Theo Bleckmann - Love Song

2015 release

Theo Bleckmann performs in 2004 in Stefan Winter’s cabaret opera »The Chestnut Ball« at the Opernfestspiele München; this is the beginning of a musical journey through pop, jazz and classical music to contemporary composition of New Music. For the collaboration between Theo Bleckmann and Winter&Winter the Japanese composer and pianist Fumio Yasuda plays a key role as arranger and duo partner. Bleckmann and Yasuda meet for the first time during the rehearsals and performances of »The Chestnut Ball« in 2004. Shortly after this first production, available as well as a CD double album on Winter&Winter, the artistic team Theo Bleckmann and Fumio Yasuda puts out another four albums, among them children songs for adults titled »Mother Goose’s Melodies«.

Fumio Yasuda creates fascinating orchestral versions for »Las Vegas Rhapsody« of so-called jazz standards, pieces from Broadway and of musicals like »Sound Of Music«. »My Favorite Things«, the musical declaration of love to Austria by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, is as much part of this album’s repertoire as Cole Porter’s »True Love«, recorded with the classical Basel chamber orchestra, which fills the role of a large show orchestra with flying colours. Bleckmann and Yasuda realise together the album »Berlin – Songs of Love and War, Peace and Exile«. »Lili Marleen« in a solo performance of Theo Bleckmann with electronics and »Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß auf Liebe eingestellt« for piano and string quartet are made in new musical arrangements. For Charles Schumann’s Bar in Munich the two musicians record »Favored Bar Songs«. The love songs »Someone To Watch Over Me« and the swinging »I’ve Got The World On A String« are performed as duets.

The travel into the world of the soloist Theo Bleckmann becomes a very exceptional musical excursion. Only with his voice and few accompanying instruments Bleckmann fascinates with his album »I Dwell In Possibility«. For »Love Song« music producer Stefan Winter selects »I Hear A Rhapsody«. Together with Theo Bleckmann Stefan Winter produces between 2004 and 2014 altogether ten albums. With the Uri Caine Ensemble Bleckmann sings the Gershwin songs »But Not For Me« and »I’ve Got A Crush On You«. The recording of Charles Ives songs with the band Kneebody is one of the most impressing discoveries of the artist Theo Bleckmann. Ives’s »Feldeinsamkeit/In Summer Fields« belongs to his most remarkable interpretations. »Love Song« opens and ends with a song by Kate Bush from »Hello Earth! – The Music of Kate Bush«. This album is not a simple compilation of works, instead unites a special collection of love songs being among the highlights of the ten year working relationship with Winter&Winter. According to the theme »Love Song« Bleckmann unfolds his artistic diversity. The songs about love run like a thread through his musical abundance.

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Theo Bleckmann, born in 1966 in Dortmund (Germany), is an all-rounder, who not only creates a sensation as a singer, sound artist, performer and composer, but also as a personality fusing the worlds of jazz, classical and pop music with stylistic confidence. Bleckmann, residing since 1989 in New York City, receives his first piano lessons at age 8 and arouses attention already in 1987 by being awarded at „Jugend jazzt“ and „Bundeswettbewerb für Gesang“ in Berlin. Studies follow with Sheila Jordan, who calls him „a truly rare talent“, in Graz, later at the Manhattan School of Music and the City College.

A singer and new music composer of eclectic tastes and prodigious gifts, GRAMMY nominated Theo Bleckmann makes music that is accessibly sophisticated, unsentimentally emotional, and seriously playful, leading his work to be described as "from another planet" (New York Times), as "magical, futuristic", (AllAboutJazz), "limitless" (Citypaper, Philadelphia), "transcendent" (Village Voice) and "brilliant" (New York Magazine).

Bleckmann has released a series of gorgeous and irreverent albums on Winter & Winter, including recordings of Las Vegas standards, of Weimar art songs, of popular "bar songs" and Mother Goose’s children songs (all with pianist Fumio Yasuda), a recording of newly-arranged songs by Charles Ives (with jazz/rock collective Kneebody), his acoustic Solos for Voice »I dwell in possibility« and his homage to the great pop singer Kate Bush: »Hello Earth – the Music of Kate Bush«. Together with Uri Caine he records Gershwin songs and sets Antonio Vivaldi’s sonnets of »The Four Seasons« to music. These songs appear on the album of the Spanish baroque ensemble Forma Antiqva.

Bleckmann has additionally collaborated with musicians and composers, including Laurie Anderson, Uri Caine, Philip Glass, John Hollenbeck, Sheila Jordan, Phil Kline, David Lang, Kirk Nurock, Ben Monder, Michael Tilson Thomas, Kenny Wheeler, John Zorn, the Bang on a Can All-stars, and, most prominently, Meredith Monk, with whom Bleckmann worked as a core ensemble member for fifteen years.

Bleckmann's recent accolades include NPR's 2012 Top 10 Jazz Albums of the Year for Hello Earth! The Songs of Kate Bush, top-five spots in the 2013 and 2014 DownBeat Critics’ Polls for Best Male Vocalist, Bleckmann received the prestigious JAZZ ECHO award from the Deutsche Phono-Akademie in his native Germany.