Larissa Ness

Music fans are in for a real treat in early October when hip-hop / dance music singer and songwriter Larissa Ness unveils her new music video for her song “Thoughts Of You,” as it features a lot of dance numbers, twenty or so professional dancers and Ness playing the opening piano riffs in a rather, hmmm, unique style. This is Ness’ first professional music video, but by no means is she new to the music scene, as Hello, her more urban flavored and current album is her third release and American, French, German and English radio stations have played her tunes. Ness’ songs were featured in commercials for a major music retailer whose ads have appeared on MTV, VH1 and a host of other channels. In addition, Ness’ music has appeared in independent films, including Lost In Sunshine, and she was recently commissioned to write a song for the feature film Until I See You Again.

As for the music video, “Thoughts Of You,” was chosen as the song, because of the positive feedback she received from television viewers who heard the song used in a promotional piece for the CBS television program Ghost Whisperer, starring Jennifer Love Hewitt. She figured she might as well ride that wave and hooked up with Austin based filmmaker and videographer.

“I contacted him and he called me right back. He was all spunky in the conversation and we clicked right away. We tossed some ideas back and forth and then he said, ‘Wait a minute,” she recalls.

She was not however, prepared for what came next. “He had seen a picture of me sitting on top of my piano with my toes near the piano keys. He said, ‘What if for the beginning part of that song it opens up with a piano riff and you play the piano with your toes?”

At that point, Ness called her director’s bluff thinking this was a joke until he told her that he was serious. She indicated that she thought it would be awesome to try and that she thought it was a cool idea, so she would give it a whirl. She sat down facing the keyboard and put up her toes. However, her producer had one more request and that was that she sits on top of the piano, with her toes on the keys.

“I said that’s playing the piano backwards and I don’t know if I can even do that with my fingers. (she laughs again),” says Ness.

So for the opening scene of the music video for “Thoughts Of You,” “I am going to play the piano backwards, with my toes. The dancers are so fabulous and they just blow me away. There are all kinds of dances in the video; tango, ballroom kind of stuff and salsa. In the middle of the video the dancers are going to do a contemporary break style and I have to do a little dance on top of the piano,” explains Ness.

On the album Hello, Larissa Ness has created tunes that blend modern R&B, hip-hop and dance music and it is just one more step in her development as a versatile recording artist. She studied classical piano and voice at Texas State University, toured Europe with a jazz ensemble and played gigs at Austin venues such at the now defunct Reed’s. In the in between years she fronted an Austin based rock band Burn. While she was creating her album Hello, she was also busy producing an EP, I’ve Found You, which features Latin grooves.

On the I’ve Found You project, she worked with trombonist Mark “Speedy” Gonzales, trumpeter Gilbert Elorreaga and saxophonist Josh Levy, from the celebrated Latin funk band Grupo Fantasma, an ensemble that garnered a Grammy Award nomination in 2008. Gonzales arranged the parts for the horn section on all the songs. Listeners can look forward to hearing salsa, samba and bossa nova grooves on Ness’ Latin project.