Home : Plato's Words : May 2007

May 2007

Even though many of my April days and nights were spent preparing for the LOST APRIL: SONGS OF LOVE & SPRING concert, and that was a jazz oriented concert, I fell deeply in love with one of the most glorious classical recordings that I have ever heard during that month as well. Pianist Murray Perahia has such exquisite touch and feeling on his recording “Songs Without Words” that I truly broke into tears when I carefully listened to it. This collection of solo piano pieces includes some of Mendelssohn’s “Songs Without Words” but it also includes other pieces that are usually sung such as some Bach and Schubert compositions. Several of the pieces that I had heard before and even had played before myself, I truly “heard” for the first time because Mr. Perahia made me hear each phrase for the first time and he included each nuance that the composers intended. It was like an awakening for me in a sense to listen to him play these pieces. I have that disc in my CD player non-stop lately and each time I hear it, something about the beauty and purity of Mr. Perhahia’s playing moves me deeply. Such control and some wonderful silences are left within the music and allow the listener to breathe, absorb and actually feel each melody’s fall and rise. I just love this CD so much. I have never seen Murray Perahia perform live although I know he has performed in Vancouver over the years. If he comes again I most definitely will not miss his concert!

I will dub the LOST APRIL:songs of love and spring concert my labor of love for that indeed it was. I am very project-oriented and I loved putting together this concert with my friend George Evans. We seem to see eye to eye on many aspects of selecting a program and planning an event of this nature. I was remarkably calm on the night of the concert and that is not always the case for me. I was able to sit and enjoy listening to each of the vocalists singing with the wonderful band, which featured guitarist Bill Coon, bassist Rene Worst and drummer Bernie Arai. They are an outstanding trio who play beautifully together and they continued to change according to each singer’s style and approach and I believe that is not always such an easy thing to do. Aside from my always talented girlfriends Kate Hammett-Vaughan and Jennifer Scott it was lovely to have 3 remarkable male singers on the bill with us. George Evans from Toronto is a great singer and performer from Toronto who is blessed with a rich and glorious tone and a captivating stage presence. He has become a good friend over the past few years and I value him as a person as much as I value his musicality and artistic sense. Carman J. Price and Steve Maddock were the other two singers and honestly you couldn’t get much better than the both of them. They contributed passionate singing with voices that knew no range limits or at least that is what I heard and enjoyed. All three men have such flexibility and control and beautiful sense of swing. I think it is fantastic in this day and age with hundreds, perhaps thousands of female jazz vocalists around to remember there are also some driving forces in the world of vocal jazz music and they are male vocalists. Sometimes we tend to forget about them perhaps because there are so many more female vocalists in the world of jazz. Here’s to all the men who carry on the tradition of singing jazz too!

One of the highlights of the concert for me was hearing all three men sing a tune together. This was true entertainment because George, Carman and Steve are each fun loving and easy going with an audience and then on top of it they sang beautifully. Steve is the only one of the three guys that I have not yet sung with and I do hope to do that at some future date.

I received all kinds of feedback about the concert and I am always happy to hear the positive and the negative because it helps me improve the next concert if I take the comments to heart and consider people’s reactions to the show overall. I know you cannot please everyone but it is important for me to hear about the concert from the audience perspective. For the most part everyone seemed to enjoy all aspects of the show and that of course is gratifying to me because much thought and care went into planning each detail. I have my own thoughts too on what could be improved upon for the next time.  George and I hope to produce more concerts in the future and wish to include more talented Canadian musicians when we do so.

Now this month I am busily learning and preparing new tunes for the upcoming spring and summer season of performances. That season of course includes the jazz festival in Vancouver and I am thrilled to announce that my quintet will perform at Ironworks this year. Ironworks has fast become one of my favorite venues for a variety of reasons. Astrid and Cal who own and operate Ironworks are lovely people and of course that helps a great deal. The lighting is wonderful, the natural acoustic sound is perfect for jazz and the atmosphere is intimate and rather funky, given the open beamed nature of the space, the art on the walls, the mixture of couches, chairs and stools and tables to gather round to listen to the concert and all the while enjoy a glass of wine or some such libation.

I keep finding more and more jazz standards that I want to do and that pleasure almost dissuades me from choosing a more “modern” repertoire. Other jazz vocalists on the scene are now including rearranged pop tunes and I have done some of that as well but unless I perform my own tunes somehow these classic tunes lend themselves to the approach I seem to have in jazz, which for the most part is very straight-ahead and I still get excited to find new ones. I am constantly drawn to some of the fantastic be-bop heads and this year will include some of them in my performing repertoire as well as other tunes that have me inspired about singing once again. I have been composing as well but seem to have hit the wall on a few occasions with the ideas running dry so rather than get depressed about my lack of originality I choose to set that work aside knowing that the creative forces that guide me will hopefully return at a later date. That is typically what has happened for me if I simply don’t keep trying to push for an idea and become frustrated when ideas won’t flow. So instead there’s joy in working on music that’s already been composed and deciding how a tune might best suit me.

I hope to bump into some of you during my next few months of performing in and around Vancouver. I have no plans to perform out of town for the next while but who could complain about staying put in one of the most beautiful cities in the world? Certainly not I so I will happily go about my Vancouver based gigs and also hope to hear much more inspiring music this summer.

Karin