Stream Laura Ortman's Soundtrack for 'Gringo Trails', New Doc Film on Global Tourism

Acclaimed violinist and composer Laura Ortman provides the haunting and beautiful soundtrack for Gringo Trails, a new documentary exploring the impact of global tourism.

Brooklyn-based, White Mountain Apache musician and composer Laura Ortman explores new sonic terrain in her latest project: composing the original soundtrack music for Gringo Trails, a new documentary by Pegi Vail.

Vail, an anthropologist and Associate Director of the Center for Media, Culture, and History at NYU, made the film to examine the powerful globalizing force of increasing tourism worldwide.

Spanning South America, Africa and Asia, the tourist pathway known as the “gringo trail” has facilitated both life-altering adventures and the despoiling of many once virgin environments. The film follows stories along the trail to reveal the complex relationships between colliding cultures: host countries hungry for financial security and the tourists who provide it in their quest for authentic experiences.

Ortman's soundtrack beautifully combines violin, electric guitar, piano, vocals and casio, with additional drums and percussion by Jim Pugliese and Christine Bard, creating a haunting and evocative score to accompany what looks to be a riveting documentary.

Stream: Laura Ortman's - "Waves Awake"

Stream and download the full soundtrack on Bandcamp.

Watch the trailer for Gringo Trails

Gringo Trails Official Trailer from Pegi Vail on Vimeo.

Artist Call: Documentary Series Seeking Music Submissions

Attention musicians! The upcoming documentary series Watchers of the North is looking for music submissions for possible use in the APTN television series.

Watchers of the North is a 6-part documentary series that will be broadcast on APTN in 2013. In both English and Inuktitut, the series is about the Canadian Rangers in two communities who patrol areas Canadian Forces can't easily access while being first responders in their communities in search and rescue and emergency situations. It focuses on close to a dozen Inuit Rangers in two communities and how their way of life is changing on and off the job.

We can't wait to see it!

And your music could be a part of it! Here's more info from the producers:

• We’d love to feature Inuit musicians, whether they weave traditional sounds like throat singing into their modern music, or are creating unique sounds of their own.
• We’re also looking for a wide variety of musicians and musical styles by Indigenous artists – First Nations, Metis, Aboriginal especially instrumental, but lyrics may work, too because episodes and scenes focus on a wide variety of people and different moods- some sequences are more thoughtful, others more action-packed.
• At this point, we’d like to receive submissions as emailed links to EPKs and streaming audio.
• What we can offer to musicians in return for their musical involvement in the series is exposure for their music: profiles of them on our blog (www.watchersofthenorthblog.com) and website (to be launched in 2013 with the series), Facebook page, twitter etc., as well as credits on our TV credit roll and on the website.
• We’re also seeking a particularly versatile aboriginal musician or composer who has experience (ideally) creating music for film ,TV or theatre, to compose a few original short instrumental pieces that we will use regularly throughout the series. This would involve remuneration for that work.

To be considered, send your streaming audio links to Maureen Marovitch maureen@picturethis.ca.

Wawatay News with Robin Ranger

There's not a lot of jazz players in Indian Country, but musician and composer Robin Ranger, from Fort William, Ontario, is blazing a trail of change. He talked with Wawatay News about his love of the genre, his goals as an artist, and what album got him hooked on jazz in the first place.

In Ranger discovers voice with jazz, Wawatay News writes:

While walking the streets of Toronto in his early-20s, Robin Ranger heard a guitar-playing busker hit a chord that captivated his ears. Using some of the $40 he had that was to last him three days in the city, the Fort William First Nation member paid the guitarist to play the song again.

“I paid attention while he was playing the song and waited until that chord rolled around,” the 39-year-old recalled. “Then I went back to the hotel, picked my guitar up and made the same chord, and it completely affected the way I played music.” Up to that point, Ranger was into rock and heavy music like Tool and Ministry. But the chord – a B-flat minor6 – converted him to a new style. He began to mess around with seventh, ninth and major-seventh chords and wrote songs based on them.

“After a while, another musician friend of mine said, ‘Wow man, this sounds a lot like jazz,’ and I’m like ‘Jazz? I don’t listen to jazz.’

Based on the comparisons, Ranger decided to give the genre a listen. He asked a friend that since jazz is a 100-year-old medium, where should he start. He was recommended Miles Davis’ 1959 album, Kind of Blue. Ranger was immediately obsessed with the album, considered the best-selling jazz record of all time...

Being a First Nations person, Ranger gets a lot of comments about the oddity of being an Aboriginal jazz musician. Ranger estimates there are about six or seven that perform regularly in Canada.

“Jazz chords aren’t something we hear a lot in our communities,” he said. “As a culture, we’re not big jazz appreciators. I hope that’s changing, because jazz is cool. More people should listen to it."

Read the whole article here.

And watch Robin's This Endless Night: