Music for Ironing on a Rainy Sunday Afternoon Theo Bleckmann

• 1 Tico Tico 02:50
• 2 Teacher's Pet 02:34
• 3 It's Been a Long, Long Time 02:38
• 4 You Make Me Feel so Young 04:17
• 5 Oh, Dear! What Can the Matter Be 04:24
• 6 Im Weissen Rössl 02:48
• 7 Hush-A-Bye Baby 03:35
• 8 Everybody's Doin' It Now 01:26
• 9 Let's Call the Whole Thing Off 03:53
• 10 Blue Tail Fly 03:57
• 11 Look to the Rainbow 03:16
• 12 We Kiss in a Shadow 03:37
• 13 By the Light of the Silvery Moon 03:14
• 14 A Child Is Born 03:35
• 15 The Night They Invented Champagne 02:01
• 16 I've Grown Accustomed to His Face 05:15
• Total Runtime 53:20

Info for Music for Ironing on a Rainy Sunday Afternoon

Unforgettable greatest hits from musicals sound in new, enchanting arrangements. Childrens songs for adults awaken wonderful memories of a carefree childhood. Swinging melodies and evergreens are presented at the highest level by excellent musicians. These joyful recordings make a rainy Sunday afternoon forget and the ironing an easy task. The beautiful melodies put every listener in the best mood. This album offers the high art of entertainment. A must for all music lovers who want to enjoy a relaxing time.

Theo Bleckmann & Fumio Yasuda
Uri Caine Ensemble
Paul Motian
Cassandra Wilson
Kammerorchester Basel and others

Theo Bleckmann.
A jazz singer and new music composer of eclectic tastes and prodigious gifts, GRAMMY NOMINATED Theo Bleckmann makes music that is accessibly sophisticated, unsentimentally emotional, and seriously playful. His work provokes the mind to wonder, but connects immediately with the heart.

Singer.
Bleckmann has released a series of gorgeous and irreverent albums on Winter & Winter, including recordings of Las Vegas standards, of Berlin kabarett, and of popular “bar songs” (all with pianist Fumio Yasuda), a recording of newly-arranged songs by Charles Ives (with the improvisational jazz/funk collective Kneebody), his Solos for Voice and Toys, where Bleckmann brought just his stunning vocal technique, his emotional commitment, and his suitcase full of oddly evocative voice-altering gadgets to the project of recording delicate songs and poems alone at a monastery in the Swiss Alps. In his newest project Bleckmann takes on the songbook of the British pop recluse Kate Bush: 'Hello Earth' - the music of Kate Bush is scheduled to be released in the winter of 2011.

Collaborator.
In addition to his work as a soloist, Bleckmann loves to mix it up with other musicians. He maintains an ongoing creative relationship with guitar phenomenon Ben Monder, generating a series of performances and a pair of albums that wreak beautiful havoc with standard expectations of jazz and rock. With John Hollenbeck and Gary Versace, he makes up Refuge Trio, a project exploring and reinventing the work of popular singer-songwriters as well as generating provocative original work. With singers Peter Eldridge, Kate McGarry, Lauren Kinhan, and Luciana Souza, he forms Moss, a collective that plays in the sandbox of jazz, folk, and rock, building new ideas and compositions for voices. Bleckmann has additionally collaborated with a remarkable roster of contemporary musicians and composers, including Laurie Anderson, Uri Caine, Philip Glass, Sheila Jordan, 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. His uniquely flexible and colorful voice has also inspired compositions by, among others, Michael Gordon, Phil Kline, David Lang, Ikue Mori, Kirk Nurock, and Julia Wolfe.

Composer.
Bleckmann's joyous, mischievous sensibility is also manifest in his compositional work, which leaves listeners feeling as if their usual chair had been moved over a few inches when they weren't looking - familiar things look fresh and strange again for a moment. He has composed for a range of instruments from piano, violin, and kalimba to chimes, Glockenspiel, toy microphone, and sewing machines, setting exquisite poems by Rumi, Emily Dickenson, and Kurt Schwitters as well as building ineffable soundscapes with just his voice and a loop pedal. His most recent compositional achievement is an evening of original work for voice and the JACK String Quartet, commissioned by the Slought Foundation.

Mad Genius.
Bleckmann's approach to music and performance is unusual and provocative. His taste for risk-taking, coupled with rigorous technique, is clear in his unusual and varied ability as a sound improviser - an ability which is sufficiently in demand that he was commissioned to create the space alien language for Steven Spielberg's Men in Black. Bleckmann confesses to a love affair with performance art that informs his playful approach to music-making. Concerned that all senses be honored, he crafts each aspect of stage presentation (including expressive physicality and fabulous clothing choices) to create a context that completes and highlights the music. His thoughtfulness and articulacy about music and performance have led to recognition in unusual quarters, including a Fresh Air interview with Terry Gross and an article on vocal technique solicited for John Zorn's Arcana series, Volume III. Bleckmann's adventurous and extravagantly beautiful choices have led 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), and left one critic wondering, “does he eat people food?” (AllAboutJazz). He has a gift for creating sounds listeners have never heard before, but pine to hear again.

In 2010, Bleckmann received the prestigious JAZZ ECHO award from the Deutsche Phono-Akademie in his native Germany and appeared on the David Letterman show with Laurie Anderson.

Booklet for Music for Ironing on a Rainy Sunday Afternoon