R.E.D.

Day Two

Ok, so I’m slow to start this.  A little busier than I thought I would be…rehearsals, writing a children’s education book, teaching, gigging, practicing, cooking, working out, working on tour in the Midwest in the Fall, planning out my summer…however, here’s the next installment.

Today, I had to drive up to Armonk, NY to teach some great kids and enroute I remembered I had this amazing box set of Ella Fitzgerald, 12 nights in Hollywood, in my glove compartment.  I figured, hey, I’ve got at least an hour to get home (rain, Friday night, stupid drivers) - let’s do my listening now and make my drive seem faster.

The recordings were taken at the now extinct Los Angeles club, Cresendo, in 1961 and 1962.  If you are an Ella fan, I would highly recommend this box set.  I’ve actually listened to the whole thing, but figured I’d go back and see what I hear this time around.  Ella Fitzgerald on vocals, Herb Ellis on guitar; Paul “Scooby” Smith or Lou Levy on piano; Gus Johnson or Stan Levey on drums.

My first impression (that I recall thinking previously), is that she takes chorus after chorus on every tune.  Some tracks are under two minutes, others are over five, but on this particular CD, no one in her band actually takes a solo.  This strikes me because most jazz singers today tend to usually to sing one, maybe two choruses up front, then there are solos by the band, perhaps some trading, and then a chorus out.  I’m not saying I’m exempt from this, but generally, that’s the m.o.  And not only for singers - instrumentalists as well.  Perhaps it’s just the way it’s evolved, but Ella takes no prisoners.  In particular, on the Duke Ellington tune Take the A-Train, she takes an almost seven minute scat - sometimes utilizing the lyrics, sometimes scatting, but always interesting.  It’s a pretty simple AABA form tune, so to take an almost seven minute vocal solo is pretty, well, awesome. 

I am also struck by how engaging and ridiculously fun her scatting is.  I don’t like scatting.  I don’t like listening to scatting.  But I like Ella scatting.  There is something utterly unique and unpretentious about her movement through the changes.  She makes me want to practice scatting, if only for my own fun and learning (which, in my opinion, is where a lot of it should stay).  I’m not against vocal improvisation, and it can be amazing to listen to when coming from an honest and pure place; but the actual act of scatting over changes that is time and again done by jazz singers that don’t really know what they’re doing, are only doing it because they think they should, or don’t have any emotional attachment to their scat just shouldn’t happen as much as it does.  I understand the desire to do more than deliver a melody and lyric, but in the end, that’s our job.  To tell stories.  So, tell the story.  Again.  Use the lyrics to create an improvisation.  Write a vocalese that advances the story.  Interact with the band - singing guide tone lines, singing riffs, inserting sounds - just be honest.  People will listen.

I digress. Back to Ella.  You can barely hear Herb Ellis on guitar.  There is a lot of piano.  A lot of walking bass.  Swinging from the tush drumming.  Very stylistic for the time.  To be honest, I don’t think Mr. Ellis really adds anything to the music except perhaps some ambient sound and I doubt most laymen listeners would even notice his presence.  I am very grateful that I play with an amazing guitarist who does more than just chunk chords. 

She sings some rather obscure standards that you don’t hear much these days.  Their sentiment hasn’t withstood the test of time: My Heart Belongs to Daddy, Accentuate the Positive, Across the Alley from the Alamo, and On a Slow Boat to China.   I love Accentuate the Positive - such a fun, silly song that I used to sing as a child and that I sing in the shower, but Ella does it with a full band, no pretenses, and takes multiple choruses.  Amazing.

I think my favorite track on the first disc (which is all I got to on my way home) is Round Midnight.  It opens with her talking to the lighting engineer and asking for some “sexy light…not that it would help any…”  The audience laughs and the song begins.  It’s a beautiful ballad wonderfully executed by Ella, and the cadenza she sings at the end a cappella is simply sublime.  I have rewound that part of the track many times and can now sing along with Ella as she finishes this beautiful Monk tune.  I do wish that there was less instrumentation on this.  Perhaps just bass.  Just piano.  Alas, as with many recordings of that era, it just wasn’t done so much. 

