Home : Plato's Words : March 2002

March 2002

The DIVAS FOR LOVE, Divas For Life :02 concert at the Vogue was a sell out success again which was wonderful news to us all. We had an incredible time performing that night and it seems the audience really enjoyed themselves as well. Each of the singers really sparkled vocally and visually, too, in the designer dresses we were given to wear for the concert evening. CBC radio recorded the concert and then played excerpts from the show on HOT AIR which British Columbia residents get to hear every Saturday afternoon. One of my personal favorite things about the concert was performing a duet with Kate Hammett-Vaughan. We both enjoyed singing together and have plans to perform a concert some time in the near future, sharing several songs in an evening of vocal duets. Even though we both have such different approaches to singing a standard, it really is exciting to play off each other's phrasing style and interpretation.

Speaking of duets one of the recordings I have listened to non-stop this month is a recording of duets between Carmen McRae and Betty Carter. It was recorded in 1987 in San Francisco and features Eric Gunnison on piano, Jim Hughart on bass and Winard Harper on drums. The two singers together are fantastic and are absolutely ON as they infuse humour and skill and passion into their performance. It's not that often I find myself laughing along to a jazz recording but there are moments of amusement as the two singers sing "Am I Blue?" and decide that they really don't feel blue at all even though perhaps they are supposed to. There are other moments that amused me as I listened each time to the giggles of Betty Carter and the quips from Carmen McRae. It's not all fun and games though because the musicianship of both of these artists is outstanding, it's just that they are having such a blast together that there is a feeling of joviality to the whole concert. The soloing of these two scatting vocalists is elevating as songs are explored in every direction with them trading back and forth and building things to lovely kind of frenzy. Carter and McRae are quite different in their approach to singing standards but those two contrasting styles complement each other beautifully in this recording and really capture their musical genius.

For the past several weeks I have been researching and studying the music of Rodgers and Hart in preparation for a weekend performance I have coming up at THE CELLAR jazz club in Vancouver. I will be singing with a quartet led by Bill Coon on guitar. Ross Taggart will play saxophone, Darren Radtke will be on bass and the man with more energy and intensity than you can imagine, Dave Robbins will play the drums. This will be a tribute of sorts to the great music of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. 2002 is the 100th birthday of Richard Rodgers who composed songs with Lorenz Hart for over 20 years before his partnership with Oscar Hammerstein. The list of songs to choose from is vast and the choice has been difficult because there are so many I would like to sing on our nights at the Cellar. I think we have come up with an interesting list of some familiar songs that everyone will recognize as well as some of the lesser-known songs that are beautiful too. What a song writing team the two of them were! The Richard Rodgers melodies are absolutely beautiful and stay in your head for hours and the Lorenz Hart lyrics still sound up to date even though they were written in the 1930's. Many of these compositions are love songs but there are so many aspects to love and together these men really covered the gamut in their partnership. There is plenty of harmonic potential too, which is why jazz musicians often favor these songs as they remain strong frameworks to play on.

March is here… This is one of my favorite months because spring officially arrives and the season of growth and renewal begins. The harbingers of spring, the snowdrops, are almost finished their bloom, which means crocuses, then tulips then daffodils are next on the list of spring color. What joy!

Karin