Following yesterday’s post about Gabriela Frank and Anne Ronell, I started thinking about Clarice Assad. She is a wonderful pianist, composer and vocalist. If you hear her in concert, you will probably be swept away by her virtuosic Brazilian scat singing. But being Brazilian, she owns Brazilian music and is one of the upcoming keepers of the traditional flame as well as a creator of the next music in the Brazilian musical lineage.
Read MoreHere’s one of my favorite jazz standards. Not too many songs found in the Fake Book are by women, but Ann Ronnel wrote this (music and lyrics) in the early 1930’s. She was a contemporary of Dorothy Fields and Kay Swift, and a friend of George Gershwin, working as his rehearsal pianist. Leonard Bernstein met his future wife Felicia Montealagre, at a party in Ann’s Manhattan apartment. Here’s a young Sarah Vaughan in a live performance. Listen to the end and you’ll hear a great example how to handle a screw up with grace and humor.
Read MoreAnd now we come to Manhattan Transfer, or what we later came to refer to as just “the Transfer”. What an amazing run they had- 35 years of great tight harmony, jazz, standards and brilliant singing and smart, urbane musicianship. Just four singers, sometimes a piano or a small band. They didn’t need much accompaniment. If they are new to you, get their albums.
Read MoreSteve Blier flipped for their brilliant part writing and wacky take on the quirkier aspects of human frailty and eccentricity. (Just check out “Through the Wall”) . We’ve included lots of their songs on Nyfos programs over the years, and they inevitably have an immediate effect on the audience.
Read MoreIt’s Tuesday. It’s really hot this July. Tempers are flaring, folks are getting violent (though I’ve read that crime is down 50% over the past 20 years). Politics looks like some wierd version of “Survivor”. What we need is something cool and uplifting. Take 6, who emerged in the late 1980’s has always been my favorite a cappella boy band.
Read MoreThis week I want to share singing groups that I think really defined their time. I can’t do them all. The Andrews sisters sure made their mark, and captured their full share of fame, but maybe we won’t have time for them. But let’s start with Lambert Hendricks and Ross (Dave, Jon and Annie).
Read MoreEnding the week on a transcendent, serene note, I’m returning to Leonard Bernstein at the piano with baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in Mahler’s “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen”. This piece is an ultimate test for both singer and conductor, but when reduced to just piano, it really stretches one’s talents and ears.
Read MoreThis week I’m still exploring the role of the accompanist, especially from unusual, unsuspected talents. Here is soprano Galina Vishnevskaya who married the famous cellist Rostropovitch, but here Rostropovitch is at the piano for an entire recital of Tchaikovsky.
Read MoreSince we’re looking at the art of “the collaborative pianist” I think it’s time to hear from Sir Gerald Moore, perhaps my favorite singers’ pianist. He played with all the greatest singers of his day and really knew his craft. If you can listen to him through this to the end you will be rewarded.
Read MoreI once was criticised as having “played like a conductor”. Or so I thought. The critic said later “Oh no, I thought it was wonderful. Colorful, orchestral sounds, structurally solid, and not careful the way some accompanists are.” Wow, I thought.
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