Tag: singer

Loss (& Magic)

On August 5, 2012

Roughly an hour after my review of a new musical was posted came word that Chavela Vargas had passed. There was something eerie in the timing; my review had got me thinking more than ever about Astrid Kirchherr and women like her – the strong, uncompromising female artists who refused to fit into tidy pre-determined roles around their femininity and whose art was never determined solely by their gender or the place that put that at in the world.

Vargas, the throaty Latin singer had long been a favorite of mine. The first time I saw her, in Frida, I was entranced. What a voice… what a soul… what a presence.

It feels as if this year has been a horrible one for losing strong female artists and presences. Zelda Kaplan, who passed in February, was another sparky figure I greatly admired; my clubbing days would’ve extended longer, I think, had I had gone with her. There was an Auntie Mame-esque joie de vivre about her. Alternately, Nora Ephron and Maeve Binchy felt like confidantes -the sort who’d be hilariously blunt with how ugly those jeans look on you, and why you (I) should stay from men who don’t do a lot of reading or like art galleries. Donna Summer was the woman who stopped everyone talking (and got them dancing); self-contained in her sensuousness, confident in her calm sexuality, she never had to try hard, she simply was. Real sex appeal, as I recently told a friend, can’t be faked. It only fools some of the people some of the time.

Donna Summer’s moans, simpers, sighs and statements were a declaration of her independence, alright -the exact same way Chavela Vargas’ anguished, fierce, defiant tones were. They still are, for me and female artists everywhere. Their tunes didn’t definer them as a woman; they defined them as fleshy, living human beings: let me be what I am, here and now.

There’s so much more I could say, should say, about these women, but it’s not the time or place, and I still haven’t finished meditating on their role in my life, or mourning their loss. Lou Reed’s 1992 album Magic And Loss captures much of this feeling, of losing personal friends who were also artistic heroes. Creative and personal so often bleeds over in life, and in art. That’s probably a good thing.

All I can say at this point is: Dear Ms. Kirchherr, please hang on. I haven’t met you yet, and I want to.

Lush Landscape

By Catherine Kustanczy

On June 25, 2012

In opera

I’ve sat through many awful Jobim interpretations. However, this cover, by Gretchen Parlato and Esperanza Spalding, is well and truly astonishing; it doesn’t belong anywhere near the tired old “predictable Jobim cover” bin.

Perhaps I’ve had covers on the brain lately, what with seeing Bettye LaVette perform this past weekend (and falling even more in love with that raspy voice of hers, if that’s possible), and giving Robert Plant’s Band Of Joy record a much-overdue re-listen -but it feels like when artists cover others artists’ work, they take the safe high road of sonic politeness and predictability. If I wanted to hear it exactly like the original… hell, I’d put the original on for myself. When I hear an artist do a cover version, I want something creative, original, soulful, and thought-provoking; I don’t have to agree with the result to appreciate the effort, but I want the feel the artist understands the meaning of the word “interpret.” Most don’t, or are cowed by the potential hisses of shrewd audiences. But what is artistry without a bit of risk? Chances are that just as many people will be pleased as be pissed off. Dear Artists: take the risk!

A composer like Jobim simply begs for interpretation. This duet delivers the goods. The poetically simple instrumentation – voices, hands, bass – combined with the tonal variations in voices, combined with that gorgeous, loping bassline, make for a swoon-worthy listen. My Monday just got a whole better hearing/watching this. Give it a watch/listen – yours may, too.

Addendum: for a beautiful version of the original, check out Ella Fitzgerald singing “Useless Landscape” live at Montreux in 1969. Awesome scatting included. Swooooon.

Sinatra & Seduction

By Catherine Kustanczy

On May 14, 2012

In opera

Fourteen years ago this week my life changed. Frank Sinatra died.

I don’t remember the exact moment I became a Sinatra fan. I started listening to his work in the early 90s, inspired by more contemporary singers who looked up to him than by any sense of music-history know-how. Having been raised to an eclectic diet of opera, Elvis, Abba, Olivia, and country gold (Cash, Jennings, and Cline, mainly), there was something vaguely … dangerous about Francis Albert. I couldn’t put my finger on it but his voice, even at its sweetest, had a hint of something that both scared and delighted me. Only many years later did I understand that quality to be sex appeal -not the smooth, suave, safe sort, but the rough-and-tumble variety, where passion came before pronouncements.

Sinatra never had to be smutty to seduce through song; it could be a slight pause, a tiny added grace note, a lingering phrase. He deeply understood how tied up creative power was with sexual power (and vice-versa), and he used it, grandly, carefully, proudly and loudly, as he got behind the wheel of The Great American Songbook, flashing a smile, a dark stare, a cocked eyebrow, cruising by, leaving a wispy trail of cigarette smoke in his wake, and enough baritone reverb to echo through eons. Since his passing that Songbook has been reduced to a series of pieces that are mere vehicles for a bland, safe, PC-style seduction, souped up in a red hot convertible and tinkling horn. Sinatra would never be so obvious.

