Martha Reich & Michael Kott + The Bébé La La Band
sponsored by Organic Books
It's an evening of award winning NM singer-songwriters and their unique indie folk music. First on the program is Santa Fe-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Martha Reich, who has performed around the world and has shared stages with Melissa Crabtree, Consuelo Luz, the Reverend Horton Heat and others as well as opening for Kate MacLeod and performing at the Sundance Film Festival. She has released four CDs and an award winning EP entitled Peace Harvest. Her 2018 release, Brave Bird earned her a Gold Medal for Female Vocalist in the 2018 Global Music Awards, as well as the LA Critics Award for Best Folk Artist, and was described as “stunning and heartbreaking” by Americana Highways. Often compared to Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez, Reich is inspired by nature and her unique style features an honesty and vulnerability that evokes “a sound almost woven out of the earth.” She is joined tonight by longtime collaborator, cellist Michael Kott, who “presents the cello as a portrayal of in nite compassion...telling stories outside time and place.”
Albuquerque's award winning indie Folk Americana Français duo, Bébé La La, featuring singer-songwriter, guitarist, violist Alicia Ultan and vocalist-accordionist, Maryse Lapierre, originally from Quebec, Canada, combines Lapierre's French influences with Ultan's original “art" songs, highlighted by their signature "stunning" harmonies. Formed in 2010, Bébé La La released their debut CD, High Wire, in 2015, for which they received three nominations and two awards at the 2016 New Mexico Music Awards. In a review of the CD, music writer Mel Minter of Musically Speaking and Albuquerque The Magazine wrote, "The tunes on High Wire face down a variety of difficult situations—from income inequality on the political front to trying love affairs on the personal front—on the strength of mesmeric harmonies and a spunky equilibrium. The original songs, all composed by Ultan, cover a lot of different territory, but they all emerge from personal experiences: the end of a relationship (“High Wire”), an epiphany on the road to Santa Fe (“My House”), portrait of an idealized lover with feet of clay (“12th Man”), solidarity among women (“Sister, Sister”: a call for women’s solidarity in the face of rape, abuse, and objectification—and one of those songs that’s familiar the first time you hear it), a spiritual connection with America’s pre-Columbian people (“Ruins”)—to touch on a few." Bébé La La has performed at many venues and festivals throughout Albuquerque and surrounding areas, including a sold out concert in Corrales with renowned trumpeter Bobby Shew, a featured artist on their CD. Tonight, filling out their already richly textured music, they are joined by bandmates Mike Fox, bass and Arnaldo Acosta, drums; plus special guest Claudio Tolousse on guitar and guitar-sitar. Also, on the program, Ultan, who played viola on Reich’s award winning CDs, will join Reich on a couple of her songs, while Reich and Kott will join the Bébé La La band for a tune or two!
