With their first full-length title, Super Structure Baby, Keston and Westdal deliver a smooth and innovative electronic-downtempo jazz experience. The CD begins with simple Brazilian percussion on the first track, “Batada Do Mar,” and the song intensifies with various electronic tones and a distinguishable bass line, which sets the tone for the rest of the album. Keston, a native of the United Kingdom, and Westdal, hailing from the San Francisco Bay Area, infuse diverse styles of jazz with electronic music to create a global lounge ambience.

The album seems to be divided throughout between the two styles of Keston, known for his revival of the electric piano in club and hip-hop music, and that of Westdal, a funk jazz bassist. This dichotomy is seen in trippy songs such as “Polar” and “Battle of the Giant Robots,” an eerie reminder of ’80s music gone awry. Westdal’s influence becomes more apparent in “Sonny’s Cut,” creating a more chill mood to balance out some of the heavy use of the Rhodes piano.

With less reliance on the ’80s beats produced by the Rhodes piano, and more emphasis on their global sound, Keston and Westdal could have created a pure instrumental album near excellence. The duo has, however, created a distinct piece that meshes two sounds that are not often successfully combined.

Robin M. Carr can be contacted at

r.carr3@umiami.edu.

Soul is such an essential component to music that without it different songs can carry the same meaning. So it was no surprise that when “neo-soul” Carolina natives Angie Stone and Anthony Hamilton performed at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, they brought along enough soul to silence the harshest of critics.

The concert started when Japanese Sony recording artist Toshi performed material from his album titled Time to Share. One note and the whole crowd went crazy. It wasn’t his incredible voice but the fact that this was an Asian man singing soul music. With a two-song set, including his first single “Breaking Through,” Toshi’s voice, along with the harmonies provided by his backup singers, had the crowd in applause. One thing that stood out about Toshi was the fact that although he sung his songs in perfect English, when he spoke, his Japanese accent took over. It was just a little confusing, but overall, he performed a great set.

While Stone was clearly the headliner of the tour, with three solo albums and a 23-year career in the industry, she humbly opened up the show.

“I’m not a selfish person,” she told the audience, commenting on her decision to let Hamilton close the show.

Her set got off to a great start, performing the Jazzy Phe-produced single off her new album, Stone Love, titled “I Wanna Thank Ya.” With the crowd to its feet, Angie belted out numerous hits from her first two solo albums Black Diamond and Mahogany Soul, including “Wish I Didn’t Miss You,” “Brotha” and “No More Rain (In This Cloud).”

Stone’s voice was rich and raspy at the same time, which reminded one of the great gospel singers of our day. She even went preacher style when she spoke to the audience about the sympathy she had for the hurricane victims, which resulted in audience members shouting, “Hallelujah.”

She encouraged crowd participation in numerous segments of her show, which included the whole venue dancing according to Stone’s instructions and pitted the guys against the ladies to see who could sing the loudest. A standout of the show was when Stone showcased the members of her band. They transformed the interlude on her new album, “Touch It,” to an all-out full-length song, with each backup singer giving his or her vocal interpretation to the lyrics. With her intimate performance, Stone definitely connected with the audience, leaving the crowd ready and hyped for Hamilton’s performance.

Hamilton’s performance was a long time in the making. Having been signed and dropped from numerous labels, Hamilton was finally able to share his music from his So So Def debut album Comin’ From Where I’m From. The excitement Hamilton had with finally performing his material showed through his endless dancing. Hamilton got serious when he broke into “Lucille,” a song about battered and abused women he grew up around during his childhood.

While these two artists combined have sold less than five million records from four studio solo albums, they have mastered the art of making music of substance. If they proved anything that night, it was that quality is better than quantity.

Marcus Washington can be contacted at

m.washington@umiami.edu.

I am one of those people that badly want to be an artist. Yet my drawings of people are so bad that they have been confused with a child’s etchings of stick figures-remotely comparable to Michelangelo’s ability to mold a human form out of a lump of marble.

So, after being resigned to accept that I will never, ever be an artist, I have become obsessed with observing and supporting the talent of others. Nowhere in my journeys yet as an art reviewer have I seen such a great display of artistic ability as at the Bass Museum’s new Paris Moderne Art exhibit.

