VerticalVoices.US

Go to www.VerticalVoices.us to pre-order either your Limited Edition CD ($18.95) or the High Quality mp3 download offer ($12.95) to get the album as soon as possible!

The VOTD, by the way, is a clip from Tim and Eric Awesome Show: Great Job, a big favorite for Julia and me at the moment.  You can check it out at adultswim.com if you're interested. 

Julia and I are both moving back into major ArtistShare project mode for at least the next seven days.  We've got some content to add to the site for the release, a new promo video (or two) to make, and a series of live performances of the music as well.  The live gigs start with a clinic at the CMEA conference in Sacramento, and that'll be the first time we do the music live with our current setup, which involves the use of Ableton on our new high-end laptop and other assorted fun gear. 

Then, the big event is Tuesday the 16th, which is the release date for the album and the CD release concert at Sac State at 8pm in the recital hall, along with Jazz Singers and C-Sus.  After that we've got a performance at the Salt Lake City Vocal Jazz Festival on Saturday the 27th and a clinic/performance at CSU Long Beach on April 7th and at the UNC/Greeley Jazz Festival on April 22-24.  The last thing on the books, at the moment, is a clinic at the Jazzschool in Berkeley on June 6th. 

It's going to be a really exciting time, and I'll be putting some info in these blog entries, but we'll also be saving some of the details for our ArtistShare site, for the benefit of the people who purchase either the CD or the Download offer.  Take a minute and visit VerticalVoices.us to check out the offers and consider a last-minute pre-order today!!

But my time is pretty well filled up with, if nothing else, making Part Tracks for this website.  :)  Visit the page to right right to see all the newly made tracks...perhaps something will be useful to you.  There are 26 done, currently, and these 26 account for about 55% of all of my chart sales, historically.  

I saw a Facebook post from my friend and colleague Jeremy Fox, a vocal jazz faculty member at Southwestern Community College in Creston, IA, and he was mentioning how exciting it was to have both m-pact and Rajaton in concert at their school recently.  Uh...yeah.  That's pretty amazing, actually.  How on Earth did you guys pull that off, SWCC???!  So jealous.  It must have been a blast, for sure.  Here's a video-of-the-day featuring both groups performing together in South Korea. 

I'm Beginning to See the Light (Kirby Shaw)
Alfie (Phil Mattson)
Chili Con Carne (Real Group/Edenroth)
Old Devil Moon (Paris Rutherford)
Embraceable You
This Little Light of Mine
Wake Up Call (killer arrangement by the group director, Jason Behrens)
Short People (King's Singers)
Danny Boy
Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing (mine)
After You've Gone (Mark Brymer)
When She Loved Me
I Want You
Theme From New York, New York
Baby, It's Cold Outside (Kirby Shaw)
Puttin' On the Ritz (Roger Emerson)
I Didn't Know What Time it Was
Emily
Make Someone Happy
Words (Real Group)
Poinciana
Hey Jack
Here's To Life (Mattson)
Get Down
I Can't Believe You're In Love With Me (New York Voices)
I'll Sing For You (Kelly Kunz/Dave Barduhn)
When I Fall In Love (Kirby Shaw)
Sing, Sing, Sing (Norm Wallen)
If I Were a Bell (Paris Rutherford)
Love Psalm (Darmon Meader)
It Don't Mean a Thing (Mac Huff)
Hit Me With a Hot Note (Mac Huff)
Prayer of the Children (Bestor)
Sixteen Tons (Kirby Shaw)
America (Deke Sharon)
In My Life (Jeremy Fox)
Good Old Acappella (Deke Sharon)

And what I can remember from the two Kirkwood groups' sets:

Brand New Day (mine)
His Eye is On the Sparrow (Idea of North)
Golden Rule (The Ritz)
Down to Smoky Joe's (Frank DiMiero)
One Note Samba (Larry Lapin)
Fields of Gold (Greg Jasperse)
More Than Words (mine)
 
Now...once again, the VOTD is totally unrelated, but it's pretty interesting, and it's the source of the poignant title of today's entry... 

