'More Different Voices' by Corky Siegel's Chamber Blues
Although fondly remembered for his years in the Siegel Schwall Blues Band, Corky Siegel has been messing with classical music since the early ‘70s. His latest venture into the blues-classical frontier, More Different Voices, will be released in September. On the new album, Siegel finds surprising common ground between widely disparate forms of music. In his hands, the result isn’t an artificial, cut-and-paste fusion but the exploration of genuine commonalities.
The melody of Siegel’s composition opening More Different Voices, “No One’s Got Them Like I Do,” is essentially blues derived, his harmonica working in complement to a string quartet. Lynne Jordan’s vocals keep things grounded in the blues. Siegel brings several other guest vocalists to the project, including bluesman Toronzo Cannon, Poi Dog Pondering’s Frank Orrall, folkie Tracy Nelson and Ukrainian-born cantor Pavel Roytman on a tune that dances like a fiddler on a Mississippi roof, “Hine Ma Tov Blues.”
