Musical couple give ragtime an update
Black History Month is good timing for release of new album, Dessy Di Lauro says
Dessy Di Lauro is clearly excited about the release of her first full-length album, This Is Neo-Ragtime, particularly since it’s during February.
“I’m really proud that we’re releasing the album during Black History Month,” said the singer/songwriter in a recent telephone interview, “because if someone gets educated about the music that we’re doing, that’s a plus.”
Released Feb. 5, the new album by the Los Angelesbased singer and her producer/musician husband Ric’key Pageot —who perform at Le Piano Rouge on Friday — is a seamless blend of ragtime, a style of dance music that originated in African-American communities during the late-19th century, and contemporary soul and hip hop.
“One day, Ric’key and I were writing and we just came up with this idea,” Di Lauro said.
“It was just one of those magical moments where Ric’key started playing something and I was like ‘wait a minute, let me sing this’ and we looked at each other and thought, this is kind of interesting and different.”
“She told me to play the chord progression that I was playing in ragtime,” Pageot went on to explain.
“I started playing it, and she came up with a melody, and that was the birth of it right there.” That melody eventually evolved into Mysterious, one of the tracks on the new set.
“Then the challenge was, are we just going to be a throwback of 1920s music, or are we going to try to do something new with it? That’s what took from that point to the release of this album, the development of this sound.”
Their journey actually started in 2002, when the Montreal natives first met. Back then, Di Lauro was working as a featured singer in the Cirque du Soleil show La Nouba, which was based in Orlando, Fla.
“I was finishing off the last year of my degree in jazz performance at McGill and just getting into the music scene in Montreal, and I kept hearing about this girl, Dessy Di Lauro,” Pageot said.
“Finally, when she came back to Montreal, she booked a gig and they called me for it,
“If someone gets educated about the music we’re doing, that’s a plus.”
DESSY DI LAURO
and that’s when I met her.”
But it wasn’t until a couple of months later, when they performed together again at the Jello Bar, that a connection really sparked.
“I saw her walk in the room, we started talking and she started telling me that she had original music that she had been working on and that she would love my input. That’s how we started working together.”
That working relationship soon turned romantic, and the couple eventually wed in 2006. Di Lauro said the partnership is effortless.
“We have so much fun when we perform together and work on the music together. We share our love for the music and he’s my love, so I get the best of both worlds.”
The couple have since relocated to L.A. Di Lauro said Montreal offered her a lot of backup vocalist opportunities, but not much else.
“I think Montreal was my comfort zone. I could be a fulltime musician and make a decent living but that’s as far as you go, and I was inspired to do more. I’m at a place in my life where I want to be the artist. I have a specific genre all my own that me and Ric’key have created, and every time we get up on stage and I get to perform my music, I’m in my element. I basically want people to see me as a modernday, female version of Cab Calloway.”
The move proved to be a good one. Soon after relocating, Pageot was hired on Madonna’s 2008 Sticky & Sweet tour as a keyboardist, pianist and accordionist, and then asked back for her 2012 MDNA tour; experiences which he said helped him hone his musical skills.
All the while, the couple were writing songs, developing an elaborate stage show, which included a band dressed entirely in 1920s style, and creating videos for their singles Why U Raggin’ and Jump ’N’ Jivin’.
But having a great sound is one thing. Being an independent artist is decidedly another.
“Certain days are hard,” Di Lauro said. “We’re making relevant music that we love and we want everybody to hear it, but sometimes you’ve gotta wear so many hats that it prevents you from focusing on the creative part. But it’s also really good because I used to be a lot more artist than business, now I’m understanding the business more and what I need to do to promote myself. ”
“The record labels are waiting for you to either succeed or fall flat on your face, and then they will come in and help you out,” Pageot said. “But if you get to the point where you’re so good that a record label wants to sign you, that means you’re doing something right, so why stop what you’re doing? And at this point, unless a record label has something amazing to bring to the table, we’re really happy the way it is.”