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My Harana by Charmaine Clamor: The Poptimes Magazine Review

Written by Ted Reyes

Thursday, 09 October 2008

Charmaine

Artist: Charmaine Clamor
Album: My Harana, a Filipino Serenade
Label: Freeham Records

CHARMAINE Clamor is perhaps the leading Fil-Am Jazz singer today. She is among the very few Asian Jazz artists to capture the meticulous sensibilities of Americans. Her landmark record, Flippin’ Out appeared on the JazzWeek World Music Charts for seven straight weeks, remarkable achievement for a mixed language release.

Charmaine’s latest work, My Harana, a Filipino Serenade is not a Jazz record but a traditional Filipino Kundiman record released here in the US.
The 12-track album is Charmaine’s homage to the roots of Filipino music.
She compiled her favorite regional serenade songs of the home country and sang it in her trademark warm and sultry vocal style.

Among the songs she recorded in this collection are:
O, Ilaw (Tagalog), Mekeni King Siping Ku (Kapampangan), Pamulinawen (Ilocano), Ay Kalisud (Ilonggo), Malinac Lay Labi (Pangasinan), Matud Nila (Visayan), and an English track, Labis (Too much).

The album is sparsely instrumented with just the basic serenade tools of a nylon guitar, some light percussion, and bass.
Pinoy Jazz legend Mon David even sang and played guitar in one of the tracks, Minamahal, Sinasamba.

Charmaine is a great singer. Her tones are so rich, and her range is perfect for the genre she originally chose, Jazz. However, although she sang all the tracks in this record superbly, the album, as a whole, is nothing spectacular. I expected some sort of a genre-bending production that would take Kundiman to new heights. Kind of like Charlie Parker meets Ruben Tagalog. Instead, the album is regular Filipino restaurant music that we always hear being sung while enjoying some Kare-Kare in a clay pot Litson and some Inihaw na Tadyang.

Again, the songs and the performances are great, but the concept of releasing an album as traditional as this only means that it may have been released with a strictly foreign audience in mind. If so, then it succeeds on that, since it will definitely introduce Filipino folk songs to western ears. It will indeed sound fresh to them, but definitely not to Filipinos who frequent Ihaw-Ihaws and Palayok-palayoks.

Perhaps, Charmaine could do another one but with more Bebop and Swing to augment the traditional harana songs. Now that will be spectacular.

Rating: ••

Rating System:

• Forget it

•• Points for effort

••• Borrow the album and rip it

•••• Skip lunch and buy the album

••••• Sell Everything and Buy this album.

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