i'm putting the finishing touches on everything
liner notes
artwork
graphic design
you name it
and i'm working overtime in 50 different directions to pay for it.
the anticipation of just getting it freaking done
is killing me
in a good way.
it's also wearing me out
because it's sketchy hours
and haphazard sleep
and not the best food choices
and black coffee
but i'm so hyped by everything that's unfurling inside of me
that all i really feel is joy
and that's wearing me out too
in a good way
it's like being a farmer
working out in fields
on land that i actually own
i exhaust myself every day
and my reward is a healthy body
good rich black soil
and a good harvest
it's actually happening!
it's really going to be here soon.
really, really, really
there isn't much in this crummy world
that feels better than making a record
the way i want to make it
the songs i want
the arrangements i want
the musicians i want
all of it, my way.
there are million dollar so called artists
up and coming superstars and divas and what nots
folk who think they made it already
because they got media hype
and they ain't hardly made a dent
and none of them can truly say -
this is mine
holding that in my hands
will be worth all the sweat and sacrifice
all the hell and high water
all the humiliation, the bitterness
the hard work.
this hard work,
the one that i'm into up to my hips these days
all of it, all of it.
it will be well worth it.
and then as soon as i'm done with this one
i start working on finishing my country CD
by the spring.
i'm halfway through it, actually.
if my money holds up,
i'll finish the rock and roll CD, too.
(yay!)
- harvest
-
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1queenesther- December 4th, 2009
- music ketchup
-
- 1queenesther
- November 14th, 2009
thankful
the danelectro guitar that randy polumbo gifted me
spontaneously out of nowhere just like that
just got overhauled at gotham guitar works by alan michie,
my self-described scottish guitar minion.
i'll pick it up after thanksgiving.
i have a feeling i'll be flush by then.
i just updated the myspace page for my jazz music
with a cool photo of jc and j walter and me
and scribbled a bit in the blog -
"Queen Esther and The Hot Five"
catchy, huh.
http://www.myspace.com/queenestherandthehotfive
looks like i'll be at the player's club for two gigs at the end of the year:
new year's eve eve with my own group in the lounge
and new year's eve with jc hopkins biggish band.
thinking seriously about joining the player's club -
but that's another conversation.
the housework never ends.
neither does guitar practice
steam room/day spa visit
or the next big chicken recipe.
i'm in the process of looking for a radio promoter and publicist.
actually, i think i found one but i don't want to jump up and down about it yet.
that would feel too good to be true.
oh, geez. what else?
i'm flying the japanese flag.
- What have I done?
-
- 1queenesther
- October 7th, 2009
- relieved
I just submitted ten -- count 'em! ten! -- songs to the International Songwriting Competition (ISC) via Sonicbids. I wasn't going to do it because I thought, wow that's a lot of money and I'm saving every cent I can get my hands on for the mastering session that's scheduled for the end of the month. And the publicist I'll need. And the radio promoter. And as if all of that weren't enough, yes, i'm broke! But then my permanent boyfriend changed my mind. He loves the country songs so much that he pleaded with me to let him have the rough mixes, solely for his listening pleasure. He's convinced that they're all hits. With that kind of enthusiasm in my corner, how can I not do something with this material?
I took the stuff that was more finished than anything else and sifted through it and really thought about it and then i submitted it. Practically at the last minute, kids -- today is the last day. It was expensive as hell and because it was online/electronic, it was way too easy and convenient. They even contacted me right away with a form letter/email, to let me know that they recieved it. Tasty!
Under the category of "Lyrics":- I've Come Undone Again
- Dreamland
- Sunnyland
- The Other Side
- Love Is A Wrecking Ball
- Dreamland (Adult Contemporary - I have no idea what this category means, but the song doesn't work under any other descriptive banner, so whatever)
- The Other Side (Country)
- Will You or Won't You (Country)
- I've Come Undone Again (Country)
- Sunnyland (Blues)
At the end of the day, at least I can say that I did something with this stuff -- which is better than what most songwriters or even musicians who call themselves songwriters I know are doing. Everybody talks a great game but at the end of the day, talk doesn't cook rice.
