Click here to view the embedded video.

Title: Lucia Comnes Band featuring Karamo Susso
Location: Bissap Baobab Senegalese Restaurant
Link out: Click here
Description: Come and groove to Gypsy African fusion in SF\’s Mission District, while enjoying fresh juice cocktails and delish West African dishes…
Start Time: 07:00pm
Date: 2009-08-16
End Time: 10:00pm

Lucia Comnes Band & Tamarind at the Sleeping Lady

Title: Lucia Comnes Band with Tamarind
Location: The Sleeping Lady
Link out: Click here
Description: Enchanting Voices, a Unique World Music Experience
Start Time: 21:00
Date: 2009-09-04
End Time: 24:00

On the way had a great review in the San Francisco Chronicle Datebook section.

Solas and other musical groups have done the traditional Irish folk song “Calling Home the Calves” (Aililiu Na Gamhna), but Lucia Comnes has taken it to a higher level, using her singular voice and two instruments from the Indian subcontinent – bansuri flute and shruti box – to create a goose-bumpy tableau of nature and memory. “Calling Home the Calves” is one of numerous delights on Comnes’ new album, “On the Way,” which takes songs from across borders – Read more…

San Jose Mercury News, March 12, 2009
For the full article:

http://www.mercurynews.com/music/ci_11887642?nclick_check=1

http://www.pacificsun.com/story.php?story_id=2473

Lucia Comnes and Tamarind Jones. The names have a nice ring when you say them together, a rhythm, an alliteration, as if they were meant to be linked in some way – not as a law firm or comedy team, but as two young Marin musicians (Comnes is 25, Jones 32) exploring new territory in world music.

That’s exactly what a mutual friend thought when she introduced them in February at the musician and mountain biker hangout, San Anselmo Coffee Roasters.

“She was familiar with both our backgrounds in music and our current work and felt it would be really appropriate for us to meet up,” Comnes tells me. “We’d both heard of each other, and were aware of each other. When we did meet, we found we really did have a lot in common. We immediately connected and started planning concerts together.”

One of those concerts, their second, is a joint CD release show Saturday at the San Geronimo Valley Community Center.

Comnes, a Marin native who sings and plays violin with her own band, comes to the gig with songs from her debut album, “On the Way,” a world fusion CD that’s a kind of musical U.N. plenary session, melding Irish melodies, Turkish rhythms, Indian tabla, Bulgarian vocals, Motown grooves, gypsy tunes, West African vibes and American jazz.

“The mission of this album is to bring forth some of my favorite songs, ones that I’ve picked up traveling and studying abroad, and presenting them in new ways that are accessible to modern young audiences while still being true to the
Advertisement traditions they come from,” Comnes explains. “I’m 25, and I have quite a few peers who are interested in this music. But some of the sounds are very different from what you hear in pop music. It’s kind of an acquired taste.”

On her second album, “Sounds Alone,” Jones sings original pop songs in the North Indian classical music style she learned while studying at the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael.

Recorded in Los Angeles with producer Alex Gibson (who collaborated on the “Songs for Tibet – Art of Peace” project) and session musicians who’ve played with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Alanis Morissete, among other name bands, “Sounds Alone” is exotic and yet accessible, different from anything I’ve heard before.

“English lyrics with Indian melodies is a unique combination, an experiment for me,” she says, noting that she once sang in the jazz group Facing East. “What I’m drawn to is lyrics and poetry in more of a folk and rock style rather than jazz.”

Both of these women have come to their eclectic music from fascinating backgrounds.

Jones’ parents are followers of the controversial guru Da Free John, who now calls himself Adi Da. She grew up in the cult’s ashram in Fiji as one of his adopted daughters.

“It was a way for me to be part of his family as well,” she says of the adoption. “It was a special thing. I was very blessed.”

She studied ballet and violin in Fiji, and, on a visit with her parents to Marin, she checked out the Ali Akbar College of Music, founded by the great Indian classical music master Ali Akbar Khan. She’s been a student at the San Rafael school since 1993.

“I loved the music and after that I just wanted to sing,” she said, noting that she dropped the violin and gave up dancing in order to focus on vocals and songwriting, feeling that’s her true calling.

“These songs started coming to me,” she says, “and I realized that was what I could offer.”

Comnes, who grew up in San Anselmo’s Sleepy Hollow, became the youngest member of Kitka, a women’s vocal ensemble that specializes in Eastern European music, when she was 18. With Kitka, she learned to sing in 15 languages and sings in seven of them on her new CD.

“Growing up in Marin, I was exposed to musical traditions from all over the world at a very young age,” she recalls. “I first heard Kitka in high school.”

