When you listen to Lisa Marie Simmons and Marco Cremaschini’s new record, you realize pretty quickly that this isn’t something that just showed up one day. You can feel the years behind it. The two of them, Simmons as poet and lyricist, Cremaschini at the piano and synths, have constructed something that resists easy categorization. Jazz bleeds into spoken word, electronica moves into hip hop, R&B conversations happen alongside free verse and big cinematic arrangements. It all lands together naturally, and the result feels genuinely alive in a way that most records don’t achieve.
Simmons grew up in Boulder, came into her own writing and performing in New York, and is now based in Italy. Cremaschini brings European jazz sensibility to the work. What they’ve made together has started circulating in certain circles as a kind of global jazz hybrid, and honestly, that’s fair. The record moves easily between moments that feel intimate and interior to passages that hit with real intention and urgency. The lyrics work the personal and the political at the same time, and the whole thing assumes your ear is willing to follow where it goes.
Opener
The album opens with “Intro,” built around Christof Bernhard’s gong, and from there you get thirteen tracks and an impressive roster of guests. Gillian Margot, the Toronto vocalist who’s shared stages with Sting and Robert Glasper, leads on “Once Upon This Time.” Jamaaladeen Tacuma, the bass player whose work with Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time band became foundational to avant-garde jazz, shows up on “Taijitu” with percussionist Maurizio Giannone and vocalist Chanele McGuinness. Vernon Reid from Living Colour brings his particular presence to “Solid Ground (Meet Me There)” and the closing “Outro.” Charu Suri, the first Indian-born jazz composer to perform at Carnegie Hall and a Grammy nominee, adds something quietly strong to “Winner Takes All.” Dorian Holley and Nayanna Holley share space on “No Time at All”. Two singers who between them have worked some of the biggest stages and soundtracks of the last twenty years.
Then there’s “Solid Ground (Meet Me There)” with The Flamingos’ Theresa Trigg and Terry Isaiah Johnson. If you know anything about American music history, that name carries weight. Johnson, a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee who arranged the Flamingos’ “I Only Have Eyes for You,” died on October 8, 2025, just twelve days after this album came out. This recording is one of his last, and it’s the kind of thing you need to hear and sit with.
The backbone throughout is tight: Simmons with Cremaschini, Manuel Caliumi on alto sax and bass clarinet, Marco Cocconi on electric bass, Federico Negri on drums, and Laura Masotto adding violin to “Submersion.” You can feel how much these musicians trust each other in the way the music moves and breathes.
Third Album
This is the third album in the NoteSpeak trilogy on Ropeadope Records. The first, “NoteSpeak (Amori e Tragedie in Musica),” came out in 2020. The second, “NoteSpeak 12,” dropped in 2023 and also won Best Spoken Word Album at the World Entertainment Awards. Simmons’ poem “Last Supper” from that record made it onto the shortlist for a Creators of Justice Literary Award. This third installment, released in September 2025, keeps the momentum going. Some tracks have already been recognized as finalists in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest and semi-finalists in the American Songwriters Song Contest.
The influences layered through the work run deep: Nina Simone, Gil Scott-Heron, Fela Kuti, John and Alice Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, Marvin Gaye, Maya Angelou, Sonia Sanchez, Angela Davis, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde. Step into another corner and you’ve got Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Ani DiFranco. And running through the contemporary side: Robert Glasper, Esperanza Spalding, Vijay Iyer, Rhiannon Giddens, Anderson Paak.
So, wait no longer! You can listen here.