She ends with her trademark, Mr. Paganini, graciously thanking the audience with her up-bending “thank yous”  Again taking multiple choruses, she is funny, witty, and engaging and I once again am in awe of this woman from whom so many jazz singers have learned and continue to love.

Listening Day One.

Miles Davis, Kind of Blue

I chose this album to get the project rolling because it was the very first jazz album I actually bought and listened to in any real sense.  I was eighteen, and although the album is truly amazing and stands the test of time, it isn’t exactly the straight ahead swing-y type that initially draws people to jazz, nor, as I have subsequently discovered, is it a usual first album for a singer.  Cool.  I think my dad actually owns the original LP…gonna have to go and check that out when next I visit. 

*A little aside on how I’m going about this.  Picture a couch, a fan blowing very hot air, a very old single CD player (that I was pleased to find still works), a pair of headphones and a fake book with the tunes on the CD.  Why a fake book?  After many years, I have come to the undeniable conclusion that I am a visual learner and I think, learn, and listen better when I have something to visually represent what is happening. Besides, I have all this stuff, why not make use of it?*

I pulled out the little booklet in the CD and opened up to reread Bill Evan’s (gosh I love him) liner notes excerpted from the album.  Read them twice.  Don’t you know, there’s a mistake?  Somehow, when he describes All Blues and Flamenco Sketches, whoever put the titles in reversed their order, so what Bill has to say about them is reversed.  Shows you how much I read the darn thing fifteen years ago.  I do wonder if they’ve since fixed that little error.  Anyone?  I find his thoughts on the music wonderful and wish I’d read them more thoroughly as it would have explained a lot.  Ahhhh, hindsight.  Gets you every time.

On to the listening.  My first reaction is one of comfort.  Tunes I know so well and have heard so many times.  Solos I can sing along to and changes my mind just naturally expects and accepts.  I am content.  Then I start to delve into what I’m hearing not from the perspective a wet behind the ears jazz novice, but from a practiced musician and singer who has heard, practiced, and lived these tunes for many years.  So What strikes me with its duplicitous nature.  That a tune so simple in harmonic structure can derive so much complexity in its improvisations.  I am once again in love with Miles’ sound. 

The lyrics Eddie Jefferson wrote for this tune strike me as funny and I laugh to myself.  I go find them on the internet and re-read them.  Why is it that so many jazz lyrics and vocaleses talk about the musicians that wrote the tunes and how they did this and they did that?  Why not just tell a story?  Write some original lyrics?  It takes some practice, but it can be done effectively.  It often saddens me that people just put any kind of lyric to a pre-existing melody just so they can sing it.  Some tunes aren’t meant to be sung - so be it.  Some tunes don’t sound good without lyrics - Muzak anyone?  While I understand it allows the vocalist a vehicle with which to sing a head, for my money, if they’re gonna do that, I’d rather they just scat the head.  There is a craft to writing good lyrics and I am always wishing for more care and thought in many jazz lyrics. 

I think my favorite tune continues to be All Blue.  I love the melody - how it floats over the push and pull of the harmony underneath.  Then you get to the solos.  The harmonic “riff” continues to be articulated by the bass and piano while Miles solos.  I have a personal affinity for this solo as I remember transcribing it for some improv class I took at MSM.  And trying to sing those damn high notes when you’re an alto, well, it’s just funny.  The sheer genius of what each solo represents and how they tell amazing stories to each other remains fresh.  I had forgotten how much I like this album. 

This is also where I first encountered Bill Evans, my absolute favorite pianist. Ever.  If there was anyone I wished I could have played with in his time..  I have since listened to a lot of Bill Evans, with my three favorite recordings being those found on Kind of Blue, Conversations with Myself, and Bill Evans and Tony Bennet (duo albums I and II).  I think one of those will eventually make its way into this journey.  As a burgeoning pianist, the mastery of incorporating the riff into his brief solo is subtle and sublime. 

So ends my first listening session.  None of the above is a revelation, but it certainly was fun and a wonderful way to start this whole project off.  Only problem is that it took me two days to write this damn blog…gonna have to get faster at proofreading. 

