More songs with stories, stellar musicians, and a slight sting in the tail

12 MP3 Songs
JAZZ: Jazz Vocals, POP: Quirky

Show all album songs: IN MY SKIN Songs


Details:
IN MY SKIN
Gina Leishman, vocal, baritone ukulele, piano, glass
with
Charlie Burnham, violin
Greg Cohen, bass
Matt Munisteri, guitar, banjo
Marc Ribot, guitar
Todd Sickafoose, bass
Kenny Wollesen, percussion
GL, producer
Recorded at Brooklyn Recording - Andy Taub, engineer
Mastered by Gene Paul at DB Plus

THE ALBUM

Known for many years as a composer and multi-instrumentalist with numerous recordings to her credit, this is Vol. 2 of the Leishman Songbook. Where the first (Vol. 1, Bed Time - also available at CDBaby!) was primarily dark, nocturnal ballads, most of these new songs were written on the baritone ukulele during afternoons in a hammock. So it seemed only natural to form a âstring quartetâ â baritone uke (GL), violin (Charlie Burnham), guitar (Matt Munisteri) and bass (Greg Cohen) â and record most of the songs live in one afternoon and evening. Add the spice of guest appearances from Marc Ribot, Todd Sickafoose and Kenny Wollesen, and some piano and glass, and the result is a remarkably fresh-sounding collection of intimate pieces, music that wraps the listener in a hammock of strings, rocking you gently into a world redolent of lazy afternoons filled with dappled sunlight, good friends, and no agenda - easy, sensual, unhurried.
Compared at different times to singers as diverse as Blossom Dearie and Annette Peacock, Leishman considers herself primarily a story-teller, and her writing is appropriately cinematic at times, conjuring moods of all colors and hues â from euphoric beginnings to bitter ends, and vice versa. In My Skin reveals another facet of her distinctive voice as a singer-songwriter.
For more info go to
www.ginaleishman.com

THE ARTIST

Composer, multi-instrumentalist and singer Gina Leishman was born in England, studied music at the Vienna Conservatory and Edinburgh University, and has made her home in the U.S., first on the west coast, and for the past ten years in New York. She has written for the theater, opera, dance, film, TV and concert stage, garnering numerous awards.

Ms. Leishman is co-leader of the septet KAMIKAZE GROUND CREW, which has been performing and recording together for 20 years, on both coasts of the US and in Europe. Their recordings can be found on Koch Jazz, New World and Busmeat Records (and at CDBaby!) Members of the ensemble are Gina Leishman (co-leader, alto and bari sax, bass clarinet, keys, vocals), Doug Wieselman (co-leader, clarinets, sax), Peter Apfelbaum (tenor sax), Steven Bernstein (trumpet, slide trumpet), Art Baron (trombone), Marcus Rojas (tuba), and Kenny Wollesen (drums).

She also co-leads the MR. WAU-WA band, a quintet dedicated to the songs of Bertolt Brecht, for which she is the chief arranger and lead singer. She performs with infrequent regularity as a solo artist and with various other diverse downtown projects, as well as sitting in as occasional guest vocalist/arranger with Steven Bernstein's Millenial Territory Orchestra.

Considering herself more of a "musician who sings", rather than a "singer" per se, music has always been for her primarily about story telling, even when purely instrumental, something that has been fed by her many years of working in the theatre. She also considers songwriting "cheaper than therapy, and a lot more fun". While her instrumental compositions have been influenced by everything from Palestrina to pointillism, her vocal work harkens back to the American balladeers of the '30s through '50s, with a liberal dose of dark European angst.

"one of New York's most versatile composers" - Time Out
"gifted and idiosyncratic" - San Diego Union Tribune
"...Leishman stole the show" - New York Times
"an inspired composer" - S.F. Chronicle