Random Jazz Thoughts

Two days to go

2006-10-31T09:30:00.000-08:00

Just two days left before the concert Three Great Jazz Composers on November 2nd.

The media have been great - the concert has been covered by the Cyprus Weekly, the Cyprus Mail, RIK TV and radio, Kanali 6 and so on, a big thanks to them.

The theatre tells me that the ticket sales are going strong, which is always a big relief - we want as many people as possible to enjoy the show!

It really seems to have captured people's imaginations - a musical journey through time - through the great jazz composers Ellington, Gershwin and Jobim.

Huge respect to those composers, they were genius' in their own and our times.

Bang in the middle of rehearsing

2006-09-26T05:53:00.000-07:00

Our concert on November 2nd is coming up soon, the one on Three Great Jazz Composers, and we're bang in the middle of rehearsing at the bass player's studio. Marinos Neophytou is multi-talented, not only does he have a soundproof studio, he plays bass, guitar and sax, very well indeed.

Kevork came over to take photos - he's a longtime jazz fan and great photographer - www.capturing-moments.com. He got some good, natural photos that we'll use as promotion.

Christos Morphitis is sounding so sweet on piano, and Constandinos Paouros, the drummer, gives us the backbone and does all the hard work of creating a rhythmic structure.

Marinos will be playing bass in the concert, I swear that he makes his electric bass sound acoustic. The man can do anything with a stringed instrument :)

Concert date confirmed

2006-05-12T07:59:00.000-07:00

Well, it looks like the concert in the Rialto Theatre is going ahead on November 2nd, 2006. We've got lots of rehearsing to do and some serious thinking about our approach and interpretations.

More updates coming soon.

Did you see that Liza Minelli will be in Lebanon in May? Caught it on www.reportfromcyprus.com - she is, was and will always be, one hell of a singer.

Thought of another singer with a miaow in his voice - Lenny Kravitz. Or? Maybe more like a snarl.

Remember the Doors?

2006-05-08T01:42:00.000-07:00

John Coltrane was one of the jazz musicians who influenced The Door's music compositions. They were one of the few rock/pop bands who created a new fusion sound out of poetry, jazz, blues, and full on, all out, rock.

I've always loved The Doors, but ever since I heard that Coltrane was one of their musical influences, I've listened to them with new ears.

You never know when jazz will pop up!

Resources for Jazz

2006-04-18T02:44:00.000-07:00

Resources for jazz performances in Cyprus are scarce. With little help from the government and relatively little support from the media, jazz musicians face a challenge to keep performing.

And yet it is a major art form that should be properly integrated into education and public performance if Cyprus is to be taken seriously as a European country.

I can't count the number of times that visitors to the island and acquaintances of mine complained at the lack of good live jazz music on a consistent basis.

Well, there's one little jazz place in Limassol, Jazzy B, which does a fantastic job of live jazz, and good luck to them. Is that it? Surely it's time for some serious jazz presence.

Cat-like voices

2006-04-01T03:52:00.000-08:00

A list of singers who sing with a miaow in their voices:

Billie Holiday
Alicia Keys
Eryka Badu
Macy Gray
Amy Winehouse
Prince

The languid, all-knowing miaow. Makes you want to scratch them behind their ears because they are so catty and sweet.

Jazz singer

2006-03-29T10:00:00.000-08:00

My favourite jazz singer was, is and always will be, Billie Holiday.

I can't analyse her appeal to me. I only know that when I hear her cat-like voice, my perspective is restored. No matter what has happened to me that day, Billie understands. Nothing surprises or shocks Billie, that's what her voice says. She is wise to it all, seen and heard it all, and that all comes out in her art.

"Girl", she seems to say,"there's really nothing you can do about it anyway, so sit back, relax and let it all go."

Riff Off

2006-03-27T09:52:00.000-08:00

Sometimes a jazz phrase runs through my mind and I wonder if it's a riff I've heard before from another jazz musician. I want so much to avoid riffing off. If I sing a phrase, I feel like it should pay tribute to jazz, not riff off other musicians.

I only hope I can do that. Yesterday I remembered a conversation I had with drummer Billy Cobham when he was doing a concert in Cyprus that I helped promote. We talked about all sorts of things, what I liked about him was how incredibly down to earth he is. For a drummer who's recorded with Miles Davis and uncountable greats, he is just superbly calm and a careful listener.

I had been listening to the cadence and rhythm of the crickets that chirp relentlessly all summer in Cyprus. I thought it worth mentioning that we can get inspiration from nature as well as from other musicians. He listened.

