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As a child, Joy Harjo loved to sing. As a teenager, she yearned to learn to play saxophone. Her schools band teacher told her that "girls don't play the saxophone" and wouldn't allow her to play. Around the same time her step father forbade her to sing in the house … Read More: http://www.joyharjo.com/ArticlesInterviews.html - The New Mexican
Joy Harjo is a modern renaissance woman. She is equally lauded for her work as a poet, composer and visual artist. Her first love was music, and she has fond childhood memories of watching her mother compose songs on her Underwood typewriter. Harjo met Louis Ballard while she was studying at the Institute of American Arts in Santa Fe. He became her advisor and mentor, and she remained close to him until he died. Also a one-time student of Jim Pepper, Harjo sings and plays tenor saxophone with her band, Poetic Justice and as a solo performer. Read More: http://www.newmusicbox.org/article.nmbx?id=5943 - http://www.newmusicbox.org/article.nmbx?id=5943
The long-anticipated latest release by Joy Harjo is finally here! Fans will not be disappointed with this new collection of songs which celebrates ancestral sensibilities wrapped in contemporary indigenous rhythms. Some of the original work is layered and deep; some is light-hearted and presents itself as a strand in the fabric of our island community. The guitar work of Producer/Guitarist Larry Mitchell is captivating and complements Harjo's powerful, emotive saxophone rifts. I can't decide which song touches me most deeply, but I predict that all listeners will feel a palpable connection with the primal energy of Harjo's spoken words, melodies, songs, and instrumentation.
I also love that Harjo has given us her interpretation of Jim Pepper's classic Witchi Tai To. It honors the amazing Jim Pepper and his contributions to both mainstream and Native music (To read about Jim Pepper, go to http://jimpepperlives.wordpress.com/). For me, it also stirs memories of 1969 when, as an East Coast city girl, I first heard Brewer and Shipley sing Witchi Tai To on their album "Weeds." (For those disabled by generational memory lapses, you might remember Brewer and Shipley from their ubiquitous anthem "One Toke Over the Line.") Harjo's version of Witchi Tai To is simultaneously unique and traditional. Not to be missed.
Harjo's new album may be her very best, a mature and complex work with something for everyone. Buy two copies: one to keep and one for your best friend. Stop by for a listen if you're not convinced. You won't regret it.
- Native Winds
It blends Native American and Zen Buddhist wisdom with modern painting and video-art in a most fantastic mix. It illustrates a thrilling song - written and performed by Joy Harjo - with the modern paintings of an intriguing artist Tim Williams. Since today, This My Heart of Harjo's latest album Winding Through the Milky Way is also a video-art by founder of independent music community Project Bluebird as well as a song writer and singer Nancy Pontius. We really think you should check this one out:
Read More: http://www.cultcase.com/2008/12/this-my-heart-how-to-blend-native.html - Cult Case
Discography
Red Dreams, A Trail Beyond Tears
Winding Through The Milky Way
She Had Some Horses
Native Joy For Real
Letter From The End of The 20th Century
Photos
Bio
About Red Dreams
These are songs of honor and acknowledge those who inspire and lead us forward through the rough trails of life. “Dragonfly, Dragonfly” was a promise to a dragonfly. “Red Dreams” is for my father. He was a good-looking Muscogee man and a discouraged dreamer. He loved the song of the redbird. “Beautiful Baby…” is a song for the babies who come after us—they are brave to join us here. “The Trail of Tears” has been carried through seven generations since removal from our tribal homelands in the Southeast. It is a song carried like fire in the rain. The “Mankiller Honor Song” is for Wilma Mankiller, Cherokee. She was a rare leader of vast insight, and a friend. “All the Colors of Sunrise”, “Shimmering” and “To Chase Away Bad Thoughts” are all healing songs. A crow followed me to the studio the first session, and returned for the very last, hence, “Urban Crow Dance”. Keep dancing, Crow! And finally, the whole story of “Rainbow Gratitude” is as large as the sky. The rainbow has spoken to me and showed me a trail beyond tears.
ABOUT JOY HARJO
Joy Harjo was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma and is a member of the Mvskoke Nation. She has just released her memoir, Crazy Brave. Her seven books of poetry, which includes such well-known titles as How We Became Human- New and Selected Poems, The Woman Who Fell From the Sky, and She Had Some Horses have garnered many awards. These include the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas; and the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. For A Girl Becoming, a young adult/coming of age book, was released in 2009 and is Harjo’s most recent publication. Forthcoming is a book of interviews, columns and essays from Wesleyan, Soul Talk, Soul Language, from Wesleyan in 2011.
She has released four award-winning CD's of original music and in 2009 won a Native American Music Award (NAMMY) for Best Female Artist of the Year for Winding Through the Milky Way. She won a 2010 New Mexico Music Award for her single “This America”, and has newly released a traditional flute album, Red Dreams, A Trail Beyond Tears. She performs nationally and internationally with her band, the Arrow Dynamics. She also performs her one-woman show, Wings of Night Sky, Wings of Morning Light, which premiered at the Wells Fargo Theater in Los Angeles in 2009 and has been performed at the Public Theater in NYC. She has received a Rasmusson/US Artists Fellowship and is a founding board member of the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation. Harjo writes a column “Comings and Goings” for her tribal newspaper, the Muscogee Nation News. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Harjo has 5 CD’s. Her latest release, Red Dreams, A Trail Beyond Tears was produced by Grammy winning producer and extraordinary rock guitarist Larry Mitchell who is also part of her band.
Joy performs solo, as a duo and with the Arrow Dynamics Band.
More information and downloadable Press Release at http://www.joyharjo.com
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