Playing for Change - PFC3: Songs Around the World - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Novelty Island - Jigsaw Causeway [COMPACT DISCS] With Booklet date 11/28/2025

Playing for Change presents the Songs For Humanity album-an unparalleled musical collaboration manifesting the universal language and transformative power of music with soulful melodies and poignant lyrics. Incomparable artists such as Robbie Robertson, Ringo Starr, John Paul Jones, Carlos Santana, Slash, Jackson Browne, Black Pumas, Bunny Wailer, Peter Gabriel, Manu Chao and a multitude of global musicians have come together to craft a sonic masterpiece. From the captivating rhythms to the heartfelt harmonies, this album transcends borders, uniting the world through music. With the album artwork designed by the legendary Lee Oskar, we invite you to embrace the fusion of creativity, richness of the human experience and passion for changing the world one heart and one song at a time, with Songs For Humanity.

SOPRANO MEETS BASS is the latest from Ansonica Records. This album of traditional medieval Sephardic songs arranged by jazz bassist and music director Alan Lewine and classical soprano Ana María Ruimonte is an ethnomusicological celebration of the ancient Sephardic culture. These Spanish Jews were expelled from Spain in the 15th Century and resettled throughout the world, mingling their musical traditions with those of other peoples they encountered. The original arrangements meld medieval Moorish Iberia, jazz, flamenco, Middle Eastern music, and bel canto. They have set these songs in a sort of recombinant world fusion reflecting a vibrant embodiment of the Sephardic communities and their culture. As the album's title suggests, the female voice plays a starring role in SOPRANO MEETS BASS. This reflects the fact that the Sephardic tradition has, for centuries, been an oral one, passed down from mother to daughter across an expanse of generations. Only in the 20th Century were these songs transcribed by musicologists. The stories told in the Sephardic Romancero-the repertoire from which the album's program is drawn-conjure up portraits of life in medieval Spain and the universal truths that undergird them. Spanish soprano Ana María Ruimonte gives life to these ancient melodies and lyrics, radiating from the center of a constellation of renowned virtuosos. Flamenco guitar, Israeli flute, shofar, and a trove of other culturally significant musical instruments vitalize the music of SOPRANO MEETS BASS. The artists' arrangements of the songs on SOPRANO MEETS BASS have been performed throughout the world, from Spain to Cuba to Israel and the United States. This is fitting, since each of these nations has had a hand in forming the unique amalgam of cultural music we hear in this album.