The Ending Isn't Everything

I was feeling sorry for myself. A booker didn't want me back at his club, and he was heaping stinky booker dung on my ego, telling me why. I tried to salvage the conversation, but afterwards I ruminated endlessly: "I never get called back. I don't get steadies. I just don't have enough fans and I never will."

After a few hours of this, the other voice in my head answered back: "Wait, remember your steady gig for five years at that prestigious venue? It ended, but that doesn't negate the fact that you had it for five years."

I am a long-term person. The years pass easily for me, and I don't leave situations readily, even though I am flamboyant and dramatic in many respects. But I've experienced my share of endings in life -- relationships, partnerships, jobs, gigs, friendships. As I was running today I realized how we characterize everything by the ending. My editorial job ended badly after 10 years, with a layoff that was a painful surprise to me. It took more than a year for me to get over that, but I know now that the 10 fruitful years spent traveling the U.S. and Latin America and learning the magazine business in a large trade media company are far more important than the two months it took to shut my magazine down.

The same goes for my musical partnerships. Some have simply drifted apart, while others endured more dramatic farewells... but I can't discard the performance or composing or recording experiences we had, of which I am proud, simply because it's over. (Digression for another time: When do you rekindle a past partnership? How do you decide the risk of another Waterloo is worth it, given the possibility of doing great things together?)

Of course, there are truly horrible, atrocious endings. Bad divorces, protracted wars, litigation, tragedies and intrigues... I wouldn't wish those on anyone. But is it also true that the older you get, the more you realize there will be plenty of endings in life? That this too shall pass? Perhaps my "problem" is that because I've been so steady, I haven't experienced a huge number of endings. Perhaps, thanks to my childhood, I've worked hard to avoid endings. Who knows.

I am at a crossroads -- Yep, been there for two years and counting -- but I am a little tiny bit less afraid of endings than ever before. Because I know that what I have accomplished, what I worked at, alone or in concert with others, is worth more than a few goodbyes.

Team in Training: Putting on my Wetsuit

I always knew I was going to make it big on YouTube. Unfortunately, my hit vid is not music-related! Life's unpredictable that way, huh? I just noticed this video has now reached 100,211 views since I posted it back in March of 2008. If only a song of mine could boast the same popularity! However, I have been thinking about dusting off that wetsuit and singing a tune while wearing it... Nah, I'm not that desperate yet! What I'd really like to know is, are these latex fetishists harmless? I sure hope so. Enjoy!

Photos by David Belove -- Opening Today, 2-4 PM, Berkeley

In My View
Photographs by David Belove
Opening September 27th from 2-4pm

David Belove is a bassist and photographer (and I've worked with him in both capacities) following in the tradition of the great Milt Hinton whose images of jazz musicians are legendary.

Through photography, David has been chronicling his involvement in the diverse San Francisco Bay Area music scene since the early 80's. Please join David for this free opening of his photo essay. Refreshments will be served.

The images in this show are but a few of the tens of thousands of images he has recorded. The subject of this showing is musicians that live and work in the Bay Area as well as those who have traveled here to perform.

The photos will be available for viewing at the Jazzschool Books & Records store (2087 Addison Street, Berkeley, CA 94704) through the first of the year.

I recently caught up with David and learned he is also producing a new vocalist whose voice "makes me shiver, she's so good": Amikaeyla Proudfoot Gaston. The recordings, still in progress, feature Esperanza Spalding and David Pinto on Bass, and Deszon Claiborne on drums, among others. He met Amikaeyla when she hired him for an Eva Cassidy tribute show. Subsequently, she realized what a great ear he has and pulled him into the recording project. Amikaeyla sounds like a real go-getter, as she's squeezing recording sessions into her busy schedule travelling the world and recording a public television show (I believe for children). Can't wait to hear the album! Congrats, David!

We're Number 37 (In Healthcare)

U.S. is Number 37 in healthcare in the world, and this song makes me "proud to be an American!" ;-) I love this guy!

Behind the Scenes: O Silencio de Iara and Overcoming a Tricky Chart

On August 23 I enjoyed a splendiferous musical encounter at my Sacramento concert with Scott Collard, piano, Jeff Minnieweather, drums, and Rob Lemas, bass. As is often the case, we only rehearsed the afternoon of the show, and the cats only had my charts and recordings for about a week. But these musicians did such an excellent job of learning the tunes and bringing new subtleties to them that I was overjoyed.

