"Gaea
is quite a multi-talented pianist/flautist/vocalist/composer/arranger/bandleader,
with a wonderfully compelling gift for jazz, ballads, and
Brazilian-flavored music. She's written a beautiful program of new
music, which she’s arranged along with a couple of choice standards
for a brilliantly integrated ensemble of musicians, in a refreshingly
personal set for the album "In Your Own Sweet Way." As
music for the soul, heart, and mind, this album is highly
recommended!" - Benny Green
While
most of us stayed home during the pandemic and looked for projects to
fill our time, GAEA SCHELL flew to central Mexico to play gigs
with a Cuban son group, where she also swam in waterfalls in San Luis
Potosi, began learning Spanish, and released sea turtles. She also
went to Florence, Italy, to study opera, completed a master's degree
in composition in Vermont, won a Chamber Music America grant to work
with Benny Green, and played with a group on an island in western
Cuba, where she helped release more sea turtles. She also recorded a
new album.
Schell,
a multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, and vocalist, plays
piano and flute on IN YOUR OWN SWEET WAY, and
she also sings on a couple of tunes. The album consists of seven
Latin-tinged original compositions, one straight-ahead original, and
three fresh takes on songs from the Great American Songbook.
IN
YOUR OWN SWEET WAY follows For All We Know (2007) and After the
Rain (2011). Jazzpolice.com says, “Schell pulls in the
listener with a minimalist approach that shines with interpretative
sensibility rather than pure musicality. But unlike other
pianist/vocalists who are competent at the keyboard but clearly in
their element in song (Diana Krall, Karrin Allyson), Gaea Schell is
competent vocally and brilliant as composer/instrumentalist.”
Schell
currently lives in San Francisco and is joined on this project by
some top Northern California musicians. The core of the Gaea
Schell Quartet includes JORDAN SAMUELS (guitar), JOHN
WIITALA (bass), and GREG WYSER-PRATTE (drums). CARLOS
CARO (percussion) and MARCO DIAZ (trumpet and piano) also
appear on a few tracks.
Schell
grew up in Alberta, Canada. Her father was initially a drummer who
spent a lot of time on the road, and her great-grandmother composed
music for silent films. Her family was rather poor. Her mother made
many of her clothes. Schell became interested in music when she was
just five years old, when a family friend gave them a piano with a
few damaged keys. Unprompted, she took to it immediately, and
thereafter her parents made sure she could indulge her artistic
disposition with music, dance, and acting lessons.
Schell
enjoyed playing just about any instrument she could get her hands on,
like the guitar and recorder, among others. When she was 11 years
old, she began studying the harp, and by the time she was in high
school, she was playing piano and harp in local malls and for holiday
celebrations. But after hearing Charlie Parker, she fell in love with
jazz. Although she got a scholarship to the University of Victoria as
a classical harp major, she did not stay long because jazz had become
her first love. So, she headed east to study piano in the jazz
program at McGill University in Montreal.
After
graduating with distinction, she began her peripatetic lifestyle. She
lived for a while in Portland, Oregon, but moved to New York City to
study with the internationally known pianist/composer Richie Beirach
after she received a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. The
high cost of living and her desire to live in a more temperate
climate prompted her to move to Southern California shortly after 9/11,
first to San Diego and then Los Angeles, where she became a regular
on the local jazz scene. She moved to San Francisco after several
years to pursue other opportunities.
It
has taken several years for Schell to get back into the studio for
her own recording, but that is because she has been so busy backing
the likes of Nancy King, John Stowell, Albert 'Tootie' Heath, Clare
Fischer Big Band, Tony Dumas, Marcus Shelby, Bobby Watson, Richie
Cole, and Earl Palmer, among others.
Influenced
by the likes of Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson and Eliane Elias, Schell’s
piano playing is subtle and swinging, and her flute playing is
influenced by traditional Cuban flutists, while her soft voice has
been compared to a Brazilian white-sand beach at sunrise.
Her
compositions on IN YOUR OWN SWEET WAY are
inspired by her appreciation of nature and reflect her love of Latin
music as well as her training in classical music and bebop. The album
opens with “Cava Dell Cava dell'Isola,” a Latin tune named for a
beach on an island near Naples, Italy. “Forio Rain” invokes her
experience of the gentle rain that fell on the island of Ischia,
Italy, while “Summer Sea” is a bossa about swimming in waters around
San Francisco. “Luna Plateada,” “Danza Nocturna de Flores,” “Un Sueño
de la Noche,” and are all Latin inspired compositions, while
“Perplexity” is a straight-ahead number. She rounds out the set list
with her arrangement of some of her favorite standards, “Sweet &
Lovely,” “It Had to Be You,” and Dave Brubeck’s “In Your Own Sweet
Way,” for which Schell wrote lyrics about her boyfriend.
Inspired
by nature and shaded with gentle Brazilian rhythms and classical
hues, Gaea Schell’s music is redolent with moonlight and romance.
With her steadfast grooves and elegant expressiveness, IN YOUR
OWN SWEET WAY is a highly engaging album.
# # #
IN YOUR OWN SWEET WAY will
be released on June 23, 2023 on Saphu Records and will be available
at Saphurecords.com and on all platforms.
Online:
gaeaschell.com
facebook.com/pianistflutistGaeaSchell/
@gaeacschell
YouTube:
Bit.ly/3NiSxLT
Saphurecords.com
|