Mother Gooses Melodies Theo Bleckmann & Fumio Yasuda

• 1Blue Tail Fly03:58
• 2Mary Had a Little Lamb04:19
• 3Three Blind Mice03:24
• 4Sing a Song of Sixpence02:46
• 5Hush-A-Bye Baby03:35
• 6Little Bo Peep Has Lost Her Sheep02:20
• 7Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush02:39
• 8Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son02:30
• 9Polly Wolly Doodle05:46
• 10Camptown Races03:16
• 11Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star04:18
• 12Oh, Dear! What Can the Matter Be04:24
• 13Old Folks At Home02:56
• 14Skip to My Lou03:15
• 15Row, Row, Row Your Boat03:20
• 16Hey Diddle Diddle04:07
• Total Runtime56:53

Info for Mother Gooses Melodies

"Mother Goose's Melodies" presents a total new side of Theo Bleckmann who is able to slip into very different roles. Fumio Yasuda's arrangements and Theo Bleckmann's performance have put new faces on the Mother Goose characters.

Fumio Yasuda and Theo Bleckmann have put new faces on the world famous songs of Mother Goose. Mother Goose (published for the first time by Charles Perrault under the French title »Contes de ma mère l’Oye« in the late 17th century) is a literary character of nursery rhymes and fairy tales, which are specially but not only known in the United States and the Commonwealth countries in the present time. Often Mother Goose is portrayed as an old woman farmer or as a goose with a cap. The Mother Goose's Melodies are entertaining, humorous verses, learning rhymes, and sometimes even nonsensical poems for children and adults. Like the Brothers Grimm Charles Perrault has collected and documented this oral tradition of poetry and his work has made it possible that the Mother Goose songs are still amazingly popular three hundred years later in the 21st century. It is incredible how many pop musicians were inspired to adapt or sing a Mother Goose song. Just to name a few: Paul McCartney and Wings play »Mary Had A Little Lamb«, the blues legend Lead Belly sings »Blue Tail Fly«, Judy Garland performs »Skip To My Lou«, Johnny Cash »Camptown Races«, Mae Questel as Betty Bebop »Polly Wolly Doodle«. But also classical composers were fascinated by Mother Goose, Mozart composed twelve variations on »Ah vous dirai-je, Maman« (»Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star«).

The producers Mariko Takahashi and Stefan Winter have had for many years the wish to record new and colourful versions of Mother Goose's Melodies. Mariko Takahashi spent her childhood in Australia surrounded by sounds of Mother Goose songs, and Stefan Winter was fascinated by Hal Wilner's »Stay Awake«, an album featuring music from Walt Disney cartoons. The idea was born to create a totally new album with various interpretations of songs like »Tom, Tom, The Piper's Son« for adults. The album »Mother Goose's Melodies« is a tribute to Mother Goose and to remember the great Dan Leno (1860 – 1904), who was a very famous actor, singer, clog dancer and pantomime in England. Mother Goose turned out to be one of the most challenging roles of Dan Leno's career. He slipped into the roles of the same woman in several different guises. The ugly, unkempt and poor Mother Goose eventually became a rich and beautiful but tasteless parvenu, searching for a suitor. The Japanese painter Mikiko Fujita adapted for the front cover an image of Dan Leno as Mother Goose.

