Highbrow, Lowbrow, In-Between
After decades of playing music, for a few years as my real job, and after that as my release from my real job, I think I have figured it out. Not how to make money, or how to get more people to listen to me and love me. I finally figured out my niche. It’s been slow going, because I’m wishy-washy, but mainly because my music tastes are very eclectic. Some would say injudicious. That’s fine. My music interests are all over the geographic map, and span the twenties up to the present. (And I do like some classical music; I just don’t take much time to listen to it, beyond hearing it when my wife is playing her Bach.)
I find that when I present my music in a kind of hybrid style, somewhere between jazz and folk, I’m most at home. I don’t have the chops to really play jazz, but I like the chords and the feel. I don’t have blues chops either, and get bored with most folk and country, but I feel a kinship with much of the music broadly referred to as “folk”: blues, old-time country, jug band, and, well, folk.
So, I’m trying to focus, venturing out on my own with a mix of covers from either side of the divide: hopped-up “Golden Era” standards like “If I Only Had a Brain” and “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire” and swingy arrangements of folky stuff like “Hey, Good Lookin'” and “Trouble in Mind.” Then I throw in those original songs of mine that fit the hybrid “folk swing” mode, and I’m set. I do miss the harmonies when I perform alone, and, when I record, I never can resist throwing as much vocal harmony in there as I possibly can. So, acoustic folk swing, with harmonies, humor and audience participation.
If I can just stay the course. Not stray too far into pop, singer/songwriter, or rock. Then I’ll be fine, and comfortable. And happy, even if there’s little money and acclaim.
As part of the move to get back out there with it, I put up a website on ReverbNation. We’ll see how it goes!
The Perfect Serenaders Song
Trying to define–to put into words, really–what makes a song ideal for consideration as an addition to the Serenaders repertoire…
First, it’s gotta lend itself to three-part harmony. With a little imagination, that could be most songs. So, it needs to make for interesting harmonizing opportunities. Nice chord patterns, not just three- or four-chorders. Anything by the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn, Randy Newman. Most by The Beatles, Nilsson, Fats Waller.
Also, it’s nice if it’s somewhat familiar to most people, but not over-familiar. The bigger a hit the song was, or the more versions there are out there, the more re-arranged it needs to be (or it just shouldn’t be on the list). We’re mainly a cover band, but we’re not doing covers “like the record.” The worst thing we can do is retread a well-known Andrews Sisters or a Beatles or a Manhattan Transfer without significantly altering the arrangement.
On top of the harmony possibilities, it’s great if it lets the lead vocalist shine a little. Something that shows off their specialty. For Gabrielle, that’s beautiful balladry, like “Moonlight in Vermont.” For Debbie, that’s beltin’, like “How Glad I Am.” For me, it’s being a goofball, like “Volare” or Minnie the Moocher.”
And that’s another good characteristic of some (but definitely not all) Serenader songs: opportunities for a little shtick and/or audience participation. Nice to break up the vocal parade–but the changes-of-pace hafta be harmony-saturated, too.
And we’re just starting to add original songs. That’s nice, too. The songs need to fit the mold; if they do, they make another nice change to the set list.
OK. Enough analysis. Can we just sing the dang songs?
Vocal Harmony–Again
The Lost Serenaders found each other yet again yesterday. We didn’t sing a note, but we talked about singing. And that, I guess, is better than nothing. We seem aimless, perhaps living up to our name. Aimless could be interpreted (spun) as easy-going–not a bad thing for a trio of entertainers. That may be the only way I can settle back into this confounding singing partnership with these two great vocalistas who seem more into chat than harmony. When they sing, though, it’s powerful, so I will try once more to channel it. I need a three-part harmony arrangement of “Fool on the Hill” that doesn’t borrow too much from Sergio Mendes, or from Sir Paul either. Will get on it right away.
Reading The Lovely Bones, the first book I’ve ever read following a recommendation by my 19-year-old daughter. She loved it, except for the ending, and did not like the movie. So far, I have mixed feelings, but more good than bad. Onward.
Listening to Vic Chesnutt’s Is the Actor Happy? and a Columbia Monk & Big Band LP with the utterly captivating “Oska T” on it.
