MUSICIAN KLARA KJELLEN CONTINUES TO SHINE

Pic by Lisa Deurell

Back in 2007 I blogged Swedish singer songwriter Klara Kjellen.
I had met her a decade earlier during the London tour of the late traditional Tanzanian musicians : Hukwe Zawose and his nephew, Charles Zawose, both who died 2003 and 2004, respectively.
And so, I went to see Klara's gig in West London.
Three years later her progress is tremendous: more music, label, website, blog, stories and pics. Check here

BRASIL VS SWEDEN at ARSENAL STADIUM

Presonally?
Going to football matches is much much more than just seeing the game. It is the atmosphere, the people, the tension and release of tension. In a big match like the one i went to at Arsenal (Wed 26th March)with thousands and thousands of people you go through various emotions: fear (large crowds), trepidation (as though matching through a thick forest), anticipation (whether you support one team or the other); fun ( the music, the singing, the colours); space and volume. Here you can scream your guts out just like everyone else. Idiosyncracy is allowed like nowhere else. Maybe huge concerts are the same. But in music concerts you have to shut up, sometimes and listen to the music. In football there is nothing to listen. You are watching and shouting. Others are doing the same.
Mass ooooOOOOH and aaaaaAAAH!!!

Brasil against Sweden had it's sentimental magic. Of course everywhere else were friendlies. Friendlies before it gets hostile in September when the heats for the 2010 World Cup (in South Africa) begin, world wide. Officially, the match was a revisit; i.e. 50 years since these two very opposite nations met in the 1958 finals, with Pele (then only 17) scoring two of the 5-2 win. In homage the Brasilian team wore the same blue shirts that were won by the Pele-Garrincha team half a century ago. This seemed strange perhaps for those too young to know historic details.
Like it or not football (or "soccer" to Americans) is the most popular sport on earth, because... it is just popular.

Boys kicking the ball; everywhere you go on earth : streets, parties, gutters, beaches, you name it. Nowadays of course you have girls kicking balls, too. Check out this blog's archive around October 2007!!!
I love the atmosphere.
There is the clever and less clever.
Alot of idiocy which you don't feel while watching matches on television. Like Frederick Lundberg (Sweden) touching the ball and a section of the crowd going nuts.
"He is the one with the red shoes!"
Brasil's Robinho starts running with the ball and is mowed down. In my mind he hasn't done anything, technically he just ran with the ball!....
He did not score, didn't even manage to set up a goal, didn't even pass the ball.
But the crowd around me is going into a frenzy. That is how illogical it can get. IT IS FUN. Here are kids, old people, women, pretty and more than pretty, large and small families, euphoric youths carrying flags, painted in flags, wearing flags...flagging...

Press and Players part of the glitter and glory.

You walk as if you are in sleep, in deep waters, a tunnell, religious hall...
Then the mind slurs and slithers back to 1988.
Maracana stadium watching Brasil and Argentina. Me and a German guy called Herbert are just mesmerised by Diego Maradona. But we dare not say it loudly...no way.
We will get killed, for sure. He is the best player on the pitch, the artist, the dribbler ( recently only Zinedine Zidane has reached that zenith in my opinion); yet we dare not scream. That is how illogical it gets.
Mantra of this piece.
And what about the "Mexican Wave"?
This is the dance that joins us all here tonight.
ITS COMING....ITS COMING...you hear the kids saying. One ten year old girl is hardly interested in the match at all. She loves the wave, the Wave, here it is...foot stamping, foot stomping, shake your feet, shake them, HERE IT IS...up you get, WOOOW...and gone.


The chaps on horses are another interesting sight here; policing forests of flesh. I had to pose with them.

Yes, there is more than the One Nil Win which Brasil clinched that magical night at Arsenal. And it wasn't even in the mainstream papers the next day. Now you know why blogs are significant don't you? It is about such wonderful experiences.
Life.

ANOTHER KJELLEN GIG...

In November last year we featured a review of Swedish Musician-Songwriter Klara Kjellen's gig at Notinghill Gate.
Here is a new one. She says:

Happy Street plays sweet POP
and has a dream of living at a street where everyone is Happy.
We have been there once just to visit! We want to go there again!
All the wallpapers have a sent of a cottage in the countryside
and the lamps are a little bit dusty but the early summerlight
thatslipps in through the window makes us happy.


Welcome to our London GIG at Hope and Anchor in Islington,
Monday 17th of March, 20:00

207 Upper Street, London , N1 1RL
Entrance: £4

Bring your friends and have a great evening!!!
Hope to see you there...

