When the late great Elvis Aaron Presley put the blue in Hawaii all those years ago he would have had no idea that one day a Brazilian-born Japanese woman would be bringing her own colorful brand of Blue Hawaii to Taiwan.
"Bossa Nova Hula: Lisa Ono's Blue Hawaii," the concert by singer/songwriter, violinist, acoustic guitar player, Lisa Ono, is set to have the auditorium of the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall swinging tonight, when the soulful-voiced jazz diva hits the stage as part of her summer tour. The concert is her only performance in Taiwan.
Born in Brazil to Japanese parents, Ono was introduced to the smoky jazz bar scene at a young age. While most of her peers were doing what normal 10 year-olds do, Ono was hanging out with her father at his popular Sao Paulo nightclub.
COURTESY OF EMI TAIWAN
After moving back to Japan, Ono's father opened the Saci Perer nightclub in Tokyo, where the teenage Ono began to perform a predominantly Brazilian repertoire of samba and bossa nova tunes. Now Ono performs many of her tunes in English and Japanese.
Dubbed the "Queen of Bossa Nova" in Japan, Ono has become one of the world's top practitioners of the mild and rhythmical form of Latin jazz.
Since debuting in 1989 with Catopili, an album on which the Sao Paulo native first began experimenting with her own style of samba and bossa nova, Ono has gone on to release 12 albums, the most successful of which being the 1999 jazz-influenced Dreams, a record which went on to sell over 200,000 copies worldwide.
Apart from selling over three million records since 1989, Ono has also been responsible for single-handedly shaping a bossa nova revival in Japan. Along the way she has collaborated with some of the biggest names in bossa nova and jazz, including "the pioneer of bossa nova" Antonio Carlos Jobim.
More recently, Ono teamed up with producer Eumir Deodato for her 2000 release, Pretty World. Deodato, who has worked with the likes of Roberta Flack, Aretha Franklin and Bjork, helped the performer add an original edge to the material on that album, which was a pot pourri of her own bossa nova interpretations of tunes by the likes of Stevie Wonder, Leon Russell and The Police. These fusions, while sounding at first rather odd have proven incredibly popular in her native Brazil, as well as in Japan.
For tonight's concert the queen of bossa nova will be performing a selection of tunes taken from her Pretty World album, which has only recently been released locally.
What: Lisa Ono Bossa Nova Hula: Lisa Ono's Blue Hawaii
When: Tonight
Where: Taipei's Dr Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall (台北市國父紀念館), 505 Renai Rd., Sec. 4, Taipei (台北市仁愛路4段505號)
Tickets: Tickets cost between NT$900 and NT$2,500 and are available through ACER ticketing outlets or at the door.
As mega K-pop group BTS returns to the stage after a hiatus of more than three years, one major market is conspicuously missing from its 12-month world tour: China. The omission of one of the group’s biggest fan bases comes as no surprise. In fact, just the opposite would have been huge news. China has blocked most South Korean entertainment since 2016 under an unofficial ban that also restricts movies and the country’s popular TV dramas. For some Chinese, that means flying to Seoul to see their favorite groups perform — as many were expected to do for three shows opening
Taiwan’s semiconductor industry consumes electricity at rates that would strain most national grids. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) alone accounted for more than 9 percent, or 2,590 megawatts (MW), of the nation’s power demand last year. The factories that produce chips for the world’s phones and servers run around the clock. They cannot tolerate blackouts. Yet Taiwan imports 97 percent of its energy, with liquefied natural gas reserves measured in days. Underground, Taiwan has options. Studies from National Taiwan University estimate recoverable geothermal resources at more than 33,000 MW. Current installed capacity stands below 10 MW. OBSTACLES Despite Taiwan’s significant geothermal potential, the
The entire Li Zhenxiu (李貞秀) saga has been an ugly, complicated mess. Born in China’s Hunan Province, she moved to work in Shenzhen, where she met her future Taiwanese husband. Most accounts have her arriving in Taiwan and marrying somewhere between 1993 and 1999. She built a successful career in Taiwan in the tech industry before founding her own company. She also served in high-ranking positions on various environmentally-focused tech associations. She says she was inspired by the founding of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) in 2019 by Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), and began volunteering for the party soon after. Ko
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chair Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) returned from her trip to meet People’s Republic of China (PRC) dictator Xi Jinping (習近平) bearing “a gift” for the people of Taiwan: 10 measures the PRC proposed to “facilitate the peaceful development of cross-strait relations.” “China on Sunday unveiled 10 new incentive measures for Taiwan,” wrote Reuters, wrongly. The PRC’s longstanding habit with Taiwan relations is to repackage already extant or once-existing policies and declare that they are “new.” The list forwarded by Cheng reflects that practice. NEW MEASURES? Note the first item: establishing regular communication mechanisms between the Chinese Communist Party
RSS