She left the group in 2004 to finish her degree in ethnomusicology, studying for two years in Costa Rica, Mexico, Greece and Ireland.

Originally trained in classical violin, she studied Irish music with John Peterson at Amazing Grace Music in San Anselmo and toured and peformed in Ireland this summer.

When she was an elementary student at Brookside School in San Anselmo, she participated in the California Freshwater Shrimp Project, a campaign to save an endangered species that gave her an early environmental awareness and the inspiration for her one original composition, “Water,” on her CD.

“Water is my first original song, and it’s more the essence of who I am as an artist,” she says. “I’m bringing awareness to water as a vital element on the planet so we don’t end up in the same situation as we have with oil, having it in hands of big corporations.

“Growing up in Marin, my parents are very political and socially and environmentally active in the community. It showed me that people could make a huge difference by working together.”

And, in the came of Comnes and Jones, by singing together.

Paul Liberatore
Posted: 10/09/2008 06:22:55 PM PDT
The Marin IJ, Featured in the “Lifestyles” Section

http://www.marinij.com/ci_10682063?source=most_emailed

“Solas and other musical groups have done the traditional Irish folk song “Calling Home the Calves” (Aililiu Na Gamhna), but Lucia Comnes has taken it to a higher level, using her singular voice and two instruments from the Indian subcontinent – bansuri flute and shruti box – to create a goose-bumpy tableau of nature and memory. “Calling Home the Calves” is one of numerous delights on Comnes’ new album, “On the Way,” which takes songs from across borders – including from Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria – and interprets them anew while retaining the original language. The result: a cascade of tunes (plus a jazzy Comnes original) that are otherworldly and embedded with soul and spirit. On many songs, violin merges with accordion, electric bass and other instruments, then is capped by Comnes’ vocalizations, which cross musical chasms. Comnes lives in the Bay Area, but her home is really the world at large.”

Datebook, San Francisco Chronicle, September 14, 2008

“Comnes, a Marin native who sings and plays violin with her own band, comes to the gig with songs from her debut album, ‘On the way,’ a world fusion CD that’s a kind of musical U.N. plenary session, melding Irish melodies, Turkish rhythms, Indian tabla, Bulgarian vocals, Motown grooves, gypsy tunes, West African vibes and American jazz.”

Paul Liberatore, Music Writer for Lifestyles, Marin Independent Journal, October 10, 2008

“Lucia travels the music of the world with her expressive, intelligent, supple voice. It is heartening to hear her sing us her love of that world and all the music that holds us together.”

Rhiannon, Jazz Vocalist, Master Teacher at Berklee College of Music, MA

“On the way by Lucia Comnes is a spirited and elegant musical excursion that sparkles with international gusto. The more I listen the more I appreciate Lucia´s angelic voice, the album’s intricately woven musical passages, the sounds and rhythms from different parts of the world and the array of emotion that comes through the music. Often when I go to a concert and like what I hear, I get a CD and it is usually way over produced. This album is like taking the concert home. Lucia is definitely “on the way” to a long and fulfilling musical career with her first solo album.”

Barbara Borden, Drummer, Performer, Educator

“An impressive recording of very gifted musicians performing music that isn’t heard too often in the Western world. Their musical passion, led by Comnes’ intense studies in ethnomusicology and already wide-ranging globe-trotting… stands out and is easily one of the strongest features of this recording… [Comnes is] a bright new voice in the world music arena.”

Customer review from the iTunes Music Store

“From the luring instrumental rhythm and dissonant vocal passion of “Delyo the Haiduk,” to the ‘river’ of musical sound that is “Water” (with harmonic hints of Basia) to the infectious jubilance of “Gigile” and beyond, On the way captivates you and takes you along for the trip. I am caught by the worldly spell of this music and will continue to enjoy the experience. I have given your CD as gifts and keep thinking of more people to order the CD for.”

Judi Desmond, Customer Review

“I enjoyed both vocal and violin performances, the choice of material with it’s variable global positioning and the mix of the instruments.”

Stephen Kent, Producer of “Music of the World,” KPFA Radio, Berkeley, California

“Awesome CD!”

Mark Abdilla, Guitarist, Performer, Educator

“Very original and dreamy.”

Brad Kava, Radio Soup, San Jose, California

Click here to view the embedded video.

Potpourri is a unique collaboration between African and American artists and styles. The song tells the story about two lovers who are separated, but together in a dream…
West African virtuoso kora (harp) meets Western violin in an Afro-Latin-Pop collaboration between African artist Karamo Susso and American artist Lucia Comnes. A mystical love song woven to life with unique, captivating and exquisite music. Visit the official music video site: www.drymypetals.com.