More soon.

tumblrbot asked: WHERE WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO VISIT ON YOUR PLANET?

At the moment, Italy.

Listening in the Dog Days of Summer

Summer project 2011. 

As an up and coming jazz musician (yeah, I’m a singer, but I still consider myself a musician) I am constantly astounded by how little listening I have managed to do and still be in the genre of jazz. Lately however, I feel that my lack of aural skills and awareness is continually causing me to miss sounds and opportunities.  I’d love to go back to school for a third degree, but money is always an issue and plunging myself any further into debt seems utterly ridiculous.  So….I have devised a do-it-yourself listening course for the summer.  Here goes….

In an effort to increase my listening skills (I mean, everyone needs to do this, right?) I am giving myself self-imposed listening assignments daily.  Well, sort-of assignments.  My plan is to go to my shelf of CDs (of which I am proud to say there are over 1000 - cds, that is), take one of them off, place it into my almost de-funked CD player, sit with my headphones on my couch sipping coffee, and listen to that particular album for an hour. After which I shall write a short blog of what I heard.  Mind you, THIS IS NOT A REVIEW.  I am not a reviewer, nor am I pretending or trying to be, I’m simply a student listening to music and keeping track of my observations so as to better understand and articulate what I hear now and in the future and to expand my aural (I do so love that word) awareness.  If you get something out of it and anything I say inspires you to go out and listen to any particular album, super.  If not, and it’s just me putting stuff out into the vast unknown, so be it. 

At least I know I listened.

Enjoy!

Connecting with students

I find students humbling. 

They teach you more about yourself and about the world than many adults realize and they are constantly testing your patience, your skills, and your knowledge.

But how do you connect with students that obviously have no interest in what you’re about to teach?  How do you get students interested in Classical music?  Jazz?  Opera?  What child today from any demographic cares about that kind of music?  Sure, they hear it on their cell-phones and occasionally on the television, but it’s all shiny and electronic.  However, that’s where you start.  You find the common ground, get them hooked, and then dig deeper into what you really want them to learn. 

Sure, that cell-phone ring of Fur Elise is awful, electronic, and annoying, but it’s something the students will recognize.  From there, you start a discussion of why they have it as their ring-tone.  Is it singable?  Memorable?  Not-annoying?  Happy?  From there, you can lead the discussion to other uses of the tune.  Perhaps it has been sampled in some Hip-Hop or Rap tune, perhaps it was used for a television commercial; perhaps someone did a rock version or amplified guitar version….whatever the use, find the next closest thing to more of the song without getting to the original.  After you’ve played a few excerpts from other sources, then play the original. 

Discuss how it is similar or different to all the versions they’ve already heard.  This is similar to a theme and variation lesson, but in reverse.  You’re simply doing all the variations first to get them interested.  Once they’ve been hooked, and they’ve listened to the original version, then you can talk about Beethoven - and from there, you can go anywhere.  They’ll listen to you discuss how he became deaf, how he composed so many pieces of music, and how he suffered.  You can listen to symphonies, sonatas, bagatelles….and once they get the bug, the whole world of Classical music will open its doors and you can walk in and play. 

I’m not saying that going in the “back-door” doesn’t have disadvantages or that every student will be excited, but I will guarantee that if you try it, you’ll have more students asking questions, more students engaged, and you might just learn something in the process yourself!  I know I’ve discovered so many versions of songs I never knew existed - and with ITunes, searching for versions and variations is as easy as clicking a mouse. 

As Dr. Suess so wisely said….”Try it!”

Crushing It

Alright. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, and am finally joining this vast online world that is at once terrifying and exciting.

Overall, I aim to be honest. About the following things:

Jazz - it’s influence on today’s music, the education of this American art form, my observations on encounters I have with it..ect.

Singing - what I experience with my students, my own self discovery and journey over the past few years, and what lies ahead

Teaching - I do a lot of it and love it, so there will be observations about the education system in general, music education as it stands today in both public, private and university school systems, and of course, stories. None of the names I use will be actual names because they’re all children, but the stories will be real.

Random observations about being a musician and singer in NYC and how it has shaped my life and who I am today.

This is the first.