A good vibe at Club 17

Last night went great. I sold another stack of CDs, which is sweet after a dry spell! Reno was good in that respect too. It's nice to sell them easily sometimes like the last two gigs, 'cause sometimes I feel like I'm hawking Ginzu knives or something. We had excellent turnout, the sound system was good (at least, I could hear myself and the band quite well), and, most importantly, we just grooved as a BAND last night, there was a feeling (I thought) of knowing each other and enjoying the music and the jazz that made it special. Plus, I just felt so free up there.

I was thinking last night about taking this group, plus a percussionist (last night it was just bass, piano, drums), and adding 2 or three voices. I'm still searching for the ideal configuration, but last night felt pretty great.

At one moment, some folks who were in town from Boston who I know requested the Clare Fischer tune, Morning. So we bumped it up earlier in the set and it just smoked! I was solid on the guiro, really locked with David, and then Murray takes a gorgeous solo and then Jeff does the nicest, jazziest, most unexpected and musical solo and at some point during the song he starts looking at me and smiling and we were all interacting in a beautiful musical conversation. I took some new turns with the tune as well, and that got some good audience reaction. Murray also came through, doing more musical direction, which saved my ass a lot.

It was great to groove with Jeff like that, because lately he'd been withdrawn for whatever reason, and so when I phoned him yesterday morning, before the gig, I said, "I miss the old Jeff! When is he coming back?" and he said, "I just woke up, I can't be all sunny and warm when I just wake up." "Yeah, but every time I call it's like I'm the tax collector or something. I want to hear you laugh again." Then he did laugh and the ice was melted.

Oh, and my brother came with his girlfriend and that was great. I love him so much, he's so funny and he was hilarious when he was doing jokey dance moves (he's a great dancer, though). They brought me a nice bracelet, too.

Afterwards, I drove to a reception for my husband's cousin/best friend/partner in crime/Siamese twin Armando's most recent wedding. I had fun dancing there. It was funny to come to the party from Club 17, which is a black-owned club but, typically Oakland, color-blind when it comes to clientele and personnel. The novio was from Mexico and the novia was African-American/Puerto Rican. When the DJ played hip hop, the children and the black side of the family danced. When the DJ played cumbia and banda, the Mexican and Chicano side of the family danced (don't get my husband started on the difference between Mexicans and Chicanos). When the bride (also a singer) started leading the shuffle and that "step-step" song (another version of the shuffle), everyone got up!

Emilio and I did some nice cumbia dancing--I guess we haven't forgotten our salsa moves, though it's been months since we danced rueda. When we got home we put Sebastian to bed and went outside and talked until we were both hungry. Then at 2 am he made some delicious scrambled eggs with jalapeños and onions and tomatoes. He said two really cool things that I think I might work into a song--I wrote them down. Without explaining them, they are (so I don't forget):

"Dime cuánto tienes y te diré cuánto vales (o quién eres)."

Sobre James Brown y el corazón de un cantante: "Me hace soñar. Yo ni sé qué es lo que dicen sus canciones pero me hace soñar."

Oh, and another thing: here it is, the next day, and my toes are still numb from the last two gigs, dancing several hours straight in high heels. I hope that doesn't mean they're going to fall off. I've noticed this happening more often after dancing in these shoes (at least 2 pairs). It's not like I wear heels most of the time, mainly only for gigs. Yippee, a new neurosis!

Jamming with the Reno Jazz Orchestra

Last night's gig with the Reno Jazz Orchestra went just great. As I said to David Flores, the timbalero, there were things that didn't go as planned, but the event just had so much heart. I don't know the official count, but there were several thousand there, in the most gorgeous 95-degree weather, the lovely Washoe zephyr (I learned that was the name of the wind from Chuck, the Reno band leader) turning my calculated curls into a mop. Beside the stage and park, right in downtown, the Truckee river tumbles along and people are swimming, kayaking and inner-tubing.

