Tanja Martisa
Hello Tanja! How's your 2010 been so far?
Oo! Cold! A mixture actually, hot and cold. Fortunately I've been away travelling in Egypt and I've come back to the freezing cold with a bit of a shock.
Aww Egypt! How was that?
Yeah it was really good, I worked with some musicians in Cairo - one of them is actually Naseer Shamma's on the new album so I was visiting him.
Has the album got that kind of Egyptian vibe to it then?
Yeah a couple of tracks. The albums called Fragile, and the song I've worked with him on is a cover of a Sting song but Richard Niles who's doing the arrangement has given it quite an ethnic-y feel and Naseer Shamma is one of the World's top lute players so with him playing on It it sounds really nice and ethnic-y.
Have you got anybody else featured on the album or is it mainly that kind of influence throughout?
No it's a complete mix between jazz, folk, and then its also got a couple of tracks with an ethnic feel to them. I've got top musicians, very excellent musicians, people like Rick Cottle, James Graydon, Sam Burgess who is a jazz bassist player and then i've also got someone on the album called Gwilym Simcock who is a very well known classical jazz pianist.
Cool!
Yeah I did a couple of tracks on my previous album with him for 'A child in my heart' from my previous album and he's come back on this album which is really great.
So was that your main goal when making the album, did you want to create a multiple amount of emotions throughout it?
I'm not quite sure what my main aim for the album was really! I mean I just write songs that I like I don't believe in completely pitching the whole of yourself into one genre because I mean personally I like all sorts of music, I like anything from Pink Floyd through to Madeline Peyroux. I mean, I don't write Pink Floyd music! But likewise a lot of the stuff I write is a complete mix from folk to jazz, it's really the stuff I write as much as anything.
Would you say that jazz is your greatest love?
Well I first started singing as a classical singer many years ago and that's when I trained more formally as a classical singer and then I had a great vocal coach and as I got into my teens I got into more folk music and then there's jazz. Now I do a lot of jazz covers, so probably yes, to answer your question simply!
Well you spent the first five years of your life in Paris as well, right? Has that had an influence on anything that you do?
Yeah it does actually, I've got a couple of tracks on the new album, probably more so on the new album than on the past album. It's an influence in the sense that I love singers like Edith Piaf but also I've got a couple of tracks where I actually sing half of them in French, so I thought that, I have a father who's a linguist so he checks my translations for me!
I'm sure you're getting it right!
I hope so haha
So how do you compose your music, do you have a certain system or do you just like to have fun when you're composing?
I think generally, I just work with songs that sort of come to my mind, melodies that come to my mind and stick in my mind. I don't sort of think deliberately to write a song. I find that when I'm out and about or something might just come to my mind. I mean 'La Catrina' which is a song off the album; the melody came to me as I was sitting on a train in London.
A girl came on the train and she was really really upset and I don't know why but the whole sort of 'Catrina' came to my mind, then the lyrics sprung to mind and then when I looked up what the word 'Catrina' means I found out that 'la Catrina' is part of a Mexican old folk law and it was a character that represented life and death so that's why the lyrics are all about 'you're beautiful and young'.
I suppose it's a message to women, you know, it doesn't matter what age you are you always have some good in you and it's about how you are inside and I think it's a message to the girl on the train who looked upset, so that's how it evolved really. I don't sit down to write a song as such it tends to be experiences or things that I've been too and then it just comes to me.
It must be like really exciting when it hits you like that, too?
Yeah, I think if you have a melody in your head and you remember it as well I think and you know its going to be memorable for other people it really works like that – if you do it in an artificial way it doesn't really work. If you sit down and say 'I'm going to write a song today' it just doesn't happen much.
Yeah, I suppose it needs to be organic?
Yeah, exactly, it'll happen at 3 o'clock in the morning when you're trying to get asleep!
Obviously, emotions seem to play a big part into how to make your music, is that what it's like when you're performing it, does it really take it out of you when you're in the studio maybe, or if you're performing live?
Yeah I think that's the ultimate aim and thing I do really. I want to be able to convey about how I feel about something and I think that's how you relate to other people so I think that's really really important to be yourself in what you do and to try and relate to other people and that's certainly the feedback I've had. My audiences really like that I have got that emotion in my songs and I suppose that is the essence of where I'm coming from.
Obviously jazz is a very emotional genre, your music seems to look back at that forgotten era. I was listening to 'Living for Today' off the new album and it sounds really authentic to that kind of jazz era – very Ella Fitzgerald. Who is your biggest influence when you're composing and performing?
