Jose
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Music
Press
...a great example of the way Latin music is influencing Australian song writers. In this album you can find Tango, Salsa, Samba and more. Track one features a pregone in Spanish by percussionist Aykho Akrif and a Trumpet solo by Vlad Khusid. The title track 'In love with you' is a study in the style of Astor Piazzola and includes the bandoneon playing of Michael Kluger a musician of outstanding precision and one of Sydneys foremost Tango lovers and players. Track 9 is a tribute to Sydney guitar player Gino Pengue who also features on the album. This song ends with a Samba section driven by the drumming and percussion of Brazilian Rodrigo Galvao
- Viva Latin Magazine (May 27, 2006) - Viva Latin Magazine
Hi Jose -- This was a really original, distinctive and beautifully crafted presentation. It would have been enough to just have the great playing, arrangements and production. but you went that extra mile and created really unique and memorable songs, which, for an instrumental presentation, is no small feat. It was a real pleasure listening to this and I look forward to hearing more of your work in the future. (Of course, I'm forwarding these.) Congratulations and best of luck!
Sweet Friend Anthem
I really liked the contrasting song sections and the way you seamlessly incorporated world influences as disparate as middle eastern, flamenco and Caribbean. Excellent musicianship as well, I especially loved that "middle eastern sax."
On the street with Peter
Great tune and great guitar sound and style. The song itself is beautifully conceived and structured and is not just a vehicle for some fancy guitar work, as a lot of nuevo flamenco seems to be. The technique was clearly there, but you put the song first, which I thought was very classy. Excellent production!
Dreaming of your name
I thought this was also a beautiful piece. Melodically engaging from beginning to end. Great, tricky time signature and sort of a tango feel. Very unusual. also, the sound of the violin and cello in unison was wonderful. Great, unusual stuff!
- n/a
Discography
ALBUM IN LOVE WITH YOU
...is about being in love. about that infinite space that opens up occasionally [ if only for a moment] where real life begins. a space where, no matter what we do, you and i will go on living as one, in love, for eternity.
[available at www.jose.net.au]
Photos
Bio
jose and his twin sister amaani were almost born in the back of a ute on a trip from afghanistan to the west coast of france. his father was a trumpet player and his mother was a writer and philosopher who had been a bit caught up with research she was doing in kabul and forgot that she had been booked in to a maternity hospital in poitou. being australians, both of them, they thought they'd just drive back to france when the contractions started. of course the result was a traditional birth in a tent somewhere between herat and the border of iran. when jose and amaani took their first breaths it was the colours of the rugs, the smell of pilau, and the sound of the persian drum coming from another tent that filled their lungs and bloodstreams. when their mother was well enough to travel they did and worked their way, with no urgency now, through iran, turkey, bulgaria, yugoslavia and italy until when they were three years old they finaly arrived in the south of france.
all stories have a tragedy. mother and father and jose and amaani had had dinner on the beach in menton. wrapped up in a blanket together and warm from eating soup and bread, jose and amaani listened to dad talking about the beaches in australia. they understood nothing except the warmth and solidity of their fathers voice, the gentle presence of their mother and the delicious sweetness of being wrapped up together under a mediteranean night sky. soon after amaani was taken. stolen in the middle of the night. a radical feminist bondage mistress had been out walking with a psychopathic priest when suddenly at the same moment they were overcome with a violent urge to have a child. as the priest was celibate and the bondage mistress hated men it seemed natural that they should take amaani with them. of course no one recovered from this. father took to painting in oils and mother to talking in her sleep and eventually they moved back to australia and wiped their memories clean. [in the mean time amaani was rescued by a weaver and her husband and was taken back to afghanistan where she lived a full and beautiful life but one that was impossible for her brother and parents to know about]...
later, staring out of the window of saint nicholas' primary in penrith, jose would find himself day dreaming of a sister and a warm tent, the feeling of being a twin, the sound of the trumpet and the persian drum, the idea of spices... but he couldn't actully remember any of it and neither could his parents. so he began to imagine, and in this way found out the truth and discovered the intense grief of being separated from the one we love.
he studied classical guitar before going to art school where he learned the esoteric arts of seeing and composition. every night he returned in sleep to his beloved amaani and listened to her stories. his art, painting, writing, sculpture, and songwriting over 25 years has always been no more than an attempt to write down the things she whispers to him in the night, but maybe there is more...maybe amaani is a metaphore for something more real than real...maybe she is your sister too...try and remember
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