I have decided to put Michelle Web on a little winter hiatus, while I’m working on a new layout. The site seriously need a new layout.
As a part of the ‘Singers Over Manhattan’ series, gospel dynamo Kim Burrell dazzled New Yorkers with her jazzerific interpretations of holiday classics this past weekend in The Allen Room at Jazz at Lincoln Center.
The 36-year-old singer, best described as a modern day Ella Fitzgerald with the Holy Ghost, played four hour-long shows in the 500-seat venue that boasts a 50-foot-high glass facade and a breathtaking view of Central Park and the CNN building.
‘Kim Burrell: A Gospel Christmas’ kicked off with the jubilant ‘Because It’s Christmas’ featuring Pastor Eric McDaniels’ Lord’s Church Choir of the Bronx.
Backed by a four-piece band and a who’s who of singers that included Melonie Daniels, Ayana George, Katrina Spence, Stephanie Oplacio, Jerard Woods and her sister, Kathy Burrell; the Houston native enticed the amazingly diverse crowd with Christmas gems like ‘Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel,’ ‘Walking In A Winter Wonderland,’ ‘What Child Is This,’ and ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.’
Burrell’s renditions of the holiday standards were unique and often transitioned from jazz to Sunday morning in an instant.
After the Grammy nominee’s jovial ‘Jingle Bells’ offering built into a more sanctified ‘Joy Bells,’ she told the crowd: “I’m always going to bring out the Christ in Christmas!”
Burrell shared the stage with the soulful Baltimore-based singer Jason Nelson on Donny Hathaway’s ‘This Christmas’ and the two scatted and exchanged riffs much to the crowds delight.
The former Tommy Boy Records artist shifted into more traditional gospel material midway through her set.
“I like Christmas a lot and I like singing Christmas songs, but I love singing the gospel,” she confessed. “It’s my favorite thing to sing!”
Burrell then performed an a cappella arrangement of hymns including ‘Great Is Thy Faithfulness,’ ‘Even Me,’ ‘Draw Me Nearer,’ ‘Amazing Grace,’ ‘Give Thanks With A Grateful Heart’ and ‘Thank You Lord.’
She then shared a story about how her mother would sing those songs in the kitchen and around the house before closing out the medley with ‘Is He Satisfied With Me’ and ‘Oh How I Love Jesus.’
The jazz atrium nestled in the Time Warner Center began to feel more like a sanctuary after the Grammy nominee concluded the more sacred selections.
“I need my singers and band to get back up here before I start something, because I feel my gospel-church thing happening,” she suggested.
“I grew up in the Pentecostal Church so we get to quickening,” she continued, while demonstrating the fast-jerking body movement. “It’s that thing that makes some of you say, ‘I feel so warm inside.’ Well, our warmth burns a little hotter and so we quicken.”
Burrell performed ‘Sweet Little Jesus Boy’ and closed the show with an intricate arrangement of ‘Little Drummer Boy.’
Those in attendance, among them Michelle Williams of Destiny’s Child and gospel singer James Hall, saluted her with a rousing standing ovation.
I’m still very sick and still don’t have any computer, so that means no updates. I’m willing to set up an webmaster acount, if anyone wants to be co-web. Just email me. I need to if you have access to any image accounts, then you will be needing a gallery account to.
I’m so sorry for the lack of updates the past week, but i have been sick and yesterday my pc crashed dur to a virusinfection. My pc has now been sent to reparation, and will hopefully be back within a week or so. Then i will be able to update again.
It’s safe to say, Sasha Fierce is getting almost as much attention as her as her superstar alter-ego, Beyonce Knowles.
“Her cousin Angie gave her that name,” mother Tina Knowles reveals in the December issue of Elle Magazine. “We’d tease Beyonce about having a split personality. Beyonce would come off stage between sets and start screaming, ‘What’s wrong with you? Where’s my shoe?’ ‘Uh-oh,’ we’d say, ‘Sasha is here.’”
Now pushing both a new album, I Am Sasha Fierce, and the film Cadillac Records, the 27-year-old is busier than ever. But the singer credits the years she spent in Destiny’s Child as keeping her grounded in the midst of her rising fame.
“We were really sheltered,” she says of those days with fellow Destiny’s Child members Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams. “We would get on the tour bus and read the bible.”
In April, Beyonce married longtime sweetheart and rap mogul Jay Z in a secret NYC ceremony. This year the couple topped Forbes list of richest couples with an estimated worth of $162 million. But the singer says it bothers her when comparisons are made between her family (who all work for team Beyonce in one way or another) and another rich and famous African-American family.
“I grew up upper-class. Private school. My dad had a Jaguar,” she recalls. “We’re African-American and we work together as a family, so people assume we’re like the Jacksons. But I didn’t have parents using me to get out of a bad situation.”
If songstress Michelle Williams looks a little breathless hosting the World Music Awards airing on Fox tomorrow (12/2), there’s good reason. “I didn’t find out until the day of the show that I was going to be hosting,” reveals the former Destiny’s Child member. “It was crazy. I knew I was going to be a presenter. Then I got a phone call, like, ‘Hey, would you be, like, into co-hosting with Jesse Metcalfe?’ So I went from presenting a single award to hosting the entire show with him. They were making the script as I got there, passing out pages.
“I don’t know if someone else was supposed to be hosting the show before,” she adds. “I didn’t complain. Hey, it was a blessing. I wasn’t doing anything else anyway.”
Taped last month in Monaco, the show, which boasts plenty of star power with performances by Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey and Beyonce, among others, sounds like a jumbled affair behind the scenes. Michelle says, “I’m kind of glad it wasn’t live. There were people walking in front of the teleprompter, and nobody said, ‘Yo, sit down.’ We had to adlib. It really was an absolute blast.”
Michelle says she “literally ran into Alicia Keys. I was trying to climb up to the stage after a wardrobe change. There was so much stuff going on. I was just trying to find my way back to the stage, and I walked smack dab into her and someone else having a conversation. I was like, ‘Oh, my God!’ It was such an honor to see her, and her performance was awesome.”
She also got a chance to reconnect with Beyonce and her sister Solange, “another reunion. Of course we met up and talked. And I talked to Estelle. I thoroughly enjoy her music,” adds Michelle, who has her own critically hailed “Unexpected” album in release.
She was so tired by the end of the event, she skipped the after-parties and went straight back to her hotel room, “ordered room service and went to bed. I didn’t hear about Jesse falling until I got back to the States,” she adds, referring to Metcalfe’s 40-foot fall at one of the after-parties. He was rushed to the hospital and is recovering, she was glad to hear. It was another drama of the night, she notes — “Drah. Mah.”
Michelle Williams attended the 15th Annual OUT 100 Awards at Gotham Hall on November 14, 2008 in New York City. I have added a few pictures from the event.
MediaTakeOut.com has EXCLUSIVELY learned that Beyonce is putting together the final touches to her upcoming 2009 world tour.
And according to our snitch in Bey’s camp, the bootylicious diva will be bringing former Destiny’s Child bandmates Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland along with her. The insider tells MediaTakeOut.com, “It’s not going to be an official ‘Destiny’s Child tour’ – more of a Beyonce tour with Kelly [Rowland] and Michelle [Williams] as the opening acts.