New album 'Under your skin' released on the German Recordlabel Joprec
now available to buy from www.klarakjellen.se

www.myspace.com/klarakjellen
klara@klarakjellen.se

Acoustic Live Music at the Blag Club, Notting Hill, West London

Klara CD sleeve pic by Lisa Deurell

These days...
You are probably on someone's mailing list...
I am on several; i get calls and invitations almost every minute: most times one ignores these calls but eventually succumbing, like I did on Tuesday.
Last time i met this Swedish blonde was in the company of the great musician Hukwe Zawose almost ten years ago. Then Hukwe, died.
His nephew,Charles Zawose who accompanied the genius of Mbira Music would also pass away a year later.
...But Klara? Their marimba student... She went on playing...and she has been sending me news about her music; from different parts of the world. I never heard the music of Klara Kjellén.
So I am trotting up the stairs of the Blag Club in Notting Hill.
At the entrance stands an attractive female with the friendliest smile on this coldest London winter evening of December 11th...
"Who have you come to see?"
I am not even aware that i just handed her four pounds. Smiles are magicians.
"Are there loads of acts playing?"
Apparently there are and so, I say: "Klara..."
The fact is I don't even recall how she looks like. Music is that strange.
"She is Swedish."
"Oh, her," the Smile recognises The Subject in question.
"I am also from Sweden..."
Inside are many musicians doing a sound check. A lousy sound-check. Seems to go on forever. As a musician i know the feeling of waiting and checking instruments while the audience is waiting and watching.

The fans : Cesare Rossi and Mara Darwish all the way from Italy.

Time to get a drink. I am staring and sipping my red glass of wine.
Where is she?
As I ogle and flinch from the constant feedbacking of the PA ("testing testing, one, two, three") a friendly guy shakes my hand. He is none other than Johnny Fish...he will be the first Solo act ...on a guitar that sings better than his voice and a voice that brings joy to his brash, straight to the point lyrics. John is genuinely(and truly) the unknown, busy, bustling, London acoustic scene. The scene that only bloggers (and blog readers like you) would find amusing.

Fact is the whole night at the Blag club follows Johnny Fish's punch and tone.
Pete Marshall, the second act, is big in size and height but has a mellow voice that soothes, lulls. Pete is pure soulful singing.

Later, he says he was merely toying with covers, that he has more music i.e. like rest of the musicians here,all have much more than what is being seen or given...
Take the third act. In my opinion wonderful symbiosis of guitarist / singer in one. A Glasgow chap by the name of Shuggie Murphy.

Shuggie's guitar won't just behave itself, though. His fantastic playing is jarred by the fuzzy sounds and everyone starts giving suggestions: it must be his battery ("NO it is new" he corrects)...wrong cables? No. Robert the sound man is busy indeed, and only the last song really gives credit to this man's fabulous abilities.
The only black duet is: singer Deborah Charles and guitarist Barry Vincent; who as a teenager jammed with the great Bob Marleyin Jamaica...
The two have a distinct blues-jazzy-funky sound that ushers memories and nostalgia of the pure sound. Before the invasion of manufactured "music", if you know what i mean.

Not just the sound but the combination of an acoustic rich feminine voice and those well matched experienced jazzy strings of Barry. Barry confesses they did not even rehearse much. (What about if they did?)
Yes it is, indeed, special here and very low key.
And to this is where the lady who emailed me will play. I am re-introduced toKlara by her boyfriend, Tom.
She is leading a quartet.
Most songs are about relationships and the theme is reassurance. Self-explanatory titles: "Patience", "I breathe Without You Now", " They will slow down"...all giving encouragement to a ceaseless, restless soul, about this life.

Klara on keyboards...

My favourite is "Under your skin" which opens up her album of the same name. The beat and arrangement of guitar/ stroke/ drum/ guitar/ stroke/ vocals/ stroke/ drum stroke/ guitar...is quite catchy...
"LISTEN TO ME
I HAVE A STORY THAT I HAVE NEVER TOLD ANYONE
AND IF YOU PROMISE ME NOT TO LOOK DOWN
UNTIL I HAVE FINISHED THE STORY I WILL TELL YOU..."
Musically, the album is as effortless as her live gig. A singer songwriter rich and filled with melodies ("I guess I was a little bit in love" is so soft and sweet and svelte it keeps away my slightly tipsy mood and hunger pangs)...
This is Notting Hill, West London.
I am glad i came to theBlag Club.

Klara and boyfriend Tom (first, left)relaxing with pals after gig.