Just to inform you that we are doing a gig at The Sands in Gainsborough in a couple of weeks, on Friday June 8th. If anyone is interested or is from that area, please come along and support us! It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything as I’m in my last term of my master’s degree and it’s pretty hectic! Check their website for information on booking tickets, it would be great to have you all come along..

Cheers!

Mishka

 New photos have been posted on the website! These are from our last concert in Manila, on December 23rd in Teatrino. Check them out under Recent Photos.. New blog coming soon too.

Cheers!

Mishka 

 Just a reminder of our concert on the 23rd of december in Teatrino, Greenhills. Hope you can all make it!

We still have tickets available for 1,200, 1,000, 800 and 500 php, so if you would like to buy/reserve any tickets just call 647 10 73/647 10 69 and ask for Evelyn.

Hope to see you! Show starts at nine.

Mishka

 It is about time for another update I think! We have just finished recording the second album in the wonderful Rockfield Studios; right smack in the middle of the rolling Welsh countryside.. For those of you who haven’t heard of Rockfield, it has been around since 1962 and lots of great names have played here, mostly rock bands like Black Sabbath, Queen (Bohemian Rhapsody was recorded here!!), Robert Plant, etc… So it’s all very exciting for us! The sound quality is incredible and definitely made our job easier, which was great seeing as we only had four days to record 14 songs! Thankfully, we were well rehearsed and had already played most of the songs in our gigs so things moved along pretty swiftly with only a few minor adjustments.

It’s definitely an album to be proud of and excited about, John Hoare took the role of producer and did a fantastic job, as did all the guys in the band who were amazing and made swift work of all the songs. The sound is very different to the previous album, the result of a very enjoyable and fruitful collaboration with John Hoare and his quartet; I can’t wait for more! We plan to release it in England and Europe in Febuary next year and hopefully by this December in the Philippines if we can get it all done in good time, so keep an ear out… 

Not many more gigs coming up for the end of this year as you can see, as I will be studying at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama for a year’s postgraduate Jazz Studies course. However, tours are being planned for next year in the slots where I have some time off school… Keep an eye on the website to find out what’s going on! 

Cheers! 

    Our first gig was in Spain! What a way to start things off, and it was the first taster (if tiny) of what it’s like to tour and be constantly on the move. I went a day earlier to do promotions and the band followed the next day to do the gig. We didn’t get much sleep and the days were packed but we had a lot of fun and the gig went very well. The Spanish people are very receptive and a warm audience. We played in a little place in an arty, trendy district of Madrid in a cute little jazz club called the Sala Bougie. It all went very smoothly, and we even managed to pack out the place as the radio stations in Madrid had been playing the album a couple of months before we arrived! The place reminded me of good old 70’s Bistro back in Manila with its friendly vibe. We’ve done a couple more gigs since then and the current agenda is writing and arranging new songs for the second album, which we will be recording soon. Release date is yet to be confirmed.

      Working with the new band is definitely pulling the music in a different direction, but in a direction I like very much. It’s a collaboration of both our styles and has come to something very interesting that I would never have come to on my own… It confirms just why I love collabortating with people; the music you come out with is so much richer.

    That’s all for now, but keep an eye out for new photos that we’ll post on the site as soon as we can.

Just a quick post to let you all know that we’ll be coming home in December and will be doing a special show in Teatrino! It’s a new venue in Greenhills opposite Music Museum just in case you don’t know of it. Anyway watch this space for more details. I’ll be playing with the Blue Echoes again, mostly new material so it should be exciting! Hope to see you all there!

Mishka Adams is a new discovery by Alan Bates, who has a reputation for discovering and recording new jazz singers who rapidly move into the ’star’ category. At only 20 year old Mishka Adams, singer/songwriter/saxophonist/guitarist is already a name to look out for. As the youngest signing to Candid Records in a multi-records deal, she is often compared to legendary vocalists from the golden era of American Popular Songbook.

Mishka was among the performers in the landmark Philippine concert organized by the British Council Philippines featuring Courtney Pine. That concert proved to be a turning point for this talented young artist. On this album she displays a maturity and confidence rarely seen from one so young in the jazz music scene. “if I wanted fame, then I would have done something like Britney Spears”, said Mishka. And true enogh, with her unique talent and beautiful Filipino-British features she could have gone that route, instead she has decided to play jazz, albeit more contemporary and infused with other genres like rock and world music and even a touch of pop.

When it came to choosing which songs would be included in the album, Mishka says, “I chose songs I felt I made to be my own”. For the covers, she and her band didn’t just lift the arrangements. “I had ideas I wanted to play around with. “ These ideas lend among others, a plaintive ‘Change Partners’, a groovy version of ‘Summertime’, and a haunting rendition of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’. Her version is stripped down – just with guitar, mostly playing harmonics which ring and float throughout the song, her voice like an echo of loss that gives the song a character that it has never had before. Her originals display the character in her music. Mishka says that ‘Mama’s Garden’ is deeply personal, and ‘Marrakech’ was inspired by a backpacking holiday she took with her boyfriend Ariz Guinto, with whom she produced the album. Then there’s the irresistible groove and sing-along-ability of ‘Where Do We Begin’ which sounds like a classic already. With her originals she seems to use jazz as a springboard from which to innovate, letting the song take its course, her voice leading the way.

The collective whisper in the street suggests this young jazz minstrel British-Filipina, immaculately pretty and blessed with vocal prowess is ‘predestined to be a star’.

• Mishka Adams: vocals, tenor sax on track 3 and guitars on tracks 11 & 5
• Edgar Avenir: guitarist and arranger on tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10 & 14
• Ria Villena-Osorio: keyboard
• Louie Talan: bass
• Mike Guevarra: saxophones
• Arnold Casinto: percussion
• Koko Bermejo: drums except on tracks 3 & 14
• Sammy Asuncion: guitarist and arranger on tracks 5, 8, 11, 13 & 15
• Fritz Barth: drums on tracks 3 & 14
• Noli Aurillo: guitarist and arranger on tracks 12
• Brandy Aranilla: bass trumpet on track 10
• Bo Razon: percussion on track 4
• Elhmir Saison: pianist and arranger on track 6

With Special Slip case cover and additional VCD of Mishka Adams videos: ‘God Bless The Child’ & ‘Where Do We Begin’
Label: CANDID RECORDS - PHILIPPINES

Track List

(Click to listen to short samples.) 

1. On Green Dolphin Street
2. Autumn Leaves
3. God Bless The Child
4. Change Partners
5. Somewhere In The Night
6. Love Came On Stealthy Fingers
7. The Very Thought Of You
8. Mama’s Garden
9. When Did You Leave Heaven
10. Body And Soul
11. Where Do We Begin
12. Somewhere Over The Rainbow
13. War Of The Skies
14. Summertime
15. Marrakech