Billy Cobham. What a drummer.

Jazz concerts

2006-03-26T23:14:00.000-08:00

I'm planning a jazz concert in November sponsored by Limassol's theatre Rialto.

The last time I performed there was with Scottish guitarist Jim Mullen and Welsh pianist Gareth Williams in 2000. The concert was sponsored by the British Council, and was a success by all accounts.

Working with such great musicians was just sheer joy.

The concert I want to do in November will be based on the theme of three great jazz composers; Duke Ellington, George Gershwin and Carlos Jobim. It takes a good amount of planning to produce and arrange the event. It's worth it.

Things that go right on-stage

2006-03-25T02:30:00.000-08:00

Things that go right on-stage:

1. Hitting the jazz zone and feeling the power of music.
2. The whole band showing up on time.
3. Improvising blindly and actually sounding good completely by chance.
4. Finding a new way of expressing a phrase that isn't influenced by one of the late, great jazz singers (no disrespect, they did it first and best, and I am looking to find my voice).
5. Connecting with the audience. Impressing the audience. Being impressed by the audience.
6. Coming across a group of true jazz lovers who aren't too inhibited to tell you "put your soul into it, girl!"

What goes wrong on-stage

2006-03-24T10:47:00.000-08:00

Things that can go wrong during a jazz performance:

1. Breaking up with your loved one on that very day, having to go on stage to perform, and bursting into tears during Smoke Gets In Your Eyes.
2. Fainting from sheer hunger, because you were too busy to eat, during the opening bars of Killing Me Softly.
3. The bass player's completely wrong blues chord progression because he was too busy watching members of the audience.
4. Having a bucket of water thrown onto the stage by a drunken Russian (we think the guy was Russian...we know he was extremely drunk).
5. Forgetting the words / your name / your location because of stage fright.

Next post: things that can go right during a performance.

Dreaming and singing

2006-03-23T10:31:00.000-08:00

The other morning I woke myself up, because I was singing in my sleep. When I woke up, I couldn't figure out whether I had actually made a sound, or whether the singing in my dream was conceptually so loud that it woke me up.

It made me think of Beethoven, and how loud the music must have been in his head. So loud that he heard it even when he went deaf.

Music can exist without sound. You can dream of singing, or playing an instrument, or composing and it will be just as real as singing in front of a crowd of people. This experience can even be more powerful because it is more natural.

It's an echo of the primeval, primitive urge to sound out, and express our existence in song. It's closer to the original call of the wild.

Explorations of the Jazz Zone

2006-03-22T09:10:00.000-08:00

To get a feel of the jazz zone, imagine those dreams in which you're flying. Everyone has them. You're free and moving smoothly in the air, watching the ground move swiftly below you and knowing deep in your heart that this is what life should feel like. Everything should feel this easy.

That's the jazz zone. Flying effortlessly over the landscape of drums, piano, sax, trumpet, bass, and feeling completely free.

Jazz Zone

2006-03-21T07:00:00.000-08:00

I get asked the question: what's it like performing?

Awful, terrifying, wonderful, amazing, and then...you hit the zone.

You take control. The musicians feel it, you feel it, the audience feels it. Everyone relaxes and enjoys the night.

But first, it's awful, terrifying, wonderful and amazing.

So What

2006-03-21T00:49:00.000-08:00

Perhaps one of Mile's greatest tunes was called So What. It was named after his favourite disparaging saying, and scans the punctuating two notes in the second phrase of the intro. In simplicity and soul its only rival, in my opinion, is Ellington's Duke's Place.

In my next Love Life newsletter, I will be reviewing John Szwed's fantastic biography of the great Miles Davis. A sneak preview: it's one of the finest pieces of writing ever on a jazz musician, knowledgeable, direct and non-judgemental.

Miles Davis played one note

2006-03-20T09:14:00.000-08:00

Miles Davis showed up to a club and played one note. And then left.

I'll bet that one note was worth 10 years of the crappy pop music that's forced on us these days. If only because it came straight from his soul.

I'm so tired of listening to cookie cutter crap desperately imitating last week's hit. Turning on the radio these days is a banal experience, it is hardly worth it.

I find myself turning more and more to the sixties and seventies decades, when a song made it because of good composition and musicians who were on fire with talent.

Naturally the record labels are ruthlessly exploiting this and turning out cookie cutter covers that reduce once-great songs to ghosts of their former selves.

There's nothing wrong with covers if they add something of the artists individuality. Miles Davis made a living off playing covers in ways they'd never even been thought of before.

One note, that's all he had to play, and the audience fell silent.