Blog
Mar 14, 2005
Did you always want to sing? Do you come from a musical family?
My Father was a church musician, and all of us were given instruments to play and lessons I don't remember a time before singing I am told I was making up parts and harmonies to the hymns in church, but this is probably apocryphal...
Mar 13, 2005
Did you always want to be a musician?
I did not even know any professional musicians, other than my father I did not play the pipe organ and did not want to lead a choir, so I didn't really consider singing professionally until I was leaving graduate school many years later By...
Mar 12, 2005
How did you first become interested in Jazz?
When I was in college, some cats down the hall were playing Dexter Gordon, Herbie Hancock, Dave Brubeck, people like that It was just at the time that I was beginning to actively listen to things -- apart from classical music, which I was quite...
Mar 11, 2005
What is the extent of your musical education — self-taught or formal structured training?
I did mostly choral work from grade through graduate school I never went to music school, and never took many individual lessons for voice Mostly, I have elaborated and extrapolated from choral work, and learned from recordings, on the stand,...
Mar 10, 2005
You Mention Mark Murphy and Jon Hendricks. Would you elaborate on those and other main Jazz singing influences?
Mark is certainly the door through which I found out about the broadest range of Jazz singing possibilities By this I mean that Mark distilled a great number of things which preceded him, and then showed how one could point them in the...
Mar 09, 2005
Can you cite one instance that you would say marked the beginning of your career?
I would say accepting a gig playing for the door at Milt Trenier's, a basement club at Fairbanks & Ohio in Chicago This was during graduate school, and it meant the beginning of not studying for school & instead boning up on the Jazz life I did...
Mar 08, 2005
Speaking of graduate school, how do you think your divinity studies have influenced your work?
I should specify a bit regarding my graduate studies I was at the University of Chicago Divinity School reading the Philosophy of Religion, which is a specialized academic category of study which lies somewhere between theology and straight...
Mar 07, 2005
What do you like to give an audience?
All of us in the band are of a mind to give the highest quality musical experience we can - to play and so to communicate to the best of our abilities I want people to be surprised, to be moved, to laugh, to remember something important they...
Mar 06, 2005
What is the difference between vocalese, scatting, and ranting?
As I say, vocalese was invented by Eddie Jefferson, and is the writing and performing of a lyric which has been tailored to fit the lines of an instrumental solo from someone else's record Eddie fell in love with Charlie Parker records He...
Mar 05, 2005
How did you first start ranting, and do you still do it in concert?
I was doing wedding band things at the same time as the Milt Trenier's gig and also after that On these gigs, we'd be in the middle of "Isn't it Romantic" or something like that, and the leader would come up while I was singing...
Mar 04, 2005
How do you choose which songs go on a given record?
Things are very organic for me and for my collaborator, Laurence Hobgood Often times, there is a year or more between studio dates In that time, we will have been on the road, had a million experiences, and probably written some new songs,...
Mar 03, 2005
You mention your collaborator, Laurence Hobgood. Would you elaborate further on your working relationship with him for us? How do the two of you go about writing a song together?
I have to say that Laurence is fully 1/2 of the equation for success in my/our career He is a super-genius player - virtually omnipotent at the piano He is gigantically gifted at hearing and composing melodies and harmonies We've been...