JazzLives A year at the Yardbird Suite

Night 1: Straight from New York

Artist: Gretchen Parlato // Date: 25 September 2009 // Genre: Vocal jazz

As the song goes, lady sing the blues. Well, lady sing the jazz, but lady sing the jazz quite well. Personally I've never liked vocalists in classical or jazz, but Gretchen Parlato started to change my mind a little. Before showing up for my first night volunteering at the Yardbird, I read through her posted biography and poked around on her website a little - and I was impressed by what I saw. Her credentials are as impressive as her portability as a vocalist: she was the first vocalist accepted into the Thelonius Monk Institute of Jazz Performance; studied under both Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter; and she has performed at "A Celebration of Jobim", the 2008 Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, and at the 2009 Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival.

And the crowd must've loved her as well; from working the door, I can tell you that we sold up to and beyond capacity - half an hour into the first set, it was standing room only. The first song of Parlato's I heard after the crowd at the door calmed down was "Circles," the first full composition (ie. not just vocals) that she wrote. Inspired by Wayne Shorter, it opened with a lengthy, yet captivating, bass solo that set the avante garde tone of the piece masterfully. Parlato said Shorter had once told her that "Perfectionists try to make something out of gold all the time. But you can make lots out of silver. And a hell of a lot more out of tin." And I think she took this to heart, and in the best way possible. Perfection, on its own, has a harsh metallic quality to it - it is a piece's imperfections that lend it a warm, intimate quality.

Prior to attending to attending the Monk Institute, Parlato graduated from UCLA with a BA in Ethnomusicology/Jazz Studies. This background shows strongly in various aspects of her vocal style, and comes to the forefront in a brilliant way with songs such as "Doralice." In her performance of it, she melded African and Latin elements together with the traditions of jazz to create a product  that is at time jarring, but on a whole creates a wonderful mélange of sound. In a genre of musicians that often carve out a niche in a small sub-genre, Parlato has portability: she is adept at the classics but can take songs such as Björk or Michael Jackson's "I Can't Help It" and let them transform her style, while still remaining within the boundaries of jazz.

Gretchen-Parlato-I-Cant-Help-It.mp3 (2 minute sample from Parlato's most recent album, "In a Dream")

A worthwhile night

Parlato was backed by an excellent trio of Taylor Eigsti on piano,  Alan Hampton on bass, and
Kendrick Scott on drums. They blended marvelously as a rhythm section should, every-present but not overbearing, subtle yet still interesting. Yet the drummer stood out to me almost as much as Parlato himself. He was brilliant to say the least, and is easily amongst one of the smoothest drummers I've ever heard. The beats he kept drifted effortlessly from complicated, poly-rhythmic rolls into almost melodic simplicity. Scott managed the mood of the sets expertly, never leaving a song to get complacent; this is something I really appreciate in jazz, which can often lapse into monotony halfway into a ten minute bass solo. I highly recommend checking out his work.

All in all, it was definitely a worthwhile night. Parlato was simply sublime for the first set; during the second, the rhythm section began to come out of their shells and play around a little steadily becoming more aggressive and bold, with this building energy culminating in a hot and fast final song. With those last notes drifting across the room, one felt that little bit lighter, that little bit happier, that little bit more alive. That much more alive, because for another night, jazz lived.

Night 0: First thoughts

I've always had a curiosity about jazz. A curiosity about how such a small word can encompass such a broad genre, from swing to post-bop, from bebop to modern, from Latin to free jazz; a curiosity as to how an art can be so rigidly structured yet so free and liberating; a curiosity in the intellectual nature of jazz, and its deeply emotional facets. A curiosity about how damn good it can sound.

I first started getting into the genre four years ago, when I joined my high school's jazz band on tenor sax. I had only been playing for two years at that point but I quickly grew to love my instrument, and with time began to appreciate how complex jazz truly could be. I bought The Penguin Guide to Jazz – which I highly recommend as an intro to jazz recordings – and began compiling a small collection of albums.

In my final year of high school, our music teacher (who played lead trombone with Tommy Banks in the late 70s) took our concert and jazz bands on tour in Alberta. On our last day in Edmonton, he took the senior members out to the Yardbird Suite. My first thought: A jazz club? In Edmonton? Really? And a jazz club it was, and from what I've heard, one of the best in Canada. When I moved to Edmonton this year to attend the University of Alberta, I decided that I would volunteer with the Yardbird.

My musical interests are quite wide-ranging: I've been on a Bob Dylan kick for the past six months, which followed a CCR marathon interspersed with Dvořák. I appreciate the blues (it's my favourite genre to play), I enjoy getting lost in a classical piece, and I love rocking out to Hendrix. But jazz, jazz I love to feel. You feel it in the elation of summertime, you feel it in the harmony of spring, the change of fall, and the mysterious days of winter. From the gigs I've played, it's amidst that luxurious time where it’s 2 in the morning – and it feels like it – that the music lives. So here's to a year of a jazz, and all that comes with it.