Didja Feel The Music of...Nano Stern

Songwriters, often, are activists. These are songwriters who make me feel their music and, I believe, write music that when heard makes people feel much more than a pulsing bass and driving drumbeat.

  

Some may be telling stories of love layered over political passions, while others wave their banners with more naked lyrics. Advocates for change can be proponents of romance and, at the same time, be romancing a cause. And, while writing of running off with the one you love, or breaking it off with the one who didn’t really love you after all, they might, also, be suggesting an escape to a more compassionate way of life, or calling it quits with a hypocritical way of doing things. Of course, sometimes a love song is exactly that, and there is much about love to anguish over or adore. Give me these songs that, so often, prove the guitar’s wailing; justify dynamic piano solos; confirm the horn player’s mellows and bellows; and validate stories voiced with an almost tangible sensibility.

Nano Stern gives those songs to audiences through his compositions, playing, and singing. He lets you feel his heart.

The Chilean musician was born near the end of the Pinochet dictatorship to a family rich in a tradition of music and political activism. While he carries on the traditional, he adds to it a breadth and depth for his own time that combines his world travels with classical and jazz training, folk and funk inclinations, and faithfulness to social justice. 

Nano sings most songs in his own language no matter what country he performs in. Audiences get the meaning through his performance, or they get the emotion that he shares, and/or they just get the very fine talent and musicianship he offers. I prefer to hear a song in the language it has been written because the melodic flow is often hurt in a translation. Nano’s reason is, as he explains it, more abstract.  To paraphrase him, there is more to a song than the lyrics and music and that is in the actual performance. It is true that he puts his body, heart and soul, as well as his musicianship into his presentations. 

Here are a few such presentations by Nano Stern for you to watch, listen to, and enjoy!      

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6z-r1ekXP0  Casualidad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmlheygCy8E  Lágrimas de oro y plata

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sfx7e5Vu4M4 Ser Pequeno