mercoledì 12 maggio 2010

Intervista a Bobby McFerrin

Sul sito della rivista JazzTimes è stata pubblicata una deliziosa intervista telefonica con il vocalist Bobby McFerrin che parla del suo bellissimo nuovo album intitolato VOCAbuLarieS, per l'etichetta Decca sua prima registrazione dopo otto anni, che presenta il vocalist con un grande cast di cantanti, tra cui Janis Siegel, Theo Bleckmann, Luciana Souza, Lisa Fischer e dei membri del New York Voices. Ci è un minimo di supporto strumentale dal percussionista Alex Acuna e dall'ottimo sassofonista Donny McCaslin. Il progetto è stato prodotto dal compositore e arrangiatore Roger Treece che ha dovuto lavorato a lungo e duramente per riuscire a ricreare e riorganizzare le improvvisazioni vocali di McFerrin con un tale cast di decine di cantanti.
Ecco un estratto dell'intervista:
Speaking on the phone from a hotel in Prague, McFerrin has no problem in giving Treece his due credit. “I tip my hat to this man because he went through so much of my material,” the ten-time Grammy winner explains. “Live concerts, solo concerts, voicestra concerts, all of which are improvised. He found all these grooves and things and he expanded them, wrote them out, rewrote them and rewrote them. I’d go to the studio and he’d say ‘I’m just going to open up 24 bars and sing me a bass line here or a melody there, whatever.’ It was a wonderful collaboration of me, the improviser and Roger, the composer. And he just made it all work and it was fascinating.”
McFerrin may be known for his live solo improvisations, but this album sounds not only like it wasn’t done in one room, but like it was done in many a room over a long time, with many a performer. McFerrin confirmed that supposition is mostly right. “A lot of it was done in one room, but with one, two or three singers at a time,” he recalls. “The altos would come in and do their parts and then the tenors would do theirs. I’m not sure how he [Roger] had it all mapped out, but I think he had a certain task for each day. Whenever I’d work with him, he would have a list of things that needed to be worked on.”
If it sounds like a painstaking process, that’s because it was. From start to finish, the project took eight years. The singers were recorded one at a time or in groups to create a virtual choir consisting of over 1,400 vocal tracks. The many hours of studio time resulted in a final mix with over 100 gigabytes of memory.
McFerrin revisits a few of his more memorable compositions such as “The Garden” and “Baby” which first appeared on his Medicine Music album, released way back in 1990. However, the arrangements are decidedly different—longer and more complex. “Yes, they are different,” he says about the recreation of his old songs. “I had been getting a lot of inquiries from choirs to develop music to sing and I was looking for a way to extend the pieces. I think 'The Garden' and 'Baby' were the very first pieces we worked on. 'Baby' was like Roger’s audition piece in a way. And I thought, 'Well, this is fascinating.' I like all the different places it goes.”
But if you are expecting to hear the prototypical chest-tapping Bobby McFerrin solo improvisations, like in The Voice or in many of his live performances, forget it. This is a horse of an entirely different color. McFerrin was clear about his intentions from the onset and they reflected his own experiences as a live performer. “The concept was always choral. It was always about voices singing together. Even in my solo concerts, I don’t even consider them solo concerts because I use the audience to riff with me…to provide harmonies and rhythms and changes to play over. This stems from all of that – my working with the audiences and growing up with choral music. I sang in a church choir. [I’ve been] getting calls from different choruses, asking: ‘When are you going to write something for us to sing? We’d really love to do your material.’ Linda Goldstein, my manager for over 30 years, is pretty much the one who thought of the idea of doing this. I think the idea popped into her head about 12 years ago.”
Getting people to sing along certainly is something that McFerrin is passionate about. I told him about my interview a few years back with the late Jane Jarvis, jazz pianist and longtime Shea Stadium organist, who bemoaned the decline of communal singing. When Jarvis would play the National Anthem before a baseball game, she aimed to have everyone sing along. Now the ritual is more like an audition for American Idol. McFerrin sided with Jarvis on this issue. “I would agree that the death of communal singing is real,” he says. “I try to revitalize communal singing in my concerts. I love the sound and the surprise of human voices coming in my direction. I love being bathed in the human voice: Having all these wonderful chords and singers, singing to me and with me and for me.”
Lord knows, audiences have always sung with McFerrin even going back to his early days, where he could get an entire theater singing the musical themes of The Wizard of Oz merely with a wave of his hand or a nod of his head. He’s never needed to plead or beg to get audience participation. “It’s always been that way,” he acknowledges. “I think that the reason is because everybody really does want to sing. I think singing comes out of everyone’s heart. There are so many people in the audience who took voice lessons as a kid or young adult and then gave them up and they’re out there thinking to themselves, “I wish I’d continued my voice lessons. I wish I’d continued my piano lessons. I really want to do this.’ As an audience member myself many times, when I go to a concert, I’m singing background voices all along and I’m thinking it would be great to contribute that part on stage. And I think there’s a part of everyone that feels that way.”
It should come as no surprise that McFerrin has a real appreciation for the hit television show Glee, which has done wonders for making a cappella singing cool. When I asked the thoughtful and measured McFerrin if he would consider appearing as a guest on the show, he didn’t hesitate in his response. “If I was invited to make a guest appearance, I’d think I’d do it. I think it’s great that a cappella music is starting to get its due, with shows like Glee and the NBC series Sing Off that they just did recently and I think that’s been picked up again. And I am really, really hoping that it ignites a fire at college campuses to get their a cappella groups and choirs going. I think it’s time.” Quick, someone call Ryan Murphy (creator, writer and producer of Glee) and give the man a cameo.
Per leggere il resto dell'intervista visitate questo indirizzo.

Per acquistare l'album dal sito di CdUniverse, potete visitare questo indirizzo.

Ed ecco il video di Say Ladeo, tratto dall'album

Nessun commento:

Posta un commento