This exhibit, publicized as “art deco works from the Musee d’Art de la Ville de Paris,” commemorates the first time these works have traveled outside of France. The purpose of the exhibit’s setup was to immerse the viewer into the life of a 1920s-1930s Parisian. Living room furniture displays were set up around the multiple rooms that made up the top floor of the museum, complete with paintings ornamenting the staged living room walls. After running up the longest plank I’ve ever seen to the second floor, I found the exhibit.

But those thirty minutes (and more, since they let me stay later) were worth my time and I would advise anyone interested enough to be reading my article (thank you, I love you) that it’d be worth your time too. What I liked so much was that the exhibit displayed so many different styles of art. There was impressionism (Monet-style), naturalistic realism (looks so much like the real thing it scares you) and cubism, a term I used to hear thrown around in art lectures, but was too shy to ask what it was. Turns out, cubism is a newfound favorite-an abstract form of art begun by Pablo Picasso.

In one of the cubist works shown at the Bass, “Paysage (Landscape),” artist Leopold Surbage’s work was an urban landscape intruded by geometrical planes made abstract by enlarged pieces of fruit at the forefront of the painting. Imbued with bright pastels, I imagined the painter might have spent some time at South Beach.

The first painting is filled with bright colors showing 110 portraits of the scientists and inventors who contributed to the development of electricity. The scene encompassed all discoverers from the Olympic deities to Newton, Pascal, Da Vinci, Aristotle and Joule. What was so interesting and fun about Raol Dufy’s “La Fee Electicite” was that he personalized these inventors, made them people rather than historical figureheads. This masterpiece traces the lineage and tells the story of this innovation, while being comical in its portraiture of staunch historical figures.

One last favorite was Andre Derain’s “The Back.” The inscription beside it informed me that the artist had apparently utilized Albertian mathematical perspective. This means he used mathematical ratios and numerical proportions to help him in creating a three-dimensional picture on a two-dimensional surface, an incredible effect. The brown tones of the back and the playing of the light enhanced the curvature of the spine.

Interpreting an artist’s work, I feel, is like watching an ice-skater perform in the Olympics. After watching the skater do a triple axle, the people at home watching think, “Man, it looks so easy, I could do that.” Their skill makes it look effortless, so much time and practice to make something incredulous look so easy to do, because objects look so lifelike you forget how much time and effort goes into trying to make figures look as they do in reality.

The Paris Moderne Exhibit is located at the Bass Museum of Art in South Beach, if you long to transport yourself to a street-side caf

Kaboom!
Mt. Saint Helens let off steam the other day, putting the state of Washington in a tizzy. Let’s hope for their sake Helens doesn’t get frisky and blow her top again.

Shoes
CNN.com recently reported that a man was accused of being involved in a “shoe bombing” of an airliner in December 2001. A man arrested in London this past week is pleading innocent to the same charges. Who blows up stuff with shoes, anyway? Imelda Marcos would be ashamed.

New members only…
Amy Poehler joined cast member Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live in the “Weekend Update” portion of the show. The segment marked the first time that “Update” had an all female team. Poehler filled the seat of Jimmy Fallon, who left SNL in May after six years.

For one moment, even if for the few minutes that it takes to read this review, put down your political beliefs, biases, and prejudices. That’s all it takes to understand that director Walter Salles’ The Motorcycle Diaries is a sincerely touching and beautiful movie.

Based on the diaries kept by Ernesto “Che” Guevara and his close friend Alberto Granado, the film is Salles’ way of giving us a firsthand look at Latin America through the eyes of two impassioned wanderers. Armed with little more than food and a deadbeat motorcycle known as “La Poderosa” (the powerful), the audience watches as Guevara (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Granado (Rodrigo de la Serna) set off on their elaborate journey in early 1952, unaware that they were about to have their lives changed forever.

The journey presents endless challenges for the two adventurers as they travel through Argentina, Chile and Peru both physically and mentally. Along the way, they endure the wraths of nature, human cruelty and injustice, as well as the strength of friendship, the latter being quite possibly the best-developed aspect of the movie.