Though he had an undoubtedly operatic approach, and knew a thing or two about a romantic tune, Sinatra’s sound let in the darkness through time; his voice became full of shadow, of color, of subtlety and suffering and self-doubt. It reflected life experience, of course – and what a life it was. James Kaplan’s exhaustive 2010 biography of Sinatra’s early-to-middle years is a mighty tome that rivals Ulysses in sheer size and detail. Until Kaplan publishes the companion piece, we won’t know about Sinatra’s final years – but I have my own specific memories of today, involving comforting older women in a shoe store, whose lives, memories, and perhaps even passions, were so tied up with the man and his music.

I Get So Emotional, Baby

By Catherine Kustanczy

On February 11, 2012

In voice

The news of Whitney Houston’s passing went around on Facebook like wildfire, probably mere moments after the first murmurs of her demise began circulating on Twitter. Whitney became famous before the advent of social media, but it seems as if her debut album was issued to every household in 1985. Tonight everyone’s sharing a memory of their younger selves: seeing one of her videos, dancing in their bedrooms, running to buy her record at the local mall. I’m pouring over my own memories too. Whitney was the first female pop star I outright adored.

At the time it wasn’t totally cool -at least in my super-Wonderbread neighborhood -to admit you liked Whitney’s music, so I’d covertly hide my cassette tapes in coat pockets and big bags. There weren’t too many twelve-year-old girls in the ‘burbs who loved opera, Abba, Johnny Cash and Whitney Houston with equal passion. I remember so many snowy days, sluggishly making my way to school, bright red wool cowl around my head, pointy-toed winter boots on my feet, sunglasses in place, making my way along the grey dull suburban streets, with Whitney sweetly singing through the headphones of my Sony Walkman: how will I know if he really loves me? how will I know? Whitney’s music inspired me to investigate gospel. Eventually the LPs of Mahalia Jackson, Etta James, and Aretha Franklin appeared next to the Duran Duran ones. Whitney Houston was my gateway drug to soul and Motown – and to brighter visions of a better, more exciting life, one where being loud, bold, brilliant, and female were rewarded and celebrated and encouraged. I’ve found the greatest love of all…

When 1987’s Whitney came out, I immediately gravitated to the dramatic stuff, with “So Emotional” becoming my mantra, though I had no one to sing it to except the fantasy boys in my head. But Whitney’s vocal urgency, her drama, her sense of excitement, and enjoyment, and sheer joy of singing, were and remain astonishing to listen to. To paraphrase the saucy title character from Bizet’s Carmen, “I’m singing for myself, and there’s no law against it!” Still, as Maura Johnston of The Village Voice notes, “Houston’s voice was criticized by some for being too much—too strong, too showy, an exemplar of the excess that epitomized pop music in the ’80s.” My mother used to crinkle her brow whenever she heard her music pumping out of my bedroom: “That isn’t singing -it’s shrieking!” Her cover of a beloved Dolly Parton classic grated, and the movie it came from, though a massive success, was horrendously bad, a soppy, maudlin embodiment of the gigantic music industry- machine she seemed to never quite fit in with.

As the years passed, she became simultaneously less interested and more desperate to fit in to that world. It was painful to witness. Marriage, addiction, bizarre interviews, bad live dates, frightening photos – it was like a laundry list of public humiliation, made all the more horrifying because of Whitney’s refusal to never, ever play the role of the simpering, whimpering victim, even when she was clearly suffering. There were highs, lows, exposures, embarrassments, headaches, heartaches. It couldn’t have been easy trying to dim your light around a man clearly threatened by your success, or attempting to throw a determined monkey off your back amidst the snide smirks of a public who once worshipped you awaiting your next fall with claws and fangs exposed. I think few knew or understood the nasty nature of fame and the “industry” side of the music industry the way Whitney Houston did.

There have been many, many candidates for the throne of Ultimate Soul Diva. But might look it, but they’ll never be it. Whitney poured her whole life into that voice, sounding sweet one minute, steely the next; she was as confident with the saccharine balladry of “The Greatest Love,” as she was with the survivor sass of “It’s Not Right (But It’s Okay).” It would be too easy to assume she’d made some Faustian deal in order to have a voice like that, but she did have demons. Regardless of who put them there or why they stayed is no matter. Her demons were hers. Right up to the end she seemed determined to remind us of that. We were blessed to have had her voice in our midst, serenading us through all of life’s moments big and small, leading us through the snowbanks and into a place less dull, more bright, more beautiful and big and exciting, where being female didn’t mean being soft, quiet, meek or comforting. Dear Whitney, make you shake the heavens the way you shook this earth. Make thee a joyous noise.

Yes.

By Catherine Kustanczy

On November 5, 2008

In music