September 10th marks the North American release of the summer’s #1 jazz album on Billboard Japan, Simply Love, with sparkling new originals and radiantly re-imagined classics by the internationally acclaimed singer/songwriter Halie Loren
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“… must be counted among the more fully conceived and executed CDs of the year with its smartly chosen collection of 13 tunes — three co-written by Loren — where many standards have been completely rethought.” – The Toronto Star
Released to Asia in June, Simply Love sold more than 3,000 copies in its first week, kicking off a remarkable run of two appearances at No. 1, five weeks in the top 5, and three months (and counting) on the Billboard Japan Top 20 Jazz Albums chart, and spawning five Top 40 jazz singles on iTunes Japan. In July, her fourth tour of Japan in as many years culminated in six sold-out shows at the Cotton Club in Tokyo.
The Eugene native’s star has been on the rise in Canada and the U.S., with recent appearances at famed North American venues including Birdland in New York, Yoshi’s jazz club in San Francisco and Seattle’s Jazz Alley.
Building on the success of her concert last year with the Corvallis/OSU Symphony, Loren’s new collection of songs features string orchestrations on three tracks, including the hauntingly original “Cuando Bailamos,” written with her friend and longtime collaborator, the late Larry Wayne Clark.
Key to Loren’s consistency over five jazz albums has been her trio, each member having appeared on every CD since 2008’s They Oughta Write a Song: pianist/arranger Matt Treder, bassist Mark “Mo” Schneider, and percussionist Brian West. Portland guitarist William Seiji Marsh, the band’s newest member, drew notice with his work on Loren’s last album, Heart First. The album also includes guest appearances by world-renowned accordionist Sergei Teleshev, Ali Heyer and Craig Chee on ukuleles for the happy-go-lucky beach serenade “Bare Feet”, Daniel Gallo on guitar for the enchanting title track, and four members of the Eugene Symphony (Dave Burham – violin II, Lisa McWhorter – violin I, Clark Spencer – viola, and Dale Bradley – cello).
Years of working closely together has made Loren’s backing band a tight, swinging, and at times almost telepathic performing unit, transforming well-known standards into fresh discoveries, drawing on everything from reggae to bolero to ’70s soul and funk to lend unexpected shadings. Singing in Spanish, Hawaiian, French, and Turkish, and inspired by her world travels, Loren finds connection in unlikely places, once again defying the conventional wisdom that jazz must be hard to understand or easy to brush off as background music. Loren and her band are delighted to share “Simply Love”, and all of the feelings of joie de vivre that this collection of 13 songs conveys, with their fans in North American and worldwide.