Delphene - The Future is Back!!

Now I perceive that they were looking for interpretation or a way of telling the story. I ended up being asked to do a record and the executive producers told me, class of joking, “Look, we’re going to tie your hands behind the piano bench this time. Don’t play…we want you to pipe. Would you do that?” So I had my few conditions, which were that I wanted to do Bossa Nova and I’d like to have a little orchestra like Joao Gilberto has done. And I did the one dossier, called Dreamer , in 2003.

The record did so well. It was my best-selling record, so I was faced with going out to sing and play. So I started to do a lot of that loaded. It started becoming comfortable and personal for me. Since that time, every record I’ve done as a leader has had a lot of vocals with the exception of the Bill Evans record [ Something For You ] that has dialect mayhap five out of 12 songs with vocals. I actually enjoy it now and I feel bringing in the singing has opened up a whole new horizon with things I can do. I have so many things now I scantiness to do. It’s great in terms of adding another instrument and figuring out what can be done with that. It’s a whole new horizon that has opened up for me. Yes, he has such a beautiful voice that blends so excellently. This whole record was so joyful to make. It had and continues to have a life of its own. The recording was natural and organic. Even what happened with Gilberto Gil was like that. A few weeks before the recording period, I had all this material ready to go and I knew what I wanted to do. There was a particular tune called “Samba Maracatu” that I indeed felt should have a male voice to do a duet. I had sent two or three e-mails to Gil’s management, but I didn’t hear back, so I was going to give up on the object. With one more effort, I tried calling him from an old listing I had in my address book. He answered the call. He was in the studio and he stopped everything. He was so excited about it.

Source: JazzTimes Magazine