Greetings,

I'm in the process of recording a CD (remember those?) to give away at our senior shows. It will contain mostly Latin versions of Great American Song Book material, other well known "oldies" and a couple of contemporary Latin songs too.

This tune features my good compadres Manual Castañeda on tenor sax and Lico Cisneros on requinto guitar and bass guitar. I'm playing the Ketron Audya and singing. My cousin Rafael Rosales recorded us.

We're still in the process of mixing and recording the last few songs. In other words, this is still a work in progress, changes can still be made, so feel free to give any feedback .... I just realized after listening to this, the song should fade out, and I messed up on some lyrics....

I made a little slide show of the band and some sights around Dallas for your viewing pleasure:)

Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVOl_ZhFSpI

Very beautiful songs and renditions.
Thanks for sharing.

Very beautiful songs and renditions.
Thanks for sharing.

Your Latin redition of night and day is good, very good. The song stays alive with the latin drums.

Latin music is my favorite, thank you.
John C.

Thanks for sharing - good looking group! Night and Day (Cole Porter) is my wife's favorite song that I do. I perform it as a ballad, soft and sweet, with a lot of strings and oboes passing through.

The Latin rendition sounds great Nice piano rhythm and sax playing too!

paul you got mail..

Thanks Jimmy for listening!

John C, it’s nice to be among a “Latin Lover” such as yourself:)

Zuki, I would love to hear your ballad version and in fact any other members version too. With these great old standards there’s so many ways to approach them. We can gain knowledge from listening to each other.

DNJ, thanks for your email. Hope your feeling better and continuing making your wonderful music.

Paul, love the Latinesque style you put on this timeless song, great instrumentation throughout.

Now, the vocal, which are right on key, very crisp and clear, but unemotional sounding. The phrasing is not as smooth as it should be, somewhat stilted sounding.

Overall, great performance and I loved the video,

Gary

Gary, I appreciate your constructive criticism. There’s something about my singing that makes me cringe a bit when I listen to it, and I was having trouble pinpointing what bothered me about my voice. Maybe your right and I have to put more emotion into my interpretation. I’m not sure about how to do that though..,. Some people are blessed with beautiful ,soulful ,melodious voices and others aren’t.
Unfortunately I started singing late in life and I’m trying to catch up. I wish had sung in a church choir and the school musicals. At this point I mostly focus on pitch but there’s so more to singing as you pointed out. I’ll reflect on what you said and see what I can do to improve.

Paul, this is a lovely rendition, and I think the sax solo is really good ...
As as far as the vocal, it is not bad by any means, but I get what Gary is saying ... what I find with people who are just starting out singing is that there is an emphasis on two main goals ... one is the correct pitch, and the other is 'fitting the lyrics into the right space' ... you have the pitch part down, but some work is necessary on the phrasing ... I would suggest listening to various artists sing the same song - almost always available on youtube - and singing along with them ...
I also find that musicians who are trained in the classics have a difficult time with this, having constantly practiced to play every note as written, and this is also reflected in their singing ... but DON'T STOP ... the only way to improve is to continue doing it ... BUT as my accordion teacher used to tell me "Practice doesn't make perfect, only PERFECT practice makes perfect" ...

Paul there is no real reason to take my advice, but I think I am on the right path...

If you can learn the lyrics to the song without reading them... it will help my next suggestion.... Sing to your lovely wife.. the emotion will be there..

Hi Paul.........Your post caught my attention because, by coincidence, I've been working on that song (Night and Day) for the last few days now.

Fran IS on the right path. The trick to both playing and singing songs effectively was taught to me many years ago.

Learn the "words" to a song before you learn the actual song. Then....learn the notes. Then....as you're playing or singing, use industrial strength "phrasing" as you think of the meaning of the lyrics.

A great song for practicing that is: The Way You Look Tonight. Listen to both Frank Sinatra and Fred Astaire....masters at song interpretation. And...the queen of interpretation....Eva Cassidy.

Everything else in the video sounds great, and, yes...your saxophone player is really terrific. You might want to study HIS phrasing. His "rides" reek with "phrasing."

paul you got mail

Tony, Fran and Mark- thanks for your comments and taking the time to listen. Fran, my wife especially appreciated your recommendation