The Dynamic Miss Faye Carol featuring Talib Kweli
Faye Carol
Talib Kweli
The Dynamic Miss Faye Carol is known as an icon in the Bay Area and beyond, highly regarded for her powerful voice, astonishing versatility, and gift of connecting with her audience. Equally at home in jazz, blues, R&B, gospel, funk, latin, and hip-hop, she has developed her own authentic sound and unique delivery, delighting audiences young and old across the globe. After beginning her career with gospel music, Faye Carol made her name singing with Oakland blues and funk legend Johnny Talbot & De Thangs in the 1960s. She soon formed her own trio and gained fame in San Francisco's jazz, blues, and cabaret clubs of the 1970s and 80s. Over a 60-year career in music, this living legend has developed her own unique acoustic sound and style in Black Music - drawing from funk, blues, gospel, and straight ahead swingin' - and cultivated an audience that remains as diverse as her uplifting music. She has maintained a high level of musicianship in her groups, mentoring some of the Bay Area's brightest young talent including pianist Benny Green, bassist/composer Marcus Shelby, and her daughter Kito Kamili. Her vocal proteges include international superstars Kehlani and Ledisi.
Miss Faye has shared the stage with Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, Joe Tex, Martha Reeves & The Vandellas, Ray Charles, Gene Ammons, Pharaoh Sanders, Joan Baez, Billy Higgins, Albert King, Bobby Hutcherson, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Buster Williams, Azar Lawrence, Steve Turre, Dennis Chambers, Bernard Purdie, Lenny White, Robert Randolph, Mistah F.A.B., Henry Butler, Gary Bartz, Cedar Walton, Ledisi, Billy Hart, Roy McCurdy, Mike Clark, Casey Benjamin, Philly Joe Jones, Lady Tramaine Hawkins, Houston Person, Vi Redd, Jeff ‘Tain’ Watts, Dayna Stephens, Dorothy Donegan, Pete Escovedo, David Murray, Chester Thompson, Charles Brown, and Eddie 'Cleanhead' Vinson, among others. Miss Faye is also a dedicated educator and founder of School of The Getdown. She has been honored with the proclamation of a city-wide “Faye Carol Day” in the City of Berkeley and City of Oakland & inducted into the Oakland Walk of Fame, the Meridian Mississippi Walk of Fame, and the Pittsburg Entertainment & Arts Hall of Fame, and has received countless awards including the 2014 Bay Area Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Hero Award, Jefferson Award for Public Service, four Cabaret Gold Awards, Top Star Awards Entertainer of the Year, & a prestigious 2021 Hewlett 50 Arts Commission.
Brooklyn-based MC Talib Kweli earned his stripes as one of the most lyrically-gifted, socially aware and politically insightful rappers to emerge in the last 20 years.
“I’m a touring artist. I’m an artist that’s internationally known. I’m not just a local artist at this point in my career. I’m cognizant of the fact that what I do is beyond where it started. I’m trying to reach the apex of where I am now, but without turning my back on or dismissing what I’ve done before.”
After nearly 20 years of releasing mesmerizing music, Talib Kweli stands as one of the world’s most talented and most accomplished Hip Hop artists. Whether working with Mos Def as one-half of Black Star, partnering with producer Hi-Tek for Reflection Eternal, releasing landmark solo material or collaborating with Kanye West, Pharrell Williams, Just Blaze, J Dilla, or Madlib, Kweli commands attention by delivering top-tier lyricism, crafting captivating stories and showing the ability to rhyme over virtually any type of instrumental.
In 2011, Kweli founded Javotti Media, which is self-defined as “a platform for independent thinkers and doers.” Kweli has set out to make Javotti Media (which released his 2011 album, Gutter Rainbows, and is named after his paternal grandmother) into a media powerhouse that releases music, films and books.
Blues, Baroque, & Bars is an evening-length work from legendary vocalist The Dynamic Miss Faye Carol, featuring an all-star trio, string quartet, and rapper, and encompassing a wealth of history, music, and culture from the past 400 years of the Black experience. Supported by a prestigious Hewlett 50 Commission in Traditional Arts, this powerful new work is the culmination of this renowned artist's 60+ year career in music. Blues, Baroque, & Bars traces the story of Black people in America through the blues - the story of a people and an art form holding the history of Black America from the slave ships to the cotton fields to segregation, to the present day. Featuring world-renowned drummer Dennis Chambers, rapper Talib Kweli bringing the bars, and a dynamic baroque string quartet, Blues, Baroque, & Bars expounds on the blues, bringing together jazz, classical, hip-hop, funk, R&B, & gospel to tell stories of triumph, sadness, romance, injustice, protest, humor and resilience.
SONG LIST
Overture: Middle Passage (Faye Carol, Joe Warner)
The Birth of The Blues (music by Ray Henderson, lyrics by Buddy DeSylva and Lew Brown)
CC Rider (Traditional)
The Joint is Jumpin' (music by Fats Waller, lyrics by Andy Razaf and J.C. Johnson)
Gospel Medley (Traditional)
Splanky (music by Neal Hefti, lyrics by Joe Warner)
Cookin' At The Continental (music by Horace Silver, lyrics by Joe Warner)
I Just Want to Make Love To You (Willie Dixon)
Think (Jimmy McCracklin, Don Robey)
Intermission
Giant Steps (music by John Coltrane, lyrics by Joe Warner)
Backlash Blues (music by Nina Simone, lyrics by Langston Hughes)
I Got It Bad (and That Ain't Good) (music by Duke Ellington, lyrics by Paul Francis Webster)
Inner City Blues (Marvin Gaye, James Nyx Jr.)
The Greatest Love of All (music by Michael Masser, lyrics by Linda Creed)
Yes We Can Can (Allen Toussaint)
Acknowledgments
This project has been made possible in part by a grant from the Alliance for California Traditional Arts, in partnership the California Arts Council, a state agency, the Walter & Elise Haas Fund, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.