Before the gig, we had a whole day to kick back and/or practice and/or twist our brains into a knot wondering how things were going to go. I went down for breakfast in the casino and ended up eating with a woman who was there for a romance writers convention. I learned all about the Harlequin Romance formula, which apparently is quite rigid (the hero can never be married and looking to leave his wife, though he can be a widower, and about 7/8s of the way through the lovers must be separated and have to fight to get back together). She told me the whole story of her latest book, and that it contained lots of sex scenes.

I went back to my room and practiced my lyrics to Caravan over and over again, trying to memorize them. Then I whipped out the metronome and ran through all the songs where I'd have to do percussion. The potential for driving myself batty was steadily increasing when thankfully Murray called and asked if I wanted to go paint pottery! We went down to the ground floor of the casino/shopping center and there was a neat store where you pick out a fired porcelain object--I chose a sun disk to hang on my patio--and paint it with glazes and they fire it for you and ship it to you in two weeks. Murray and I sat there painting and psychoanalyzing eachother and talking about music and I thought it was a brilliant diversion for the several hours of waiting we had to do. It took my mind off things, but it was still creative. Then I went to my room and did my hair and then I met David for lunch and had an awesome conversation with him, packed with more psychoanalysis as well as a shared passion for Jon Stewart and Chris Rock. After that, it was back to the room for costuming and the final 20 pounds of makeup application. Then we drove to the Wingfield Amphitheater.

They'd brought an air-conditioned RV for us to kick back in before the gig, which we dutifully checked out, but there was no food or water in it and the air conditioning hadn't been running, so it was about 100 degrees inside it. Then, Orlando, the other singer, was nowhere to be found. Since we'd left the hotel, Wayne had been saying to me, are you prepared to sing Orlando's songs? You'd better practice them in case he doesn't show--never hurts to be prepared for any eventuality. So during soundcheck I sang one of his songs to the several hundred people who were already camped out in the audience, which was fun. Thankfully, Orlando did show up just before the performance and he did a great job. His voice really rings out in the Cuban style, and his percussion playing is excellent. Plus, I was able to follow his (super simple) dance steps, unlike at rehearsal when I'd been more self-conscious. Also, he's quite masterful at working a crowd, and at the end of the night he got everybody up and dancing, and a massive conga line formed and went through the park. I would love to perform with him again.

As we were dancing on stage during the last song, I was whaling away on my clave and shimmying around. At one point a man in the audience seemed to be trying to catch my eye, but I thought maybe he was gesturing to someone behind me. Then he made a motion like hitting claves with a lot of passion and gave me the thumbs up. It was pretty funny--reminded me of a Saturday Night Live skit where Will Ferrell is whaling on the cow bell and they keep retaking a studio session so he can nail his cow bell solo.

I've been laughing to myself all day because David made this funny comment last night after the gig about the "hey-hey-hey" spoken portion of Oye Cayuco, where the singers are alternating saying "hey" on on- and off-beats. I guess you'd have to hear it but first of all, coming in at the right moment was similar to double-dutch jumprope, and second, I guess the pitch difference of our voices made it sound funny, not like the recording Wayne had sent us, where it's two men doing that part.

But I sang and danced and performed my heart out, and the audience really responded. I sold a few CDs and signed autographs at the end. Several people wondered if I was Cuban. One guy came up and sincerely asked how I managed to stand, let alone dance, in my 6-inch platform heels. I said, actually, my feet are killing me now, but I'm going to put my flip flops on in a minute. Then we had a conversation about how he sprained both his ankles after wearing western boots. I signed a CD for a little girl who told me she was going to take "rhythm" dance classes and that her toddler brother danced too.



Afterwards, Wayne, Carolyn, David, Murray and I all ate dinner at about 10:30, and then I hung out talking with David and enjoying the night air. This morning, Wayne played a little more blackjack and then we drove home. I tried to rest but I kept on getting sucked into the conversation. I told them, if you guys weren't so damn interesting I could sleep!