This is because, from the beginning, The Motorcycle Diaries carries an aura of authenticity, where all the elements of a film intertwine together with incredible ease. Many of the actors, for example, are locals who simply mingled with the cast on camera.

The lead actors-the unflinchingly wonderful Garcia Bernal and the cunningly humorous, heartwarming de la Serna-play out the friendship between Guevara and Granado flawlessly. Garcia Bernal’s ability to portray the pain of a mind living out a revolution coupled with de la Serna’s sharp humor and spirit takes this movie to a new height of realism (it was reported that the two actually went and met the Guevara family as well as the real, now 80-year-old, Granado, who makes a poignant cameo).

In addition, almost all of the Latin American villages and settings were filmed in their actual locations. Thus the movie boasts amazing cinematography, which captures the underlying surreal beauty of Latin America while making you feel like you’ve hopped on La Poderosa yourself.

But Salles’ best accomplishment is his way of presenting his message: let the world change you and you can change the world-sans politics. Although a few political undertones slip their way into the movie, Salles successfully dodges commentaries on the revolutionary Che Guevara. Instead, he offers audiences a simple, but genuine journey into the hearts of two men on the road to discovering themselves long before history ever could.

Rafael Sangiovanni can be contacted at

r.sangiovanni@umiami.edu.

Known for her wild afro-like hair and rich vocals, so-called diva Jill Scott comes back from her year off with a deep appreciation of life and a new evolved album.

“Golden,” the first single off of Beautifully Human Words and Sounds Vol. 2, says wonders about Scott, who truly is “living her life golden.” Blessed with matrimony, a daughter and a year off, Scott’s lyrical return is laced with universal wisdom enriched with funky beats and an even more mature voice than before. Soulful, serene and wise, Scott’s humility catches any fan off guard.

Despite her diva title and the many connotations that word often carries, Scott still reveres the legendary vocalists that came before her, admiring her fellow divas.

“Yeah I think it’s a compliment, I just want to earn it. Just because you put out an album or two or three you’re a diva; they give that title out to girls who have one single that did well. To me the divas are Gladys Knight, Celine Dion, Chaka Khan; it’s more about time spent, Patti Labelle has been in the business and doing the damn thing for 15 to 20 years, not just a few years, not just a couple albums, or some hit singles. I want to earn it, I want to be around in 15 years and then maybe I’ll be more comfortable with the title,” Scott says.

Knowledgeable and full of life, it’s evident that Scott knows how to keep her life as an artist and her life as a person separate, often commenting on the two with very different answers. As far as inspirations, Scott states that her inspirations as a young child came from her family.

“My mother and grandmother and my Uncle Dave…My Uncle Dave taught me without teaching me what a man is, definitely an important thing to see. I would say as an artist my inspiration would be Prince and Oprah Winfrey.”

Scott considers touring with Prince one of her greatest accomplishments, along with realizing she is a person as well as a performer.

“Opening for Prince as an artist, as a person, I realized that my time is important. I think that it’s a great accomplishment, understanding that as much as I want to work as an artist, I need to live as a person.”

As an artist, however, Scott feels she has evolved, a feeling that is evoked through the smooth rhythm and lyrics of her album.

“Well, I think this album is a lot more lyric-intensive. The lyrics are better than the first one; my voice has changed: in the beginning it was a horn and now it’s a horn mixed with a low, which is very interesting to me. I didn’t sing for a year, so I guess I allowed it to mature.”

Matured and striking, it is the messages in Scott’s songs that are so awe-inspiring and inspirational. Although they would seemingly come from a godsend, Scott says, “Yeah, the songs come when they want to; there is nothing in particular that I do, it could be when I’m washing dishes or painting my toenails.”

Whether an artist or a person, Scott is extremely eloquent both on and off stage, a trait that makes her even more of a beautiful person. Ultimately, although Scott knows she has an immense talent and influence on her fans, she claims she’s just Jill Scott.

“I have to remind myself, people will let me in places or give me things, so it’s just a trip. I have to remind myself or my husband will tell me, you’re really Jill Scott, and I say, yeah, I was 10 years ago, too. Fame is weird.”

Joanna Davila can be contacted at

j.davila1@umiami.edu.