Watched parts of several Criterion/Essential Art House/Eclipse DVDs, all great movies I’ve seen before: Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast, Ozu’s Late Autumn, Lean’s Great Expectations. A wonderful way to spend an afternoon: nestling my sleeping grandbabe, sipping coffee and watching the beast and the beauty doing their dreamy dance.
Pops
Moving slow today, the result of two beers I had last night “partying” with the family. Could resolve not to drink beer, or could resolve that, since having two beers gives me a hangover, I may as well have seven or eight, plus a shot or two of Cuervo. Feel about the same the next day.
Reading Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong, the new bio by Terry Teachout. It’s well-written and thorough, bringing new information and vantage points to the many well-known aspects of Satchmo’s life and his music.
It’s a nice book to jump into after reading Jazz Singing, in which Satchmo/ Pops/Louis figures so prominently, and after Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original. I haven’t yet made the transition from Monk music over to Armstrong music, however. I have too many new albums of Monk music to listen to. It kind of takes over my head every once in a while and I can’t listen to much of anything else. Got several tunes that aren’t heard as often running around in there: “Oska T.,” “Light Blue,” “Bright Mississippi,” “Played Twice.”
Except that all four members of The Gents, a four-part harmony group I used to have the pleasure of singing with, were present at an annual New Year’s Day party this afternoon, and we did our best–after not singing together for so many years–on “Graduation Day,” “You’re Gonna Lose That Girl,” “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire,” and others. No reason we couldn’t get together every now and then and run through a few of these numbers. Get out our dickies and blazers and plaid pants and warble in close harmony.
Trail Angst
So, it was an abnormally wonderful March 7 morning, in the sixties at 8:00 a.m., and not too windy yet. And what would I expect to be thinking about on a trail run the morning of the final group session for my recording project? I would expect, of course, to be thinking about the song arrangements for the three tunes, locking in the segues, the fills, the lyrics. I pretty much wrote and arranged all of these songs on the trails, working them out as I ran and then writing it all down back at home.
But that’s not what I was thinking about this morning. I was instead thinking of missed opportunities. You know, I’ve been working toward this particular mixture of Beatles/Beach Boys/Nilsson harmony pop and Jelly Roll/Satchmo/Boswell Sisters vintage swing for a couple or three years. This project is it, and I’m on the verge of maybe figuring out what exactly to do with the finished product–how to get it to the ears that may want to hear it.
But yesterday I got two emails about acts performing in the area, groups doing twenties and thirties music, doing retro torch music, doing vintage close harmony stuff. And then last night, our slide guitar player mentioned a group of sisters he was intending to see at an area coffee house. They all play violin, evidently, and sing like The Andrews Sisters.
Now, I believe these acts are doing covers, and my CD is all original songs. So it’s still something different, I think. I’m just not so good at getting things lined out in a way that can get the music out there. I need others to help me with that. Problem is, most of them are about like me.
If, say, this project were to get some notice somewhere, that would be marvy. I just hope it’s not behind some curve by then. “Oh, everyone’s doing that thirties backroom swing sound. Where you been?” Ah, I wasn’t gonna worry about that kind of stuff any more–now that I’m an old guy. I’ll get past it. I’m past it now. The session went great, the project’s almost complete, and I am happy to have done it, regardless of who ever hears it.
And tomorrow morning, I’ll have a nice trail run and think only about the songs for the next project…
Vocal Harmony
When I search the web using the phrase “vocal group,” the returned results are almost always related to doo-wop or a cappella music. I love doo-wop music, and enjoy singing a cappella, but there’s lots of vocal group, harmony-oriented music out there that isn’t doo-wop and is performed with instruments.
There’s The Boswell Sisters (30’s precursors to The Andrews Sisters, but, because of their N’Awlins accents, much earthier). And what about The Ink Spots and The Mills Brothers? And later, The Beach Boys and The Mamas & The Papas? All feature harmony vocals; none is doo-wop. Even The Flamingos, a fine group often featured on doo-wop collections, are most outstanding on their ballads, which transcend the doo-wop style.
And then, farther afield, there’s Ladysmith Black Mambazo, The Sons of the Pioneers, The Soul Stirrers.
Maybe somewhere there’s a website that features all kinds of vocal group music, and not just doo-wop and a cappella (not that there’s anything wrong with those).
Running/Breathing 