Stefan Winter asked the composer and pianist Fumio Yasuda to adapt and arrange these nursery rhymes for a carefully selected ensemble around the voice of Theo Bleckmann. The primary idea was to create a record with quite different musical influences performed by one group of musicians. Yasuda and Bleckmann have already worked together many times (»Kastanienball«, »Las Vegas Rhapsody«, »Schumann’s Favored Bar Songs«, »Berlin: Songs of Love and War, Peace and Exile«). For the album »Mother Goose’s Melodies« special talented players – running the gamut from jazz to pop to experimental and new classical music – were selected. A group of excellent musicians came together: Caleb Burhans [violin, viola, guitar] who can also be heard on »Hello Earth! – The Music of Kate Bush«; Bohdan Hilash [woodwinds] who has worked with Meredith Monk, Leonard Bernstein, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta and Leonard Slatkin; Rubin Kodheli [cello] from the avant-rock band Blues In Space; Drew Gress [bass] who can also be heard within the ensembles of John Abercrombie, Don Byron, Uri Caine, Ravi Coltrane, Mark Feldman, John Hollenbeck, Tony Malaby, and John Surman; John Hollenbeck [drums, percussion], leader of the wonderful John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble; Akimuse [vocals] known as a Japanese song writer and singer who also performed with Fumio Yasuda; and last but not least Jo Lawry [vocals, violin], a member of Sting’s Back To Bass Tour in 2012.

»Blue Tail Fly« is arranged like a music piece for a TV series, »Mary Had A Little Lamb« like an American country pop song, »Three Blind Mice« like a drum- and rhythm-oriented composition with electric guitar and organ sounds, »Sing A Song Of Sixpence« turns into a duet which could play in an old black and white movie, and »Hush-A-Bye Baby« plays in the style of a song from a Broadway musical. Each song has its very own character. Sixteen Mother Goose melodies wear new musical clothes. Béla Bartók dances like Rumpelstiltskin »... 'Round The Mulberry Bush«, »Tom, Tom, The Piper's Son« turns into a sweeping a-cappella chant, and »Polly Wolly Doodle« plays in a jazz club. The beautiful »Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star« gets an almost absurd twist, like a mixture of good and bad childhood memories, and »Skip To My Lou« risks a trip into the world of trash-rock. The last track »Hey Diddle Diddle« starts like a dream sequence, ending in a crazy medieval-like anthem.

Akimuse, vocals
Theo Bleckmann, vocals, electronics, toys
Caleb Burhans, viola, violin, guitar
Drew Gress, acoustic bass, pedal steel guitar
Bohdan Hilash, clarinet, bass clarinet, saxophones
John Hollenbeck, drums, percussion, vibraphone, glockenspiel, crotales
Rubin Kodheli, cello
Jo Lawry, vocals, violin
Fumio Yasuda, piano, fender rhodes

Theo Bleckmann
A singer and new music composer of eclectic tastes and prodigious gifts, GRAMMY NOMINATED and ECHO award recipient 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, and of popular “bar 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 latest project: "Hello Earth - the music of Kate Bush."

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.

He has recently been interview by Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air and appeared on the Letterman show with Laurie Anderson.

Fumio Yasuda
was born in Tokyo, Japan. Having begun to learn classical piano in early childhood, Fumio Yasuda studied composition at The Kunitachi College of Music, soon finds hisinterest in improvisation music and performs together with well known improvisers in Japan. From 1995, he begins his musical collaboration with Japan's most famous photographer, Nobuyoshi Araki.

Yasuda's compositions for Araki's projects in collaboration with sounds and images, series of Arakinema films works are performed and created artistic sensations in various parts in the world such as Vienna, Hamburg, Taipei,and New York.

Fumio Yasuda has released many leaders albums with the Winter & Winter label. All of bellows are composed by Fumio Yasuda. The“Kakyoku" is composed and arranged by Fumio Yasuda and with Ernst Reijseger [violoncello] , The European Art Orchestra and a photographer, Nobuyoshi Araki. The "Accordion Concerto" is featured with Teodoro Anzellotti as a soloist. The “Piano concerto”castrating Kammerorchester Basel is played by Yasuda (piano). The "Charmed with Verdi" is the piano-transcriptions after the Verdi's operas. As arranger and pianist : “The Las Vegas Rhapsody" -including his composition “The Las Vegas Rhapsody prologue" , the Berlin Kabarett, and the popular “bar songs” are with a vocalist, Theo Bleckmann.

This album contains no booklet.