Sometimes Today Seems Like Yesterday
Barry [Harris] had been thinking about what he could do to help this “messed-up world”. He told us he woke up with a song in his mind that he thought could bring it beauty.
All posts filed under: Music
Authenticity (Happy Birthday Billie Holiday)
“Everyone’s got to be different. You can’t copy anybody and end up with anything. If you copy, it means you’re working without any real feeling. And without feeling, whatever you do amounts to nothing.” -Billie Holiday This quote is so powerful. I had not heard it before this morning and it has pulled up some deep thoughts for me. I think there is a BIG DIFFERENCE between being INSPIRED by someone’s performance, and/or striving to capture a spirit that another artist has managed to achieve with a tune — through their choices of tempo, rhythm, depth of harmonic understanding, etc. (combined with the feelings evoked from within their heart based on their life experiences) — and COPYING. I also believe it is a valuable exercise to STUDY the work of other artists and to ANALYZE why something they do well is unique and brilliant, … but, yes…it is QUITE ANOTHER THING to memorize and/or copy someone else’s performance and pass it off as your own work. Unfortunately, it seems to me that some people who do …
Moments of Silence
Silence can be the loudest sound in the world, especially if you are longing to hear the next note, the next phrase, the next part of the story. And…“Silence is PART of the SONG!” (Dr. Barry Harris shouted this pearl of wisdom at his classroom full of singers a couple of weeks ago.) It is such a simple thing to remember. So true! I saw a similar thought attributed to Thelonious Monk. He is recorded as saying, “Don’t play EVERYTHING (or every time); let some things GO BY. Some music [is] just IMAGINED. What you DON’T play can be more important than what you DO play.” A few years ago I touched on this idea in an introductory verse I wrote for my song, “I Lied to Myself”. It begins, “There’s a limbo in this world where the silence is so loud….” This phrase was my attempt to capture in words the desire to hear someone speak to me again, and that feeling you get deep in your heart when you miss the sound of …
Tips and Tricks on YouTube
YouTube is an inspirational online platform for musicians and songwriters. It is so much more than an online-radio. We know it is an easy, free, way to simply listen to a song, watch a movie, or listen to a “TED talk” but I suspect that many of us do not explore other ways it can serve us and our musical lives. In this post I will list some of the things I do that work for me, but I wonder how other musicians use YouTube, and other free online tools, to assist them in honing their craft? (I would love to hear your tips and tricks. Please email me or comment.) Okay! Let’s get cracking! Tips and Tricks for Musical Studies on YouTube YouTube Playlists: I use the playlist feature every day. You can create 3 types based on the privacy level you want: * Public lists can be seen by and shared with anyone; * Private lists can only be seen by YOU and the users you choose; * Unlisted lists can be only be seen by you and …
88 Keys + 88 Years = Barry Harris
Dr. Barry Doyle Harris will be 88-years old next week. Born on December 15, 1929, he has lived one year for each one of the 88 keys on the piano, his musical vehicle—a vehicle that he uses to transport his listeners to jazz paradise. I will let others expound on his theoretical genius, or explain mathematically why his scales and harmonies are so exquisite. I will instead share a glimmer of what has happened in my world since Barry came into my life. I will start this story in the summer of 2008, when I was still studying jazz vocals with Ulysses Slaughter. A friend from the Jazz Foundation of America’s Monday night jam sessions, pianist Richard Clements, invited me to attend the memorial of a dancer being held at “University of the Streets” in the East Village. At the memorial, Richard was playing a beautiful white grand piano, and at a certain point in the program Barry came on the stage area and sang a song that he wrote to commemorate the lives of …
I am always singing to YOU
I love creating music; I enjoy the process, the experimentation, working with other musicians, and I really like sharing the final musical piece or song. This month, as I begin the second half of my life on this planet, I have created and now share something else…a new public “Laurie Early – Singer Songwriter Lyricist” Facebook page to showcase all the musical people in my life, projects I am involved in, and links to other things that interest me such as art, writing, science, culture, and creative expression. You will see that as my cover photo I am featuring the street art image below (and my epiphanic thought). My friends might recognize the image as it has already been posted on my personal Facebook page. I created it to accompany a song-clip of when I sang “You, My Love” in a recent workshop class. What especially touches my heart when I listen is hearing Barry distracting me (he sees me start to cry a bit) and encouraging me to keep singing, shouting: “BE in love! THAT’s right! …
Prelude to Spring – Singing & Learning
Oh man! I have been singing in Rome and having so much fun! It has been especially gratifying this month because I was able to sing a couple of original songs/lyrics that had never been performed in public before. At one of the Barry Harris Jazz Workshop jam sessions, I was asked to sing a Bossa and chose to debut the English lyrics (called “Happiness”) that I wrote for Jobim’s A Felicidade. A couple of people approached me afterwards to tell me how much they liked my English interpretation, so that made me feel really good. It was a difficult song to transform as Portugese is so light and soft, English so harsh. I am glad people still connect to the story in English. Early Thursday morning, before the piano class began, I was able to test out my new lead sheet for a totally original song called “West of the Sun“. I am very grateful to Tomasz Bialowolski on piano and Luca Peruzzi on bass for their gracious assistance. They made the song come to life for me …
I Lied to Myself – a Song & a Story (Gela Part 2)
When you have a long-term goal, and you are actively working towards achieving this dream, it is one thing knowing that everything happens at its own time, it is quite another having the adequate amount of patience for long periods of gestation, or the stamina to keep up when the pace suddenly spins out of your control. Last month I wrote a little about my most recent trip to Italy and I would like to say a bit more about my time in Gela, Sicily, and to talk about Angelo Di Leonforte, a musician I met there. He helped me get one step closer to achieving one of my long-term goals. One of my dreams is to have proper lead sheets and clear demo recordings of all the viable songs I have written. This may sound like a very simple goal but I have found it to be quite challenging due to my limited notation skills. This is embarrassing, but true, and since I cannot go back now and learn all the things I need …
Lorena Fontana – A Vision
A couple of years ago I was surprised and honored to get an email from Lorena asking me to review some of her original lyrics before her recording date. She is an amazing singer and composer I met in Rome in 2011. At the time I was surprised she had reached out to me because her English lyrics were so imaginative and grammatically correct (not easy for anyone, but especially when working in a second language) so I did not know how much value I could add to her work. She did not need any real corrections, but we did engage in a wonderful dialog about motivations in the lyrics and questions about certain phrases that she subsequently revised herself. It was such an exciting exchange of ideas and I am grateful to have assisted her in any way during her creative process. She thanked me in the liner notes and that was a nice little thrill to see. Lorena traveled all the way to California to record this CD and she produced a cool video about the trip entitled “The …
Bend to the Light – Lafayette Harris, Jr. Trio
Lafayette Harris’ new CD “Bend to the Light” makes you feel at home with the very first, captivating, musical phrase of his opening title song. He sets the tone with his light, yet strong and resonant sound, then invites you to join him on a fantastic jazz journey through a selection of a dozen pieces: modern and smooth, nostalgic yet hip, well-loved standards, and internationally inspired originals. I have had this CD about 3 months now, and because I have been enjoying it so much, I couldn’t just say, “Oh wow! Everybody, check out this new CD, it’s swell!” No, I needed to write about it, to touch on all the songs, it is just that wonderful of a recording. (I imagine, if I had a car, that this would be a CD I would play as I drove through the city at night, or at sunset along a coast with an ocean view; the perfect road-trip jazz soundtrack.) After the opening piece, “Bend to the Light“, I found “We in the House” especially engaging, Willie Jones III, …
Moments, Memories, & Jazz 