Songbook

When the song strikes, it pierces through. It kills. Pascal Quignard, The Hatred of Music.
SONGBOOK
Blending traditional and ancestral songs from Colombia and Argentina with modern jazz, African rhythmic influences and European classical elements, the Songbook project is an ambitious, mature, genre-stretching musical statement conceived by Colombian singer Lucía Pulido and Argentine guitarist-composer Fernando Tarrés.
Argentina and Colombia are culturally rich and diverse countries where an array of influences and ethnic groups intertwined in the process of nation building. Songbook is the result of an elaborated blending of as many of such influences as these two very eclectic artists have had throughout their careers and lives, in search for an original language that faithfully embodies them.
Sophisticated yet direct, the band approaches the music from a radical perspective, framing Lucía Pulido's raw timbre and an easygoing lyricism within a rich world of rhythm, color and sound.
Past and present, tradition and modernity reaching total communion, as the music takes the listener for an unexpected journey.
LUCIA PULIDO
Vocalist Lucía Pulido is a highly intuitive artist who sees the larger picture, a consequential storyteller who is keenly aware of how she wants to frame her sound.
Born in Colombia, where she grew surrounded by popular culture and a rich music environment, Lucía is a highly respected performer in the New York music scene, where she has been living since 1994, appearing and recording with some of the most remarkable local musicians: Erik Friedlander, Ed Simon, Stomu Takeishi, Satoshi Takeishi, Brian Blade, Dave Binney, Luis Bonilla, Ben Street, Donny McCaslin and many others.
Lucía phrases with the wisdom of an old soul, and with an insightful knowledge of her country's musical universe, she's been crossing over into jazz music and, on her BAU Records’ Songbook series, she presents a set of lithe, poignant music covering old Colombian and Argentinean songs. A body of work of great conceptual power.
FERNANDO TARRES
Fernando Tarrés is widely recognized as one of the most important and original Argentine musicians to emerge from the jazz and improvised music scene of the last decades.
The astonishing array of his artistic activities as a composer, arranger, performer and producer with artists like Tom Harrell, Danilo Pérez, Ruben Blades, Donny McCaslin, Erik Friedlander, Mark Feldman, Ed Simon, David Kikoski, Luis Perdomo, Drew Gress, Tito Puente, Paquito D'Rivera, Bologna Philharmonic Orchestra, Panama Symphony, Maracaibo Symphony Orchestra, Mexico’s Chavez Orchestra, Claudio Roditi, David Sánchez, Montevideo National Symphony, Medellin’s EAFIT Orchestra, Bogotá Philharmonic, John Hollenbeck, Satoshi Takeishi, David Binney and Gary Burton among many others, makes him one of the most prominent names in the South American modern creative music scene.
In addition to his work as a guitarist, composer and educator, leading a wave of innovative projects, Tarrés is a tireless organizer who’s partly responsible for the notable growth of the Argentine creative music scene in recent years.