Traincha’s sweet, full-bodied voice

Unless they lived for sometime in Holland, I do not think that there are many Pinoys around who are familiar with the name Traincha. Well, I just recently found out that Traincha is female and a singer. She started out doing pop tunes as a teenager and had a few hits in Dutch. Nothing much happened after that until some years later when she decided to sing the oldies that she really loved. Today, Traincha, with her jazzy style and expressive phrasing is Holland’s foremost exponent of American standards.

Now while we may not know Traincha, we are of course very much familiar with the music of Burt Bacharach. He wrote songs like Alfie, Do You Know the Way to San Jose and I Say a Little Prayer. Those songs seem to have been around forever. If you want to make a music songbook depicting the ‘70s era, a thick part of the volume would be made up of the music of Burt Bacharach. It was this music that Traincha fell in love with and what happened after that is the reason why Pinoy music buyers were introduced to Traincha.

It was more than a year ago when Bacharach received a CD and DVD from his publisher featuring an unknown singer named Traincha who wanted to record his songs. Not only that, she wanted to go to America to personally ask him to play in some tracks in her album. Bacharach listened to the CD and watched the video of the singer he had not heard of until then. He later claimed that he was blown away by what he saw and heard.

Traincha came to Los Angeles for their sessions and Bacharach ended up playing the piano in two tracks of her album. The songs he chose were Waiting for Charlie to Come Home, a difficult piece originally sung by Etta James and This House is Empty Now, which Bacharach co-wrote with Elvis Costello. These two are not the Bacharach hits we usually get but they are among his best.

So I am sure that like Bacharach, you are now wondering who Traincha is. I wondered for quite a while. I assure you that like Bacharach and like me, you will also be blown away by her talent, her sweet but full bodied voice and her unique way with phrasing those lyrics. The album is entitled Traincha Burt Bacharach Songbook: The Look of Love and it has been in my player for days. It also features Holland’s Metropole Orchestra and is available internationally on the prestigious jazz label Blue Note.

My favorites, although they are the saddest and most hauntingly beautiful among the 14 tracks are Windows of the World and That’s What Friends are For. The other songs included are Do You Know the Way to San Jose, The Look of Love, A House is Not a Home, I Say a Little Prayer, I’ll Never Fall in Love Again, Falling Out of Love, Walk on By, Alfie, Anyone Who Had a Heart and (They Long to Be) Close to You.

The power of old songs

Still on the incredible power of old songs. The No. 1 album in the US of A these days is Call Me Irresponsible by Michael Bublé. This rehash of hits popularized by the great Frank Sinatra and other voices from the past bested two hot new releases that are used to scoring the No. 1 spot in the charts. Bone Thugs N Harmony has a new album Strength and Loyalty that ended at No. 2. So does Bobby Valentino with Special Occasion which is at No. 3.

This is all because Bublé armed with the vocal sophistication of the crooners of the ‘50s and ‘60s stepped over the competition to score his first No. 1 in Billboard Magazine’s Top 200 albums list. I am not surprised. Bublé truly outdid himself in Call Me Irresponsible. Best cuts for me are Leonard Cohen’s I’m Your Man and Eric Clapton’s Wonderful Tonight.

As for the other titles in the Top 10 of the Top 200 albums, these are the following: Because of You by Ne-Yo; The Best Damn Thing by Avril Lavigne; Daughtry by Daughtry; Live in Concert 2006 by Barbra Streisand, Some Hearts by Carrie Underwood; and a new album by Bjork entitled Volta.