and marvelous command of phrasing sets Loren apart from myriad of female vocalists that all seem to think they can sing but reality tells a different story. "All of Me" is re-invented with a beatnik cool vibe that makes a well worn standard fresh and new. Old school becoming new cool in the hands of a gifted artist is a beautiful thing. The ensemble sound of the band reinforces the organic without ever dancing close to the self indulgent or pretentious edge of the sonic cliff. "Lotta Love" is a tune that could be a musical landmine for those that don't think it through. A subtle syncopated reinvention bordering on reggae lite makes what some consider a Neil Young "throw away" a delightfully fresh tune with infectious jazz sensibilities.
A conceptualized personal release revolving around love and the human condition find Halie Loren scoring big on a release with tremendous cross over potential. Having long moved past the position of jazz critic to jazz advocate, you would have to look long and hard to find fault with Halie Loren and Heart First!
Rating: 5 Stars
Fortaken: http://www.criticaljazz.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------Image of Halie Loren
Publié 24 October 2012 par Franco Moggia (http://www.quebecaudio.com)
The first thing you notice is that voice: deep and rich and warm, gorgeous, graceful, and somehow earthy and ethereal at once. It is an instrument perfectly pitched and primed to each line, with each audible breath. Just as warm and familiar and frankly right as the needle hitting the groove on vinyl.
And so it goes. In describing the vocal talents of Eugene-based singer/songwriter Halie Loren, the adjectives just start piling up. Heartfelt is one. Confident yet vulnerable, strong but inviting. Authentic is another adjective that rushes to mind —emotionally authentic, which, really, is the key to great jazz and great art in general. Not the play-it-safe jazz of mall-bound Musak, but the real deal. Think Peggy Lee and Billie Holiday and Joni Mitchell, or, more recently, Diana Krall, Norah Jones. But such comparisons are only historic reference points, a means of entry. What’s important to understand is that when Halie Loren sings, you not only hear the music. You feel it. She’s right there, in the room with you, filling the space with intimate stories of love and heartbreak, memory and hope, experience and passion—in a word, life.
Were Loren’s resume to end here, with her vocal talents, it would be more than enough. Singing of that quality is rare, a gift. But Loren is no mere interpreter of standards (though she does that with refreshing facility). Having cut her songwriting teeth when, as a teenager, she spent an educational year rubbing elbows with some of Nashville’s top composers, this young artist — she is but 27 — has penned original numbers that are stunning for the depth and maturity they show. Take, for instance, the title song from her 2008 release, They Oughta Write a Song: in a bittersweet croon that is equal parts hurt and healing, Loren delivers lines like, “If there were prizes for those sighs of regret/you’d be the envy of the oh-woe-is-me set/romance is through/it’s just the piper and you…”
Yeah, that’s the stuff — the blues, clever with pain, a sentimental journey hardened into sad-happy wisdom. Loren, as the saying goes, knows her way around a song, whether it be a composition of her own or one of her surprising and always dead-on covers. Witness the way her ingenious arrangement (composed with frequent collaborator, pianist Matt Treder) turns a radio-overplayed ballad like Procol Harum’s “Whiter Shade of Pale” into something utterly new and unexpectedly affecting, or check out the swinging upbeats and jaunty phrasing that gets the foot tapping to “Dock on the Bay,” without once betraying the spirit of Otis Redding’s masterpiece. Loren’s choice and performance of standards — from “Summertime” and “God Bless the Child” to “Blue Skies” and “La Vie en Rose” — is exquisite and respectful and inventive, another sign of her artistic intelligence.
In a relatively brief span of time, Loren appears to have achieved enough success and received enough kudos to define an entire career. Since her stage debut at the age of ten at the Sitka Fine Arts Camp in Alaska, Loren has continued to wow and woo audiences with her warm, intimate live performances; she is an elegant, electrifying performer, full of charisma and cool. And she has garnered more than her share of in-the-know acknowledgment, both critical and professional: from the Female Rising Star and Alternative Entertainer awards she won before she was 16, to later awards from such worthies as Billboard International and the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, up to her most recent award for “Best Vocal Jazz Album” at the 2009 Just Plain Folks Music Awards.
Loren’s debut release, Full Circle (2006), was hailed for exhibiting “a power and grace that are nearly unheard of in popular music.” And along with last year’s acclaimed They Oughta Write a Song, Loren (accompanied by Treder) also released” Many Times, Many Ways: a Holiday Collection”, a delightful array of holiday songs that would melt the heart of the most tone-deaf Scrooge.
Still, for all she has already accomplished, it is what lies ahead that should truly thrill any fan of Loren’s music. The past two years have found her characteristically elevating her craft, getting better with each live performance, each newly written song or recorded work. She has gained much popularity in Japan and Asia, and was signed by JVC/Victor Entertainment (Japan) in 2010. She released a live album “Stages” internationally on 3/16/10, and on 5/19/10 re-released a deluxe version of “They Oughta Write Song” in Japan through JVC/Victor, which has consistently graced the top 10 Amazon Japan and HMV, and was deemed the #4 jazz CD for the entire year of 2010 on the Amazon Japan jazz charts.
Halie’s fifth album, “After Dark”, debuted in Japan on October 22, 2010, coinciding with the 6th annual Ginza Jazz Festival, at which she was a featured performer. The multi-lingual album rich with latin beats and featuring an array of diverse solo instruments launched Loren’s music into exciting new territory, and earned her an Independent Music Award in the fan-voted “VoxPop” Jazz Song category for her original song “Thirsty”, featured on “After Dark”.
Loren’s tour expanded beyond the continental US in 2011 and 2012, she embarked on numerous international and national tours, including sold out shows at the Blue Note and Cotton Clubs in Japan, performances in New York City, LA, Seattle, Canada, Hawaii, Korea, Hong Kong and more. In July, Loren traveled to Palermo, Italy, where she was the featured vocalist with Orchestra Jazz Siciliana.
Loren’s newest release, ‘Heart First’ was released in Japan (JVC/Victor) in December 2011, garnering Jazz Critique Magazine’s 2011 coveted “Golden (top) prize” in the Vocal Jazz Album category.  Playing to sell-out audiences both abroad and in the US, Loren continues touring in support of ‘Heart First’, which was released by Justin Time Records worldwide in March 2012.
Discography:
Studio albums:
2004 The SGC Project
Release date: 2004
Label: White Moon Productions
2006 Full Circle
Release date: July 1, 2006
Label: White Moon Productions
2008 They Oughta Write a Song
Release date: December 10, 2008 (U.S.); May 19, 2010 (Japan)
Label: White Moon Productions
2008 (with Matt Treder) Many Times, Many Ways: A Holiday Collection
Release date: December 7, 2008 (U.S.), November 2010 (Japan)
Label: White Moon Productions
2010 After Dark
Release date: October 22, 2010 (Japan); November 16, 2010 (U.S.)
Label: JVC/Victor (Japan), White Moon Productions (U.S.)
2011 Heart First
Release date: December 14, 2011 (Japan); March 6, 2012 (U.S. and worldwide)
Label: JVC/Victor (Japan), Justin Time Records (U.S. and worldwide)
Live albums:
2009 Stages
Release date: March 15, 2009
Label: White Moon Productions

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 © Halie Loren in 2011; Photo credit: Matthew Treder 

Halie Loren — Heart First (2012)

 

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