Orgullo (feat. Rik Albani)

“Linda Hudes Power Trio takes its tone from Hudes and it’s some racket Hudes and her associates make, violent and literally riveting. Bob Riley’s backbeat knocks in your gut. Rik Albani’s trumpet is wired for maximum power. The musicians let loose with blasts of sound in a concerted effort to bombard the audience’s eyes and ears.” Village Voice

Lasting Effect is a hauntingly romantic score that bridges the conscious and unconscious. From the opening blast of ’17 Tons’ to the mesmerizing ‘Door Adagio,’ Linda Hudes music casts a spell that is palpable. There are no words (lyrics) so the music itself is the universal voice. Moreover, it is the universal unconscious that Hudes’ music taps into. The evocative sounds of ‘The Fives’ and the natural wonder of ‘Jungle Bird’ both stimulate our soul and feet to move or jump up. ‘Love Duet’ goes from subtle to ecstatic while ‘Orgullo’ (Pride on Your Forehead) is a preternatural tribute to all who strive and survive. Take deep breaths as you listen and you too will feel its Lasting Effect…

“Only with our songs does our sadness dissolve.” Aztec Poem

Lasting Effect is a sweeping, instrumental classical rock album of power and mystery, masterminded by nationally acclaimed, groundbreaking composer Linda Hudes and featuring Rik Albani, one of America’s great trumpet players. They are long time leaders of an amorphous ensemble of some of New York’s best musicians from the fields of rock, jazz and new music. In Lasting Effect, Linda Hudes Power Trio forms the nucleus of a larger ensemble, Power & Glory.

“There were thunders and lightnings and the sound of the trumpet exceedingly loud, so that all the people trembled.”

Where did Lasting Effect, this woman rocker, band and music come from?

They were wild times of extreme creative freedom in New York City. Days and nights full of punk, funk, graffiti, loft concerts, first rap songs, rock clubs, tough neighborhoods, pharmaceuticals, new circuses, modern dancers, crossover collaborations, and outrageous blends of artistic styles and mediums that Linda Hudes returned to after six years studying classical piano in New England conservatories…

Back in NYC, Hudes listened hard, observed with eyes and heart wide open and experienced a musical epiphany, “Yeah. I can do that. Time to play something besides classical music. Time to rock.” Like a chrysalis, she shed her conservatory background to soar and delight in the more visceral sounds coming from her pianos.

She composed a set of instrumental rock music and formed Linda Hudes Power Trio, a power trio in the tradition of Hendrix, Cream and the Police, but radically, she replaced the standard instrumentation of guitar and bass with trumpet and keyboards. Hudes’ racks of keyboards became bass, guitar, piano, melody, rhythm and harmony. Her trio’s non-traditional use of solo trumpet as a lead and rhythm instrument in a rock band, inspired by Rik Albani, was an ideal outlet for his soaring range, searing rhythmicality, and vocal approach on trumpet. Hudes and Albani revolutionized the accepted trumpet role.

This refreshingly rambunctious, daring approach to the standard rock trio led to repeat, sold out performances at CBGB, Mudd Club, Danceteria, Coney Island, La Mama, Public Theater, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Lincoln Center, Central Park Summerstage.

Greenwich Village hippies passed hard core punks on St. Marks Place and at the Pilgrim Theater in Alphabet City, Linda Hudes Power Trio shared the bill with the Bad Brains, playing to receptive Rastafarians. There was blood on the walls, burning ash cans outside warmed the homeless, and the passion, power and glory in Hudes’ compositions, bands and performances reflected it all. For Hudes, a late night at The Pilgrim Theater or CBGB would be followed by an early morning playing Bach on pipe organ at a cathedral for Easter…mortification and jubilation from one girl at the keys…

An innovative composer/arranger and captivating performer, Hudes started a new tradition in the world of women in rock, and the result was a forward thinking music, a generation ahead of its time, that pointed to a 21st century perhaps more soulful and hopeful than the one that is occurring.

Her compositions and bands were equally at home at Art On The Beach with the Twin Towers as prophetic backdrop or at the Boston Pops Orchestra, at the very raunchy Max’s Kansas City and the very beautiful Big Apple Circus. Her classical piano chops and rock flair made her in demand worldwide.

Like Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, Lasting Effect was composed and then choreographed for performances in New York, Europe and Asia. As with Peter and Igor, the music lived beyond the dance, performed by the bands Linda Hudes Power Trio and Power & Glory.

Drummer Bob Riley is truly the glue that holds Lasting Effect together. Internationally recognized as a brilliant drummer and programmer, he never failed to instantly find the perfect, rhythmic counterpoint to Hudes outside the box compositions and Albani’s out of control trumpet. Perpetually calm as a cool breeze throughout the entire punk era, Riley, with his futuristic vision of the pop-rock beat, was an irreplaceable member of every Linda Hudes ensemble until his tragic early death. Riley will be forever missed and never forgotten.

Lasting Effect is all this, life and loss, beauty and pain, joy and sorrow, and fun.

“The Power Trio made music that was a cross between simple jazz, simple rock, and minimalist rhythmic and harmonic patter…a passionate exclamation. This clarity and forthrightness, of course, has a visceral appeal.” NY Times

“Hardly your standard Power Trio, a solid rock beat underpins these repeating keyboard patterns and amplified horn lines.” NY Rocker

“Making some noise in N.Y., particularly in dance circles. Strictly instrumental, drums, trumpet, keyboards and a step away from Eurorock. Not easily classified.”
College Radio Report

CREDITS:
Linda Hudes – Composer, Arranger, Keyboards
Rik Albani - Trumpet, Electric Trumpet, Percussion, Drum Programming
Bob Riley – Drums, Drum Programming, Guitar
Jon Fields – Guitar
David Van Tieghem – Percussion
Curtis Fowlkes - Trombone
Sam Furnace - Flute