Speaking of which, it's about time for me to do that, but first I have to organize my gig bag and pick out what I'll wear tomorrow for the gig at Club 17.

In Reno

We drove up to Reno yesterday and rehearsed last night for about 3+ hours with the Reno Jazz Orchestra. There were a few surprises and tricky parts. One cool thing is that it looks like I'll be doing Caravan after all--Wayne Wallace knew that I had written words to it in Spanish and the orchestra told him they wanted to play it as an instrumental, so he asked them to let me sing it. I didn't know this in advance, so it was a good thing I brought all my lyrics. The standard key's a bit low for me, but oh well. Gives me room to go up. We'll also insert a chant for Elegua into one of the tunes--Carolyn Brandy will start that off, I'll just follow. Orlando Torriente is really great both as a vocalist and a percussionist. There's much I could learn from him.

On the drive up, I was in the car with Wayne and Murray Low. The conversation was so great. I wish I could spend all my time talking about music with these guys. Murray had some CD of a band doing crazy odd meter stuff that sounds really organic, not forced. It was pretty out there, with a cool spoken word/rap/singer guy on it.

Wayne told a story about Sarah Vaughn and Ella Fitzgerald (he's played with both--amazing!). Apparently on a gig the two had together, in their later years, Sarah's manager told her before the concert, "Whatever you do, just don't scat." So then Sarah gets up and during the concert she's feeling pretty good and she thinks "what the hell" and starts scatting. And she looks over at Ella, who has a gleam in her eye, and when Sarah finishes it's Ella's turn and she just blows her out of the water with her scatting. And afterwards the manager said, "I told you not to try to scat in a concert with Ella. She's the best!"

We stopped at Starbucks, corporate behemoth be damned. They didn't have any of those cool Hear Music compilations, but there was the John Legend album, produced by Kanye West, which I bought. We proceeded to listen to it, and as I said afterwards, "Listening to pop music with you guys is just no fun!" I had to agree, however--the hip-hop production of this guy, who I really like as a singer/pianist, just completely obscures his strengths. And a lot of the lyrics are trite, as Wayne said. But the songs we did like, Ordinary People and something toward the end of the record recorded with his family, were much more interesting lyrically and musically.

After the rehearsal last night we went to eat and there were more stories--Lena Horne's dirty song lyrics!--and more jokes. We were up quite late talking about the state of jazz, the art of card-counting, mind-altering experiences, bad gigs and sundry other topics.

Now I've got to practice a bit before tonight's gig!

Arranging in the Night

Last night I went over to Wayne's house to get a chart from him and show him some of my new songs, including one I've performed a few times, So This is Love. First, though, we sat down and watched his new wide-screen TV and got totally sucked into The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen for half an hour (with a few random political comments thrown in). Finally we ripped ourselves away and went back to his computer/piano setup and I played/sang the song for him. I was pleased that I could play the piano part well--the brain-fingers connection often seems to be severed when I have to play piano for someone who's listening to a composition critically, or just in general when I want to impress them.

He liked it. I told him that when we played it at Pearls I wasn't sure that the harmonics were matching the song. He said he knew what I meant, and right away found some spots where the chord inversion had to be noted. But beyond that, he suggested I lengthen the first part, which means I need to write some more lyrics to it, and then set up the bridge nicer--though he complimented me on one set of changes I was particularly proud of. Then the C section got a bit of a facelift with 2 or 3 new chords, and a 6/4 bar which works but does complicate things for a band reading it for the first time. He wrote out the chord changes and then recorded it for me on the sequencer. I really like it, actually. There's one chord that I'm not sure I like, might be goopy for my taste, but I'm not sure yet. The chords are Brazilian in feel, while the rhythm and montuno are more Cuban.

At one point, I was beaming happily because with just a few nips and substitutions and suggestions he was making it so much better. I said, "Aren't you so glad that this is your job?" I hope someday I can be as musically adept as he is.