Jaco Pastorius, featured in an instructional video called "Modern Electric Bass" 

Now...in the "I wish I'd written that chart" category, as is most of James Miley's music that I've heard, it's the Video of the Day, featuring Paul Lucckesi's Buchanan High School Jazz Ensemble performing James Miley's arrangement of "Everything in Its Right Place," by Radiohead, from my favorite album of theirs, Kid A.

Julia and I are in Monterey again for our second-to-last visit to the area schools this year as Travelling Clinicians.  I've also got my second (and last) fulll rehearsal with the Monterey County High School Honor Vocal Jazz Ensemble this evening.  They're on tap to perform at the Next Generation Festival on April 10th, so we'd better get a lot of good work done this evening!  That group will rehearse during the two weeks of Monterey Summer Jazz Camp in June, and then we're tentatively booked to go to Japan again with them.

The number of major developments in writing techniques in vocal jazz, when compared with it's sister, instrumental jazz, is incredibly small.  The music has moved and shifted around slowly, always with at least one foot in Gene's camp, and there are a number of potential reasons for this that I've been pondering.  

1. Jazz essentialism, of the sort that has often been espoused by Wynton Marsalis, is deeply rooted in a major part of the vocal jazz education and arranging community.  That is...if the music doesn't satisfy a certain number of a required essential elements, it's not vocal jazz, and shouldn't be performed by a "vocal jazz ensemble" at any level.  Those elements are, commonly, swing, improvisation, seventh and dominant based harmony, a connection with the blues, a connection with African-American culture, lyrics (specific to vocal jazz, of course).  School and professional groups who start to stray from the essentialist community's view of "vocal jazz" may risk condemnation and rejection.

2. The appeal of vocal jazz ensemble singing is limited to those who can understand the complexities of it on some level and have the talent and "ears" to perform it.  With group singing, this can be more difficult than for group jazz instrumental playing (big bands), in which, at least, players can read music at every stage of the process and press down keys to produce the desired sounds.  Vocal jazzers memorize for their concerts and must be able to sing dissonant intervals in tune, and slightly more than in instrumental ensembles, I think, vocal jazz groups rely on the strength of every individual, because one unfortunately cast singer one a mic can bring down an otherwise very good vocal jazz group.

3. School choral directors may be less versed in jazz by the time they start teaching high school or college than band directors, and so they may be less likely to start a vocal jazz program where it doesn't already exist than their instrumental counterparts would be to start a big band program.  

4. Vocal jazz requires money for sound equipment, in order for a group to properly rehearse.  Beyond that, it requires someone who knows how to operate the gear.

5. Vocal improvisation is sparsely recorded, as opposed to instrumental jazz, and so most student vocal jazzers have either never heard it done at all by the time they start singing in a group, or they've only heard it done by their peers, at a basic level.  

There are many more possible avenues for discussion here, and I'm ending this blog entry simply because of time...I have to get to school and teach vocal jazz!  But I may try to find time to write more on the subject later, and I'd encourage you to add comments below with your own contribution to the subject.

Our VOTD is, of course, from the Hi-Lo's.... 

Connecting a bit with yesterday's 8-bit MJ tribute, I thought I'd post Wing's triumphant interpretation of the same tune.  

NOW...that said, the thing I really want to write about is that I had a great clinic day with two wonderful groups and their gifted, inspirational directors yesterday in the Mt. Shasta area in far Northern California.  Roger Emerson, one of the leading choral music composer/arrangers in the world, directs the choral program at College of the Siskyous, and Greg Eastman directs the music program at Mt. Shasta High School, and they brought their vocal jazz groups together at COS for a joint clinic with me yesterday.  They performed a few of my charts (Scarborough Fair, Sing a Song of Song, Thinkin' About Your Body) as well as some great others (Roger's classic "Vincent" chart and Eric Whitacre's haunting "A Boy and a Girl").  There was a lot of laughter, some seriously great singing and hard work.  I was also really inspired by the beauty of the area, and I hope I can make it up there again some time.