La Shica

The first show of the New Year – and it is going to be a tough one to top ! A mixture of flamenco, rock, cabaret and dance is what makes La Shica so unique – and of course – she is a great singer too. But first of all she is an entertainer, with deep thoughts and songs about domestic abuse and other topics not normally used as song lyrics. The way she communicates with her audience, tells them about the songs and the contents of them, is pretty amazing – serious, but with a great sense of humour. I didn’t understand everything (still need to improve my Spanish a lot …), but the overall feel of the show was just great – she makes you smile and then draws you into a darker side musically and releases with another humoresque interlude.

Just with electric guitar, bass and drums she can do about everything (with a little help from some electronics) and when she starts dancing …. movements in emotion and style!

She got it all – and the show is travelling – London in February and New York in march. Check it out – even if you don’t speak Spanish – you’ll love it.

2012

What will this new year bring to us – all of us and each of us individually? Who knows – what we would like to have is the usual – health, happiness and win the lottery……

Guess we will have to look at everything as it comes and deal with it then …. whatever Life throws at us, we’ll have to deal with.

But then there are the Mayas and Nostradamus, which both in different ways said that 2012 will bring massive change (not to speak about the end of the world) – the Mayan calendar as we know it, ends on December 21 and some people believe that some prophecies by Nostradamus are pointing at the same date as the end of … what? The Mayan calendar ends that day and according to what we think we know about their way of measuring time, a cycle will end then and a new one begin, which doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the world as such.

In any case until that date we will hopefully be fine and have a lot of time with the people we love and enjoy some great music and books and movies and then see what happens and what the new cycle will bring to us.

The jazz year will start well, as I pointed already out on one of my last posts …. Bugge Wesseltoft, Hakon Kornstad, Esperanza Spalding and many more are scheduled for early releases – as well as Paul McCartney with Diana Krall  and her band, performing his favourite jazz standards in a production by legend Tommy LiPuma!

And then there will be the Grammys – with less jazz categories, but maybe with more focus on the jazz album of the year then ….(there is always hope!).

I don’t think that the actual economic situation especially in Europe will improve in 2012 – there is still too much to do and too many problems (and the banks running the world a little big too much) and therefore touring and record as well as ticket sales will be suffering for another year (at least). And there no new models for a modern jazz business yet available – nor a home for jazz fans online! Maybe the situation needs to get even worse before getting better – partly I am afraid that will be the case, but being the optimist I am, I hope I am wrong.