Blue Note Jazz Festival: Buika with Marques Toliver

June 22, 2014 nycfreeconcerts_4nf0ji Central Park, Jazz, SummerStage 0

Since her introduction to the American marketplace in 2007 with her album Mi Niña Lola (My Little Girl Lola), Buika has experienced a meteoric rise, earning lavish praise from The New York Times, The Miami Herald, and The Wall Street Journal, as well as NPR which quickly included her in their “50 Great Voices” radio gallery. Her next release, Niña de Fuego (Fire Child) paved the way for relocation to Miami in 2011. After achieving success in Europe, her works were compiled on the 2-CD set En Mi Piel (In My Skin) to coincide with the Pedro Almodovar movie of the same name in which she appeared. Buika was nominated for a GRAMMY for best Latin Jazz album this year, for her latest album La Noche Mas Larga. Rare is the artist to garner comparisons to Nina Simone, Chavela Vargas, and Cesaria Evora, but Buika has been compared to all of them. The New York Post has said, “A singer like Buika comes only once in a generation.”  www.conchabuikamusic.com
While Marques Toliver seemed to burst onto the scene via the UK with an arresting television performance in 2010, and a declaration from Adele as her “new favorite artist,” his story really began many years ago in Florida. It was there he began his training in classical violinist at the age of 10, and would later enroll in music school. Keen to throw him-self into the real world of music making, Toliver took a leap of faith and traveled to New York City, where his busking in subways and working as a freelance musician, quickly gained him attention from fellow artists. Soon enough he found himself playing live and on records for the likes of Holly Miranda, Grizzly Bear, and Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson. After another move to London, Toliver began winning over that city’s musical landscape in similar fashion, and soon he signed to Bella Union and released his well-received debut EP Butterflies Are Not Free. Following worldwide tours, he began work on the mixtape Studying For My Ph. D, a cornucopia of music, speech, loops, and news reports from the London Riots. Through the mixtape he would also delve in to some of the themes and ideas that would eventually influence his full-length debut Land of CanAan, a work brimming with his own unique R&B and Classical music influences.