Music Mags

Leafing through a couple magazines, I came across some good stuff. For example, in EQ (I think that was it), there was a cool interview with Linda Perry, who is turning into a really hot producer. It was interesting to see her philosophy. I mean, EQ is completely Greek to me, since it's all about sound engineer stuff, but she talked about how all of her setup is completely guided by her ear. When she first started producing, someone had said, just plug something in and see how it sounds. If you don't like it, try something else. She also said that when stuff sounds bad she'll play the "random mikes" game and just grab some mikes and try them randomly until she finds something she likes. Also, on someone's record, don't know if it was Christina Aguilera or the woman from No Doubt, for one song she had her sing each line into a different mike, just walking down the line, to get a different sound/emotion for each.

From my experience of doing the record, I found that the engineer I hired (Gary Mankin) was so great, but I could never do what he does. I mean, I found sitting in the studio hour after hour so claustrophobic. I would do yoga to pass the time. I would be standing on my head behind him and suddenly he'd say "What do you think of this?" and I would crumble to the floor and have to pay attention. I'm referring to the mixing here--recording of course was a lot of fun and very active.

So here's something else, in Frets magazine: An interview from Oct. 1980 with Chet Atkins, king of fingerpicking guitar (I did not know that before I read this): Q: "How do you feel about your reputation?" A: "I'm not all that impressed with myself as a guitarist. In fact, I have to psych myself up all the time, and tell myself, 'I must be pretty good or they wouldn't have me on!' I guess that's the reason I'm always trying to learn new things."

That made me feel better, and I think perhaps that is a reason to learn new things--so long as it doesn't mean you're a dilletante.

There's also an article in this issue about Ani DiFranco--funny how she uses all these alternate tunings, until she lost her long-time guitar tech so now she's back to standard tunings for stuff. I haven't listened much to her, but I admire her awesome indie prowess.

From Keyboard mag, here's Chick Corea: "My approach to the piano and technique has always been guided by the demands of whatever musical project I have going on. My compositions are the things that push me to have to practice and learn to play them. I'll whip them out as an improvisation, or as a written idea. Then I'll really need to apply myself to the notes in order to learn them myself. You just have to start with the attitude that it can be done, then you go for it, and you can do it."

"What's really inspired me was the realzation that true friendships are the richness of life. There's nothing more dear or precious than real friendship. Then when you have a friendship that also includes musical creativity, you have a God-like relationship. I found my life at that point to be richer than I had imagined. Not because of anything I had accomplished in the past, but because of the existence of these friends."

Wow, that's inspiring. I guess I am rich after all.

New Tunes

I'm preparing for several upcoming gigs. The first, with the Reno Jazz Orchestra, will be a latin jazz big band. I can't wait to hear that big sound. For that, we'll be doing Oye Cayuco, Mambo en Blue, Frenesi, Mama Guela and Smile Please, plus instrumentals. I've been learning the "hey-hey-hey-hey" vocal part for Oye Cayuco--it sounds really cool. I think Orlando Torriente will sing lead on Mambo en Blue and I'll sing coro, but I want to learn that tune for my own gigs. I'm also interested in seeing what kind of arrangement Wayne Wallace comes up with for Frenesi.

Then, August 14 I'm a guest for 2 songs on Stephanie Ozer's gig at the Jazz School. That's a great band too--Stephanie is a wonderful pianist, and she's got Mary Fettig and Scott Thompson, mother and son musicians extraordinaire, on horns and bass. Phil Thompson is on drumset--he's great and it's been quite a while since I played a gig with him. So anyway, the songs I'm learning for that are Edu Lobo's Ave Rara ("strange bird") and Ronaldo Bôscoli and Roberto Menescal's Rio. I already sing Ponteio, another Edu Lobo tune, so it will be nice to add this incredibly gorgeous tune to my repertoire.