Perhaps no song made me happier than O Silêncio de Iara, by Guinga, with lyrics by Luís Felipe Gama. (The song talks of seeking a mysterious, winged Iara, who remains silent in the day's shadows. The singer begs her to whisper her location, and never to sleep.) This was the first time I'd done it live, as the notation is quite difficult. Guinga is a Brazilian composer and guitarist who does not read music, so sheet music of his songs is generally replete with chord symbols that spark many a passionate argument among musicians -- simply because they are transcriptions of his magical guitar playing. I had taken the notated sheet music, with its guitar arpeggios all written out, and condensed it into a simple jazz lead sheet, or chart, that contained the melody but no arpeggios that might elucidate the chord symbols. I was concerned there wasn't enough time for Scott to learn the tune.

I was wrong! Scott made it sing. In fact, he and I discussed it afterwards, and with his permission, I am publishing his wonderful response to my question to him the other day.

I wrote:

Hi Scott,

I was wondering if you could send a PDF or scan or simple email explanation of the chord fixes you made to O Silencio de Iara? I want to do that song this Thursday with someone and hopefully with your improvements they might make sense of it. Thanks!

--Alexa

Scott wrote back:

Alexa,

Actually, on that chart I made very few marks. Here's what I put on there:

Measure 2: I noted the chord as G/Ab (instead of EbMaj7+). Not really much of a difference...

Measure 4: I noted the chord as Abmin/Gb (or BMaj6/F#) (instead of Bmin6/Gb). Only one note different; again no big deal...

Measure 5: Added the chord Bmin6/F# as I thought the "one note" (above) changed there...

Other than that, I circled the D.S. sign at [B], I circled the phrase "D.S. al CODA" the bar before the Coda, and I circled the Coda sign. This was just so I wouldn't miss them (I use a distinctive red pen...my vision is pretty poor).

So, given that I really didn't mark up the chart much (because you did a very nice job, really, of notating it), how come I was able to make sense of it where others have difficulty, you ask? First, obviously, your accompanist should listen to the recording. Second, if he or she just plays the chords you have indicated as quarter notes, it basically works. However, because the melody dances off the beat, your accompaniment should be lilting and support the dance by providing some simple rhythmic motion, etc.

What makes it really SING? "Strumming" the chords sort of like a guitarist would (not TOO much though), adding counter melodies as an arranger would if working with an orchestra, listening to the singer and pulling the time forward and back like taffy, playing with dynamics (lots of dynamics), varying the harmonic range (what I call the "width" of the harmony--the range from the lowest bass note to the highest treble note) to support the emotion and inflection, finding pretty voicings that don't clash, interesting voice-leading from chord to chord, at least a rudimentary knowledge of pan-diatonic harmony and functional substitution (i.e., Bb diminished and C7b9 are FUNCTIONALLY similar, heck, practically identical...),...,...,...

In short: being musical.

I know all that stuff above sounds pompous, but that really is what I'm doing, consciously, but without thinking about it, if that makes sense. I mean, I know exactly what I am doing, but I am really not trying to do anything except play. Um, it will be different every time that I do it (like between the sound check and the performance), but the APPROACH will basically be the same each time, because that's what the song IS.

OK, I'm not giving you any answers at all, I guess I'm just rambling...a great Sacramento composer/pianist named Bob Fyling just passed away recently. My wife worked with him for years and years. His arrangements of standards are absolutely wonderful, but no one around here can read them except for me. It's not that the charts are hard to read or the chords are wrong or he has some system of notation that is a mystery (well he does have a couple of very minor notational-shortcut-quirks, but that's another story), it's just that in order to play his charts you have to have a SENSIBILITY that his charts are a shorthand for. The full music is actually not on the page, but the choice of chords itself gives you the SENSE of what needs to happen to make the music work.

So when I play your chart for "O Silencio de lara", I try to heighten the sense of the drama and emotion. The chords and the melody already suggest this, the recording makes it very clear, and your accompanist should think like a classical musician in crafting a harmonic approach. I guess that's about as simple as I can say it.

And if I was going to go deeper, myself, in trying to make MORE out of it, I would first want to know what the lyrics mean. I mean, they SOUND beautiful, but since I am language-challenged, I have no idea what they actually SAY.

Sorry I can't be more specific...sometimes I just play a C7 with an E in the bass for the Eo on beat 2 of the first bar of letter [A]. Does that help? ;-)

Collard

O Silêncio de Iara by Guinga, sung live @ JB's Lounge in Sacramento, California by Alexa Weber Morales with Scott Collard, piano.