When is the last time a piece of music made you feel the sense of longing we oft feel at 3 am, after a long day. Maybe you miss someone you love deeply, or maybe you just want an escape? Music is after all next to film, one of the best ways to travel to different worlds from our own and live different lives, but with music, as harsh as it sounds, music is meaningless. It carries as much weight as we the listener put into it, not the just singer/songwriter. I really want every reader to listen to”Havana” this new track from flutist duo former student and teacher respectively, Steve Markoff and Patricia Lazarra, and their release from their album “Romance In Blue”.
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It’s an interesting name choice for the album for sure and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s meant to evoke the classical feelings of Rhapsody in Blue, the Gershwin classic. It certainly carries very similar connotations being able to tell a full rich story filled with pathos with just the help of two flutes and a piano (great name for a sitcom there). Going back to my earlier point, with music whatever you put into your listening experience is what you’ll get back and for me, it brought out feelings of warm summer days and the lonely sunsets when you’re without love. We don’t like to acknowledge how often music makes us feel because so much of it is branded as content, just one thing to the next as trends move so fast we can’t keep up with them.
The focus on this track is immeasurable, making sure it has your direct attention and the vulnerability in its sounds go a long way to making you feel just as comfortable and settled in as the trio does. The addition from pianist Allison Brewster Franzetti is just superb with her really pouring her heart out through her keys and nary an opportunity for a little twinkle or flourish is missed. Lazarra is an accomplished celebrated flutist having won several awards and played at the likes of Carnegie Hall, and at this point, a woman is a well-oiled machine that shouldn’t surprise anyone as far as her capabilities go. You can tell that from teaching Markoff the duo were able to experiment and find out what defines them because when you actually listen to the track, you’ll be able to distinctly tell apart from one from the other.
Markoff has been noted of having a more free-flowing style and I think that juxtaposition helps the track never get static and the mixing is phenomenal and there’s an almost novel quality to being able to hear the breaths of the musicians as they work their instruments. There’s a lack of artificiality that really grounds the whole affair and lets you just be absorbed by it all. This is an original composition for the group and once the world goes back to normal, I would give an arm and a leg to see this trio work their magic.
Troy Johnstone
The music of Steve Markoff and Patricia Lazzara has been heard all over the world in partnership with the radio plugging services offered by Musik and Film Radio Promotions Division. Learn more https://musikandfilm.com