DE FOC I DE VELLUT (OF FIRE AND VELVET)
Miquel Pujadó has written, composed and adapted about 300 songs throughout his artistic career, for him and for other performers (Dyango, La Salseta del Poble Sec, Guillermina Motta, Aute, Titot, Lídia Pujol, La Principal de la Nigt…), but in recent years he had worked mainly on “special” record projects
(dedicated to poets and to his adaptations of Brassens), on novels for children and young people and on theater – with the complicity of the late Carles Canut as director, and actors such as Joan Pera, Enric Majó, Josep M. Pou, and so on. Now, twelve years after the last CD written and composed entirely by him (A
contraveu, 2010), he presents a new album (De foc i de vellut), just 40 years after the release of his first album, El temps dels fanals en flor (1982). This new CD includes sixteen songs. Fourteen are new songs, worked musically with the producer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist Xavier Batllés (Orquestra
Mirasol, La Rondalla de la Costa, etc.), with lyrics that are real works of goldsmithing, rich in verbal juggling, humor, tenderness and, sometimes, ferocity, and dressed in great melodies and in arrangements as bright as eclectic. Pujadó is the author and composer of all the songs, except for “Com una cançó de
Jacques Brel”, signed together with the French musician and singer Romain Didier. The recording has the collaboration of musicians Quim Ollé, Josep Maria Duran, Pedro Javier González, Laia Glück, Xavier Figuerola, Martín Meléndez, Natalia Mediavilla, Toni Calvo, Pau Benítez, Imma Ortiz, Blai Casals, Laura Espejo and David Pastor, and the actors and singers Ferran Frauca, Aina Sànchez and Olga Suàrez. The last four songs (and an instrumental reprise) form a special section: RETALLS DE VIDA (UN COP D’ULL AL RETROVISOR): LIFE CUTS (A LOOK IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR). These are songs with autobiographical elements, recorded on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Pujadó’s first album. Two are brand new: “Aquell temps de la Jazz Cava” and “Retalls de vida”, and the other two are new versions of classic songs from his first period: “A Terrassa hi ha una plaça” and “Soc un peix de terra endins». This section has been arranged by Marcel Casellas and the pianist Antoni-Olaf Sabater, and has the collaboration of jazz musicians from Terrassa such as Pep Coca, Adrià Font, Josep M. Farràs and Joan Albert, and the participation of the saxophonist and clarinetist Xavier Figuerola, the guitarist Alfons Rojo and the trombonist John do Buclet.