Stacey Kent 2

Blogger's Notes

Before I continue to talk about the next minute or so about the song (basically till the end of the first run of the ABA) I'll be reply a bit to the comments on this post. I'll be continuing to do so if I am doing close updates and I hope that you can understand that this is to facilitate more discussion.

Firstly, I'd like to start it by saying that actually I didn't care much about vocal jazz until my girlfriend, Meryl, actually spent many days and months of our relationship discussing and learning about jazz vocals and jazz instrument playing. The difference between jazz vocals and instrumental playing is just as much as jazz bass playing is to jazz horn playing. Different skillsets, different approach. The biggest difference is the introduction of words, but the lack of vocal music education of both the crowd and the musicians is one of the biggest stumbling blocks I find in all music nowadays. Prizing horrible sounding vocals (ie bad technique, inaccurate singing etc) that would have been absolutely abhorred on a saxophonist or trumpeter. Double standards interestingly enough. I have to accord most of my knowledge and thought about vocal jazz to my girlfriend because she actually taught me so much about vocal jazz that it turned my opinion around myself.

There's still many types of phrasing which I will wish to go through. From the bossa phrasings of Gal Costa, Astrud Gilberto and the likes, to the hard swinging phrasings of Sarah Vaughan, and covering singers like Nancy Wilson, Dinah Washington and several other great/good singers along the way. Jazz vocal education is just as important as the rest of the instruments, but it's one of the most overlooked aspect so I shall be covering more on that.

I would have to say that I love the fact that Marcus was so eager to come up to discuss the video, and do his own fair share of analysis. It allows us to have a discussion, and for me to affirm his strengths and to help him find more details to sieve out of this beautiful piece. =) So I will be going through some parts that he talked about during the next part of the analysis.



Analysis starting from 00:35 to 01:18

Rounding of corners

One of the best ways of making jazz music sound understandable, or to be exact, actually be understood most easily, is by what we call "rounding the corners". I got this message from Christian McBride during the workshop he and Ulysses Owens Jr had over during the Mosaic 2010 and he talked about how to make sure that everyone knows where they are: by giving an indication at the end of a section or chorus. This is not a hard and fast rule, if you ALWAYS do that, your music will sound bland and boring; some people can do completely without it because the band/musicians can indicate through other means such as harmonic implication or stepping up the intensity or decreasing the intensity, so they don't actually have to do a particular hit or obvious indication.

What do they do here? They have a hit on the 2 of the 12th bar of the A section.

Understanding of form

Is that a mouthful? Let's break it down. Stacey Kent sings a total of 11 bars with the double bass, before the band comes in on the 12th, with a hit together on a 2. Why is it an A section? Because if you notice the form of this song, I (and the real book) would define it as an A B A' because she will be revisiting the melody after the B section where she has 16 bars of a similar melody up a major 3rd. This is a technical part where hopefully you can hear the different between the parts. But basically it's due to the "revisiting of a theme" issue. Which I have to discuss on this blog (there's actually really a lot to discuss).

Rounding of corners again

Back to the hit, it gives a finality to the A section to tell you it's heading over to the B section of the song. It gives an aim and a direction to the song, thus arrangements are so important in making a song sound good.

Section B (bass)

First 8 bars of the B section are quite interesting. It's pretty obvious the double bass is continuing in what we call a 2-feel bassline, where he emphasises on the 1 and 3, rather than the typical walking bass where it's what we call "4 on the floor" where the bass plays every beat of the bar. I'm not sure about what exactly you're saying Marcus, but my best guess is that you're talking about how the bass likes to add that little lick every few bars where he hits the high Eb and the 2 AND, 3, and 3 AND. It's a sweet little thing which propels the music.

Section B (vocalist)

Notice Stacey Kent's phrasing here. I believe that her rhythmic placement inspired the guitarist to do the comping that way, which is a downward chord pattern in a fixed rhythm which allows him to hide a bit under Stacey Kent while still giving her a little boost. Notice that she phrases her lines according to the words of the song, and a brilliant little thing about this song is that the melody itself works WITH the words to give a great phrasing. Will discuss this later too (phrasing is a very very tough thing to explain). But she does the beautiful pull, then push thing, which is what I believe what Marcus was talking about. I would have to disagree with you, Marcus, about how far she lays back, because I've heard plenty of singers (yes, younger) who actually don't lay so far back, but if you really really count with her, there's this pulling factor that's much stronger than most others who are doing this kind of more palatable jazz. What she does is a common thing for singers: pull the rhythm back by quite a bit, and end the phrase of a bit quicker with a push. It is like a rubber band, pulled and let go, giving this propulsive interest-building beat to the music that makes it oh so delicious.

The song also has many phrases which ends on the 3rd bar, which gives her much availability to drag her last note to almost the 4th bar, which is a neat little sound of "not landing exactly with the chord". So throughout the first 8 bars of the B section these forces are at play. Hope you're not lost yet....

Here comes the band!

Then comes the next 8 bars of the B section! Piano comes in. This is a VERY critical moment for all jazz musicians in a band with both a guitarist AND a piano. Guitarist goes into what we call Freddy Green comping which is basically like "4 on the floor" but this time with chords rather than a bassline. Then piano does sparse fills which phrase according to 2 bar phrases. On top of that, both are with sweetly light touch, so they don't intrude into the sound of the song. That's where many amateur bands fail, because the overall sound is neglected for one's need to overplay.

Brilliant!

A sweet spot was also the ending of the B section where they do a similar hit as in the A section, but this time with Stacey Kent actually drags the melody to a point just BEFORE they hit the hit, and she places a "yet!" on the offbeat just before they play (yes it's almost like she sang it with them). Little nuggets of brilliance everywhere in this song isn't it?

A prime/A' (Juxtaposition)

Then comes unison hits in the A'! A' is basically a reduced A section with the middle 4 bars ripped out of it. Note a VERY important part about arrangement at this juncture. Notice that the double bass continues his little 2 feel bassline despite everyone playing the hits. Why?

We always need a basis (bassist) for comparison. If the double bass followed, the song would sound empty and contrived for the pure fact that there is nothing filling up the sound in between the gaps of the hits, and it sounds absolutely retarded like some automated machine. The "whole band doing hits" thing is a VERY common mistake amateur bands make and unless the band can fill up the sound during the whole thing, or that the sound of the whole band doing hits (like an edgier faster swing), it is not advisable. Of course these are NOT hard and fast rules, but things that people miss out because of eagerness to "show off" or complete lack of arrangement knowledge.

Ending of A', intro of C

Then comes the ending of A', where in the 3rd last bar they do the similar hit, softer and subtler (so not boring and repetitive), and suddenly the bass and guitar come in with the "4 on the floor" thing going to lead to the next section, C!

Last words

Now seeing how much analysis we can go into with just about less than a minute worth of music, who says that listening to music is BORING? Plus I'm just skimming the surface. =) Isn't music appreciation fun? No matter what level you are, you'll always find something new in good music. =D