Home : Plato's Words : October / November 2007

October / November 2007

Here it is mid October, months before Christmas but rehearsals and music preparation have begun for the season of swinging carols and festive material. In particular rehearsing with my friends Kate Hammett-Vaughan and Jennifer Scott is the kind of rehearsal work that I love. I get to be with two of my favorite vocalists and share music with them, Some of this music very difficult for me. I am not a natural harmony singer or sight singer. I am usually a solo jazz vocalist and that is a completely different approach for singing music than singing in a 3-part harmony situation. This is a wonderful experience for me and this season we have much to work towards it seems. First we will appear in the big Starry Night Benefit concert that takes place in November at The Stanley Theatre. That actually won’t involve Christmas tunes but other 3-part harmony material. Later on in the season CBC will record us as we perform some of our Christmas repertoire. This year we will have two performances at The Cellar in Vancouver. Previous years we have sold out completely so hopefully that will be the case on both of our nights again. One other performance that is near and dear to my heart is Christmas Eve Jazz Vespers. In the past many years I have always performed the Christmas Sunday Jazz Vespers that is closest to Christmas Day and this year I will do the same on Sunday December 23rd with my ensemble. Then on Monday, December 24th, Kate, Jennifer and I will perform a special Christmas Jazz Vespers Benefit concert on the Monday afternoon at 4 PM. This should be a special way ( I think) to get Vancouverites in the mood for Christmas Eve and the days to follow. We will have the same wonderful group for all of these performances: pianist Chris Sigerson, bassist Rene Worst and drummer Tom Foster. So the gorgeous fall leaves may still be clinging to the trees and the dahlias and asters and other fall blooms may be warmly bursting with color but it seems I am ahead of the game with Christmas music playing around in my brain. That may be the case but I am definitely noticing each and every gorgeous fall day as I ride my bike or go for a walk or a run. Particularly a sunny crisp day entices me to go outside and take it in and remember how swiftly the leaves will descend.

With those words in mind I should mention my new CD which I am in the process of finishing. It will be named for an original song called DOWNWARD DANCING and those words indeed describe the downward dance of fall leaves. Once again I have been working with Torben Oxbol as he mixes and masters the finished tracks and I am really enjoying that experience. Torben is such a meticulous person which means he works with great care and attention and he is such a gentle and interesting person to spend time with. There is much talk about music of course but we also speak about many other aspects of life as well. I am so glad that years ago I asked him to produce my Beauty In The Rain CD. From then on I have tried to include him in any recording projects that I have had. In those days of course he was playing bass too and without a doubt he was one of the best bass players that we have ever had here in Vancouver. Thank goodness he still resides behind the console as a producer and as a writer and arranger.

In the listening front I have been checking out Joni Mitchell’s latest CD. As always her voice and her wonderful writing is what strikes me. She is such an intelligent writer and she has such a distinctive vocal sound. The older she gets, the more I enjoy the rich darkening timbre of her sound. She is such an inspiration to musicians in many genres and of course has influenced many a jazz singer around the world.

I also had the pleasure of going to hear/see the Vancouver Symphony play earlier in the month. That is quite a luxury for me since I often decide that I cannot afford to go and it also typically interferes with my teaching schedule. However my students were obliging and I was thrilled to hear young violinst Sara Chang play a Mendelsohn Violin concerto. In general I find it exciting to hear the symphony play because it is one of the last opportunities to hear completely acoustic music and to hear the huge range of dynamics possible. Hearing the music the way the composer created it come to life is spine tingling to me. I have always loved and appreciated dynamics in any kind of music but to hear the orchestra go from a swelling crescendo of volume to the simple pure sounds of brass alone or strings on their own is very exciting to me.

I continue to work on adding new songs to my repertoire each month. This is an ongoing process and of course a pleasure since these are songs that I want to sing. It’s fun to search through books and decide on new material to arrange or to hear a rendition of a song by another artist that inspires you. Sometimes hearing someone do a song in a particular way will inspire me to write a new arrangement for a different song. It’s always different the kind of thing that resonates with me as I listen to a song I may have heard countless times before. Suddenly there will be something new in the artist’s take on it that brings it alive for me. That is my goal too of course as an artist, to try to recreate in some way the recipe if you will for some listening pleasure. Sometimes that inspiration comes out of playing a tune live with someone and in the moment you take it somewhere that you have not taken it before. Last night at I gig I had with Lou Mastroianni on piano that happened on a song that I typically use as my “closing tune”. BYE BYE BLACKBIRD is the tune of which I speak. Somehow a piano groove that Lou began allowed me to explore the music with him in a brand new way. That experience when it happens is very gratifying. Those are the moments that one lives for in the world of performing jazz standards I think. Those are the moments that are in fact brand new to you because they are being created RIGHT NOW, in the moment. It is a kind of a “beyond you” sensation. Sometimes that kind of excitement can occur in a quick choice of tune that you decide upon to give your set some variety and away you go. Last night the tune for that scenario was “BRING IT ON HOME TO ME”. Someone Lou and I were able to connect on that simple bluesy tune and really had fun “working it”. Fun, Fun!

At the Vancouver International Film Festival I got to see a documentary about Anita O’Day called Anita O’Day: The Life Of Ajazz Singer. I thought it was a wonderful film and I enjoyed some of the great footage of Anita singing while she was really in the prime of her career and then other footage from when she was much older. Included was good deal of interview footage that indicated what a tough and intelligent woman she was. Her musical talent was obvious and each of the musicians interviewed reinforced the fact that Anita was a talent deserving the stature of Sarah and Ella and Billie. Above all it seems she was a survivor and the music seems to be what sustained her throughout her life. She lived a hard life and beat her drug addiction and continued to make music until the day she died. We are lucky to have much of her great talent on record to hand down to the generations to come. She definitely has been and continues to be one of the jazz vocalists who inspire me to hone my craft.

Karin