Don’t Believe a Word I Way with Bob Segarini – FYI Music News

On Monday evening I was invited to the Drake Hotel to see a young woman from Whistler, B.C play the Whistler Film Festival reception.

Expecting the usual beer ticket and Doritos extravaganza the music business has become of late, I was completely shocked to find fabulous food, open bars, and a helpful and accessible staff. This is more like it.

As the room filled up, I found a spot in front of the little electric piano and waited for the music to start. There must have been 2 or 3 hundred people in the room by then…all talking at once.

Halfway through my first Alexander Keith, a young, well poised and confident redhead sat down at the piano, said a few words, and launched into a song she wrote, in fact, most of the songs she performed were written by her, and when I say songs, I mean songs. How can someone this young, (she is still a teenager), write material that stands up to God Bless the Child, (written by Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog Jr. in 1939), which she also sang during her set, giving it a reading worthy of both Billy Holiday and Eddie Harris’s fine versions. I am impressed.

The 400 conversations continued throughout her set, but a clutch of musos had joined me in front of her and the piano, (including her justifiably beaming mother), and applauded wildly after every tune. Even with the party raging, the conversations all blurring together like a rap throw down in a meth lab, she was completely focused, hitting every nuance, note, and emotional brush stroke of the music and lyric. She didn’t need an audience, she was there for the music. This young woman means every note she plays, every word she sings. This young woman is real. This young woman is special.

Her name is Ali Milner.

In the meantime, whet your whistles with these two videos…

Ali Milner – Crystal Clear

Ali Milner – According to the New York Times