#5002, From Soundcheck: Moira Smiley, Ashley Jackson
From the Soundcheck Podcast series of live performances and interviews, harpist Ashley Jackson fuses music and storytelling on her 2025 album, Take Me To The Water; she plays in-studio. Plus, song collector Moira Smiley plays in-studio with a string quartet with songs from her latest, The Rhizome Project.
Moira Smiley refers to herself as a song collector; she's also a singer, multi-instrumentalist (banjo, accordion, piano, and hand & body percussion), and songwriter. Smiley has sung in arenas, cathedrals, kitchens, back porches, sound stages, and on glaciers with the likes of Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Tune-Yards, Tim O’Brien, Eric Whitacre, Los Angeles Master Chorale, New World Symphony and Solas. But she’s spent a good portion of her career collecting, arranging and performing traditional songs from Appalachia, The Balkans, The Republic of Georgia, Wales, and more. Her latest album is called The Rhizome Project, and features a string quartet along with many guests. Moira Smiley and a string quartet [Sara Caswell (violin), Dana Lyn (violin), Josh Henderson (viola), Jody Redhage-Ferber (cello)] perform in-studio.
Harpist, soloist, collaborator (Harlem Chamber Players), educator, and arranger Ashley Jackson’s brand new album is called Take Me To The Water. In the American spiritual tradition, water is a powerful metaphor for freedom and for moving from this life to the next. Jackson’s record takes listeners on a watery journey through works by Debussy, the jazz harpist Alice Coltrane, blues, and some classic spirituals. As Jackson declares in a statement about the record, ”Water is something that we all need. It sustains us, it gives us life. Take Me to the Water reminds us we have a choice: we can let water be the thing that divides us, or, it can allow us to come together through our shared humanity.” She plays some of her arrangements of spirituals on a sculpted maple harp, in-studio. - Caryn Havlik
Program #5002, From Soundcheck, Moira Smiley, Ashley Jackson (First aired 4/29/2025)
ARTIST: Ashley Jackson
WORK: Take Me To the Water [1:00]
RECORDING: Live for the Soundcheck Podcast, March 2025
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available.
INFO: https://ashleyjacksonharp.com The record, Take me to the Water is available via Decca Records
ARTIST: Moira Smiley
WORK: Awake Awake [:53]
RECORDING: The Rhizome Project
SOURCE: Moira Smiley Music
INFO: https://moirasmiley.bandcamp.com/album/the-rhizome-project
ARTIST: Moira Smiley, String Quartet
WORK: Go Dig My Grave[3:55]
RECORDING: Live for the Soundcheck Podcast, Sept 2024
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available.
INFO: https://moirasmiley.com
ARTIST: Moira Smiley, Sam Amidon, Seamus Egan
WORK: Days of War [:37]
RECORDING: In our Voices
SOURCE: Moira Smiley Music
INFO: https://moirasmiley.bandcamp.com/album/in-our-voices
ARTIST: Moira Smiley & VOCO
WORK: Oj Jabukov(Trad. Serbian, learned from KITKA)[:37]
RECORDING: Laughter Out Of Tears
SOURCE: Moira Smiley Music
INFO: https://voco.bandcamp.com/album/laughter-out-of-tears
ARTIST: Moira Smiley, String Quartet
WORK: Oh, Watch the Stars[5:14]
RECORDING: Live for the Soundcheck Podcast, Sept 2024
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available.
INFO: https://moirasmiley.com
ARTIST: Moira Smiley, Dawn Pemberton
WORK: Oh, Susanna [:54]
RECORDING: In our Voices
SOURCE: Moira Smiley Music
INFO: https://moirasmiley.bandcamp.com/album/in-our-voices
ARTIST: Ashley Jackson
WORK: River Jordan [2:43]
RECORDING: Live for the Soundcheck Podcast, March 2025
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available.
INFO: https://ashleyjacksonharp.com The record, Take me to the Water is available via Decca Records
ARTIST: Ashley Jackson
WORK: Rezende: Yemaya [1:40]
RECORDING: Take Me To the Water
SOURCE: Decca Records
INFO: https://ashleyjackson.lnk.to/tmttw
ARTIST: Ashley Jackson
WORK: Deep River, Pt. 2 [2:16]
RECORDING: Live for the Soundcheck Podcast, March 2025
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available.
INFO: https://ashleyjacksonharp.com The record, Take me to the Water is available via Decca Records
ARTIST: Ashley Jackson
WORK: Take Me To the Water [4:48]
RECORDING: Live for the Soundcheck Podcast, March 2025
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available.
INFO: https://ashleyjacksonharp.com The record, Take me to the Water is available via Decca Records
