www.anjani-music.

com
"Anjani has always been known as a great singer, a
musician's singer," says Leonard Cohen, the
musical/literary legend who co-wrote and produced
Anjani's Blue Alert. "She's known for this impeccable
sense of tone and the ability to stack vocals one on top of
the other, but this voice that she was showing here was a
completely different voice that had moved somehow from
the throat to the heart."
"I never knew we were making a record," Anjani
confesses. "I just thought I'd make a demo for Leonard to
put his vocals on." But Blue Alert was patiently waiting
in the ether for their inspired collaboration. It began with
some handwritten lines [there's perfume burning in the
air/bits of beauty everywhere] which Anjani happened to
notice on Cohen's desk. This was the first draft of "Blue
Alert," which Cohen intended to record himself. Surprising
herself, Anjani asked, "Can I have a crack at this?" He
replied, "You can have it for a minute or two, and then
you have to return it."
Anjani made a quick dash to the studio to set down a
track for Cohen's new poem, and she presented it to him
wrapped in a disarming caveat. "Leonard," she said, "I
don't know if you'll like a jazz approachbut check this
out."
Hearing Anjani's soulful and evocative interpretation of
"Blue Alert," Cohen knew that something unusual had
happened. "She was singing from a place that few singers
ever get to sing from," he recalls, "so that encouraged
me to let her rummage through a notebook for lyrics that
interested her."
For Anjani, being given access to the works and the
collaborative energies of a literary master opened a
floodgate of creativity. She felt herself especially drawn
to "As the Mist Leaves No Scar," a poem in "Stranger
Music," Leonard's 1993 collection of poems and lyrics,
which she transformed into "The Mist," conjuring a
haunting archetypal score for the song. "I don't know
where she found that melody or that approach, " Cohen
wondered, "but it is as though I'd never heard that lyric
before or, more precis ely, it is where I'd always heard it
somewhere but had never been able to locate."
An album was taking shape, but Anjani needed more material. With Cohen's permission she ransacked boxes of his
journals, unpublished works and unfinished drafts, sometimes seizing on a mere two or three lines or a verse that
appealed to her.
The song, "Thanks for the Dance," for instance, began as a single found line, which Anjani and Leonard fashioned into a
new complete work. "That's how it moved from one song to another [with] Anjani finding scraps of lyrics and pressing
me to finish them," Cohen explains.
One of those high points is "Innermost Door," which Cohen describes as "something irreversible, but something
inevitable. 'Saying goodbye/at the innermost door,' I suppose that has a certain finality, but a certain appropriateness
too. I don't know what it means," Cohen confesses. "[but] Anjani brings the lyric to life."
When it came time to record Blue Alert, Anjani and Leonard opted to work at the studio of Ed Sanders, who recorded
the album on a vintage Telefunken analog tape recorder spinning a two- inch seatbelt of tape. The warm, rich sound
they achieved captures the whispered subtleties of Anjani's vocal cadences and the intimate qualities of her music.
Anjani states, "I love the sound of analog recording. I'm an old- fashioned girl and I like to see the tape go round and
round."
That "old-fashioned girl" was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, and trained in guitar, piano and voice before attending Berklee
LEONARD COHEN [ ANJANI ] http://www.leonardcohen.com/anjani.html
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College of Music. Later moving to Manhattan, Anjani played the jazz club circuit, drawing inspiration from pianists
ranging from populist Vince Guaraldi to jazz mystic Bill Evans. Anjani was introduced to Leonard Cohen in 1984, by
producer John Lissauer (who plays baritone sax on the title track, and clarinet and keyboards on "Thanks For The
Dance"). Her haunting background vocals are heard on Cohen's original recording of his signature opus, "Hallelujah. "
Later that year, Anjani joined Cohen's Various Positions World Tour as a keyboardist/vocalist, and she sang on
subsequent Leonard Cohen albums including I'm Your Man (1988), The Future (1992), and Dear Heather (2004).
In 2000, Anjani released a self-titled independent CD, blending jazz, folk and Hawaiian influences, including a duet with
famed Hawaiian musician Henry Kapono. She followed her debut a year later with The Sacred Names, an inspirational
meditation on the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek names of God.
"She seems to be able to channel some kind of spirit of place," Leonard Cohen says of his colleague. "Generally, people
want to be generous, but they go over the top or they give too much. But to be able to be generous in this manner of
real generosity, which is not to overwhelm, but to merely satisfy and nourish: that is something very rare. She has this
capacity -- melody after melody -- to hit the mark. Not go beyond it and not fall short just perfect."
Blue Alert
2007 Digipak
Canadian CD catalogue number: 88697072802
TRACKLISTING
1.
Blue Alert
HI | MID | LO [Windows Media]
2.
Innermost Door
HI | MID | LO [Windows Media]
3.
The Golden Gate
HI | MID | LO [Windows Media]
4.
Half The Perfect World
HI | MID | LO [Windows Media]
5.
Nightingale
HI | MID | LO [Windows Media]
6.
No One After You
HI | MID | LO [Windows Media]
7.
Never Got To Love You
HI | MID | LO [Windows Media]
8.
The Mist
HI | MID | LO [Windows Media]
9.
Crazy To Love
HI | MID | LO [Windows Media]
10.
Thanks For The Dance
HI | MID | LO [Windows Media]
Sneak Peek Into The Making Of "Blue
Alert"
(10 min. 34 sec.)
HI | LO [Windows Media]
"Thanks For The Dance" Video
(4 min. 50 sec.)
HI | LO [Windows Media]
BIO | MUSIC | TOUR | VIDEO | COMMUNITY | STORE | ANJANI
LEONARD COHEN [ ANJANI ] http://www.leonardcohen.com/anjani.html
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