Celebrate the Human Voice – Moira Smiley & VOCO!
FolkWorks July-August 2006 -Page 15
VOCO is the dream-band of composer/vocalist, Moira Smiley – newly arrived in Los Angeles in 2004. Picture a band that sings impassioned four-part harmony, kicks some body percussion up and melds banjo, cello and percussion. Picture vocalists so fine-tuned, so alive and banjo so funky sweet that you can’t tell what’s the instrument and what’s the voice. Then, imagine hearing ORIGINAL songs that conjure lush, heartbreaking music of the Balkans and Appalachia while cutting a new path into improvisation, physicality and vocal harmony.
Moira’s vocal melting pot.
Moira Smiley (vocals, accordion, body percussion, banjo) leads VOCO through their wild geography of original and traditional songs, She grew up singing old songs in Vermont, landed at Indiana University’s prestigious School of Music as a pianist and formed a four-woman vocal group called VIDA. VIDA achieved international acclaim in the mid-1990s, touring extensively in the US, Canada and Europe. Their earthy, ear-bending songs of the Balkans, South African freedom songs, Appalachian spirituals and originals gained praise from Billboard to Dirty Linen. Moira moved to San Francisco to sing with the premiere touring Balkan vocal ensemble, KITKA. Along the way, Irish Sean-Nos, Philip Glass, medieval polyphony and clawhammer banjo seem to have lodged themselves deep in her musical heart. (You can hear some of that on her just-released solo CD, RUA).
There are five members of Moira Smiley & VOCO. They represent a glorious cross-pollination. John Ballinger (banjo, vocals, percussion, clarinet) goes from guitarist for Rufus Wainwright to steel drum master, and award-winning composer for theater Jess Basta (vocals, body percussion) sang with the much-loved Chicago- based soul / ska band, The Adjustors before moving to LA, Jessica Catron (cello) plays with local favorites Nels Cline and Carla Bozulich and is nationally known in new and improvisational music (find her often at Disney Hall’s REDCAT). .Christine Enns (vocals, body percussion) is a fine young jazz singer and choral conductor. Moira found two by Craigslist, two by word-of-mouth.
In mid-April 2006, VOCO has just completed a five-day recording session. Seventeen songs and surprises hum, jump and purr inside the digital bits that sit, saved inside the control room’s computer. In about 2 months, 1,000 well-wrapped CDs will be arriving on the VOCO doorstep. It’s an inspired delivery – the DNA of which might be from the secret union of Bela Bartok and Emmylou Harris or The Holy Modal Rounders and Warsaw Village Band. The CD carries all the won- der and excitement of their eclectic live shows: 4 and 5 voice harmonies that careen between tender consonance and delicious dissonance. Check out the high and lonesome sweetness of their original I Live in California, then the thundering visionary swirls in their vocal arrangement of a Bartok’s Mikrokosmos piano miniature. A sinewy alchemy of cello, banjo, and percussion weaves throughout (check out the spacious and funky fabric that underlies the acoustic hip-hop tinged {Sprechstimme of} Deep Blue. Bathe in the gently lilting, soon-to-be classic original gospel waltz – Stand in that River. Then the joyride of their foot stomping, hand jiving body percussion surfaces in inspired moments throughout.
The dream-band.
So get ready. Never has the sonic spectrum been so ravished, the human voice so elevated and…celebrated! What can you do? Prepare for the world to shift a little, prepare for wonder, prepare for Moira Smiley & VOCO.
NOTE: These concerts were in 2006!
July 13 Ojai Concerts at Matilija Auditorium (with Goin’South Band) – CD Release
July 15-16 California World Fest in Grass Valley, CA www.worldfest.net
July 20 Culver City Summer Sunset Concerts: www.culvercitymusic.org
Sept. 23 Ford Amphitheater “Synergy” with TRIP Dance Theatre www.tripdance.org
To see Moira Smiley in on October 27, 2024 with Rhizome String Quartet in Westwood, CA at Nichols Canyon Music click here!
Billy Jonas is an internationally touring, acclaimed singer/songwriter and industrial re-percussionist – a one-man band whose primary instrument is the audience. He lives in Asheville, NC.www.billyjonas.com
Celebrate the Human Voice – Moira Smiley & VOCO!
FolkWorks July-August 2006 -Page 15