I think in terms of jazz, if I had to name one jazz artist it would probably be Nina Simone because I think she has got that complete mix between, because everything that she did, she went through such a horrendous time when trying to be recognised as an artist so she had that emotion there already and believably as it were. I would say from a Jazz genre, probably my key idol from a composition point of view I suppose I really like Cat Stevens who I suppose is all on the folk-y side but again I really like his work cos I think he talks about things that mean something to him. You only need to look at 'Where do the children play', you can see, it's all about his real life reflections.
You mentioned earlier that it's not just jazz that you're into, what kind of bands or musicians are you listening to at the moment?
I am a big Madeleine Peyroux fan and I guess she has that sort of jazz feel as well.
What's the worst music purchase you've ever made?
That's really hard! To reverse the question, I think that's why I like artists like John Martin and Cat Stevens because you pick up one of their albums and every single song is just like brilliantly written .
So then, what kind of music have you really enjoyed buying?!
Solid air by John Martin is probably one of my favourite albums and on my previous album I did a cover of one of his songs too. It was his perceptions of life – 'May you never' is about how he hopes he never ends up without a bed, and on the streets and I think that's really lovely because you don't often get artists who write about that sort of thing. I think that's probably one of my favourite albums.
And how about the future for you? Any exciting plans beside the release of your new album in February?
We're going to be doing a tour which is starting in London and then doing a tour hopefully of the UK so I think that's the main thing coming up!
Well good luck Tanja, see you soon!
Bye!
FemaleFirst – Carla Pearce
Hello Tanja! How's your 2010 been so far?
Oo! Cold! A mixture actually, hot and cold. Fortunately I've been away travelling in Egypt and I've come back to the freezing cold with a bit of a shock.
Aww Egypt! How was that?
Yeah it was really good, I worked with some musicians in Cairo - one of them is actually Naseer Shamma's on the new album so I was visiting him.
Has the album got that kind of Egyptian vibe to it then?
Yeah a couple of tracks. The albums called Fragile, and the song I've worked with him on is a cover of a Sting song but Richard Niles who's doing the arrangement has given it quite an ethnic-y feel and Naseer Shamma is one of the World's top lute players so with him playing on It it sounds really nice and ethnic-y.
Have you got anybody else featured on the album or is it mainly that kind of influence throughout?
No it's a complete mix between jazz, folk, and then its also got a couple of tracks with an ethnic feel to them. I've got top musicians, very excellent musicians, people like Rick Cottle, James Graydon, Sam Burgess who is a jazz bassist player and then i've also got someone on the album called Gwilym Simcock who is a very well known classical jazz pianist.
Cool!
Yeah I did a couple of tracks on my previous album with him for 'A child in my heart' from my previous album and he's come back on this album which is really great.
So was that your main goal when making the album, did you want to create a multiple amount of emotions throughout it?
I'm not quite sure what my main aim for the album was really! I mean I just write songs that I like I don't believe in completely pitching the whole of yourself into one genre because I mean personally I like all sorts of music, I like anything from Pink Floyd through to Madeline Peyroux. I mean, I don't write Pink Floyd music! But likewise a lot of the stuff I write is a complete mix from folk to jazz, it's really the stuff I write as much as anything.
Would you say that jazz is your greatest love?
Well I first started singing as a classical singer many years ago and that's when I trained more formally as a classical singer and then I had a great vocal coach and as I got into my teens I got into more folk music and then there's jazz. Now I do a lot of jazz covers, so probably yes, to answer your question simply!
Well you spent the first five years of your life in Paris as well, right? Has that had an influence on anything that you do?
Yeah it does actually, I've got a couple of tracks on the new album, probably more so on the new album than on the past album. It's an influence in the sense that I love singers like Edith Piaf but also I've got a couple of tracks where I actually sing half of them in French, so I thought that, I have a father who's a linguist so he checks my translations for me!
I'm sure you're getting it right!
I hope so haha
So how do you compose your music, do you have a certain system or do you just like to have fun when you're composing?
I think generally, I just work with songs that sort of come to my mind, melodies that come to my mind and stick in my mind. I don't sort of think deliberately to write a song. I find that when I'm out and about or something might just come to my mind. I mean 'La Catrina' which is a song off the album; the melody came to me as I was sitting on a train in London.
A girl came on the train and she was really really upset and I don't know why but the whole sort of 'Catrina' came to my mind, then the lyrics sprung to mind and then when I looked up what the word 'Catrina' means I found out that 'la Catrina' is part of a Mexican old folk law and it was a character that represented life and death so that's why the lyrics are all about 'you're beautiful and young'.