TETEL DI BABUYA: Meet Tetel

All I ever wanted as a musician was to have enough room to express myself as authentically as possible. I find songwriting to be the most fantastic vessel for communicating creative thoughts and conveying emotions. To me, songwriting is a first class ticket to artistic freedom.

And to be able to sing the songs I write is, to me, the closest thing I know to a religious experience. Having a brain and functional vocal chords seems like one of the real miracles in life. Of course, I can express myself on the violin, but the violin can’t help it, it lacks something I can’t do without….lyrics.

When writing your own material, the possibilities are endless and that can feel a little overwhelming. But whenever I hit a metaphorical wall, I turn to good friends like Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Tom Jobim, Amy Winehouse, Duke Ellington, Nina Simone and so many other musical pals, old and new, always ready to selflessly reach out to me with loving inspiration. Isn’t music recording one of the most beautiful human inventions?

I think songwriting is a safe road to self-knowledge for an artist. You never really know who you are until you gaze at that cellulose uncharted territory (or LCD or whatever you kids are using these days).

My first album, Meet Tetel, is a collage of the musical styles that have touched me as a musician: Jazz, Classical, Blues, Folk, Bossa Nova, Samba, French Chanson and Soul.

The arrangements are by Daniel Grajew who has as much musical sensitivity as he is tall. He is either gigantic, or I’m just an awful music partner employing some uncalled for distasteful humor.

When I wrote the songs from this album, I wanted two things to pop into the mind of the listener: this album kind of sounds like a vintage recording but it can’t be because the lyrics have something contemporary about them. I like that, tradition with a twist on the rocks.

I have a couple of tunes I wrote as tribute to jazz standards I love, and these are Lullaby of Loveland and Willow, Don’t You Weep. The titles I chose leave little to the imagination for jazz lovers. These are songs about true love, for someone else as well, yes, but, mainly for oneself.

Hello, Hon’ is a big band style song inspired by Count Basie, Duke Ellington and other jazz giants of the big band era. No one should take my lyrics too seriously; I don’t really sit at home all day doing nothing but thinking of my loved one. I also find time to groom my cats.

Two of the songs I wrote, Mea Culpa and Você, might trick the listener into believing I’m from a Portuguese speaking country (perhaps Brazil) and not Babuya, wherever the heck that is.

Upright Lad Blues is the ultimate proof I simply must complain about my partner. In this case, complain about having nothing to complain about. This is quickly turning into a drinking game: take a shot whenever the singer says “about”. About.

For One Man Only and All and More are folk inspired love tunes. Guess who I’m singing about? Right you are, my friends. My husband is a very patient man.

Clean Cut is a Shaft soundtrack inspired tune sung from what seems like a femme fatale perspective. SPOILER ALERT, it’s really about my 14-year-old diabetic cat who was in a bad place and in need of reassuring.

Not About Love is a song I wrote when I was trying to write what? You guessed right, a song not about love. What an inventive title.

That’s it, I hope you have as much fun listening to my album as I had making it.