Home : Plato's Words : October, 2005

October, 2005

September was a busy month of music making for me. There were a couple of highlights to remember; one involved "chemistry" and the other involved me singing brand new arrangements with an 11-piece band.

The chemistry I speak of occurred three nights in a row when I was booked to play at O'Doul's. I always have fun singing at O'Doul's, no matter who is playing with me. This time I had guitarist Gord Grdina and bassist Rene Worst paired up for me to sing with. Everything just happened to click, musically speaking, and it was Gord who observed that the three of us had chemistry. It's true that you can't look for it or try to make it happen; chemistry happens naturally if it's supposed to. We had it, apparently, on each of the three nights and that was very exciting for me to be a part of. I have witnessed chemistry happening other times in my life too; with Bill Coon particularly and in other musical groupings. When it does occur it makes you realize just how special chemistry is within a group. It creates a whole other sense of freedom and trust between the musicians for the process of exploring the tunes to their fullest. Listening to each other becomes effortless and it seems as though you can almost anticipate what someone within the group may do, although you are still surprised since this is based on improvisation. This chemistry also makes the hours fly by apparently, because each night I couldn't believe the gig was actually over and I was sorry that it was. Time suspended for me on each of the nights singing with Gord and Rene. I never liked chemistry in high school but this kind of chemistry…I want more!

The new arrangements came as a result of a show I was booked for in Regina, Saskatchewan. The budget allowed me to have new arrangements created for an 11-piece band. So…I decided to get Jill Townsend, Bill Coon and Phil Dwyer to write some arrangements for me for the performance. I didn't plan on choosing arrangers whose names all happen to rhyme: Jill, Bill & Phil! There wasn't very much time in between the date that I found out about the booking and the dates that the arrangements were actually complete so I was under a lot of pressure to learn the charts properly within just a few days of receiving them. That was tough but in the end the hard work was worth it. Phil's charts were particularly difficult for me because he had lots of little surprises and changes in the tunes that I had to wrap my head and ears around. Fantastic arranging from all three of the rhyming arrangers I chose. I know they each worked very hard to create such beautiful sounding horn lines. This made my first experience singing with an 11 piece-band such a pleasure. Years ago I did sing with a big band off and on but in that situation someone was often cueing me in to sections and there were never parts where the voice was truly playing a line along with the horns.

Trumpet player Kevin Kasha was the bandleader and he and the entire Regina band was wonderful. They worked very hard on the charts and made the music come alive for me. I am thankful to them for the hours they put into to learning the arrangements. I have to say I have always been treated so well in Regina, My first trip there was in 1998 after I had released my Beauty In The Rain CD. I have made some good friends there and I always enjoy going back.

I didn't seem to have much time to get out and hear music in September but I did manage to get down to RIME to hear artist in residence for September, Gord Grdina (the chemistry man) perform two varied sets. The first was a set with an Armenian singer Mariam Matossian with Gord playing the Oud, a beautiful stringed instrument that Gord has mastered. Mariam is actually a Canadian born vocalist but she comes from an Armenian background and has learned many of the traditional folk songs. She sings in a high clear voice and she tells little stories to the audience, which describe what each of the songs are about.  Mariam is just lovely to watch and listen to on stage. She is absolutely natural and elegant and I enjoyed every minute of her singing. She and Gord make a wonderful duo team performing this haunting music. The second set was equally enjoyable with Gord leading his new jazz quartet featuring Paul Rushka, Nino DiPasquale and John Bentley. In this setting Gord was back to playing the guitar. They played a very eclectic set of music that included some arrangements in odd time signatures. That is always a challenge for me. Particularly lately it is because I have been trying to sing songs that change meters or are simply not in 4/4 or 3/4 or a common time signature.  Odd time signatures are tough for me. I will really have to work at singing in various meters if I want things to feel more natural and not such a struggle to maintain the 5 or 7 beats in each bar.

With my own 2005  Festival Band I performed at RIME near the end of September. That band is Lou Mastroianni on piano, Rod Murray on trombone, Paul Rushka on bass and Nino DiPasquale on drums.  I was a little bit nervous about the gig since we were going to be performing a lot of brand new music. For RIME I had decided to perform mostly originals since it is a creative venue where the audience comes to expect something more than a band playing through standards. That is to say RIME is a concert venue and as such the audience is there to hear something a little more eclectic; or at least that is the standard that has been set by other groups performing there.  The audience at RIME is up for anything, meaning they don't necessarily expect that you will just play a night of jazz or a night of one specific genre. That opens up all kinds of possibilities. Well, what they got was mostly brand new music because several of the tunes I had just recently written so they were new to me too. We did include some standards but those were ones that had a specific arrangement for the band. Everyone played incredibly well in my opinion and Cem who runs RIME commented that he thought the band did a particularly nice job of enveloping my vocal sound and style. I think he is absolutely right and I found singing with these guys to be very inspiring. I hope to do more singing with all four of them in the future.

That's it for this month. I hope everyone is enjoying the beauty of the fall colors and the crispness in the air. I'm going out to my garden now to plant some daffodil bulbs so that several months from now when spring arrives, I will be greeted with friendly yellow blossoms.

Karin