Hmmm...rice. I'm hungry...
- "She's Just 14": Songwriting as Confessor and Surrender
-
- 1queenesther
- September 25th, 2009
While everyone is reeling from the Oprah exclusive! Mackenzie Phillips incest bombshell, the aftershock of denial and support from her family and friends, the incendiary Oprah exclusive! revelation that was sure to follow – an aborted love baby!? – and the follow up interview, I thought it would be interesting to delve into the John Phillips song She’s Just 14. There are some who are starting to trip on this song, in part because it seems to verify so much of what Mackenzie has described of her childhood, and also because it actually dares to hint at the nature of her relationship with her father.
Songwriting is a grand release and a great escape, and nowadays it’s become a really great way to say whatever I want about whatever is on my mind. But something or someone has to be on my mind to come up with the inspiration that tweaks me to reach beyond the ordinary, the mundane. Otherwise, it’s all technique. And there are songwriters like that, people who sit down at a piano everyday like they’re going to work in a factory and they say, gimmie a c, a bouncy c! and write stuff in a committee, with a bunch of other people over coffee and pastries. but I’m not one of them. Songwriting for me is really solitary and intimate and strange. I wish I could throw a tea party and write a hit song. Or even get with one person and come up with some cool stuff. Oh, maybe later. For now, I'm happy all alone.
Fortunately, I fall in love every day. It just so happens that pert near everything pisses me off. And as bad luck and God Almighty would have it, I have a very, very long memory. There’s always something on my mind. So there’s plenty that’s marinating in me to inspire another song that rips somebody a new one. Or loves someone from afar.
John Phillips was a wonderfully gifted songwriter, when he wasn't high or drunk or having sex with everybody or otherwise tripping his balls off. Here's my two favorite quotes about his songwriting:
"John was such a great story teller," says Harvey Goldberg, who worked with Phillips on several recording projects from the early 70s onwards. "I would say 50% of what he would say would be truth and 50% would be fabrication. But you'd never know which was which. And, without fail, the stuff that you were convinced was fabrication always turned out to be the truth."
"John was, in a lot of ways, very soulful," says Dick Weissman. "He hated to admit it, and he didn't like to express emotion publically but it came out in the music."
That kind of sums up songwriting for me, in so many ways.
All of that rock and roll behavior is fine and well and good but after a certain point you have to get clean and sober enough to do what you do, or fade into obscurity, you and the body that's caved in on you because of the decades long abuse it tolerated - which is basically what happened to him. He died in a hospital bed, waiting on a new liver that never really showed up. I mean, seriously - The Mamas and the Papas were only around for three years. Three years! That's it. One wonders what they would have accomplished -- what John Phillips would have accomplished, actually, because he was the creative force behind the songs -- if they'd stayed together longer, or if he'd cleaned up enough after their demise to create more and debauch less, and have a viable solo career. The only reason why he gave up hard drugs was because he was facing hard time in prison if he refused to do so. So he took up alcohol instead - and the rest is history.
It is with all of this in mind that I considered that John Phillips song about Mackenzie. When he recorded this, Mackenzie was something like 16 and a big tv star and she was way more famous than he was, pop tv stardom-wise. I mean, come on. She did American Graffitti at 12 -- so she probably wasn't too far off from what's in those lyrics. Her book reinforces all this. Pretty lurid stuff. This song from the album Pay Pack & Follow, produced by Mick and Keith. Yeah, he did something when the band broke up, and yeah, he was working on something when he died - but this effort is essentially John Phillips' only full length independent solo work. The album was recorded in 1979 but didn't see the light of day until 2001 when it was released on a label called Phoenix, for a myriad of reasons. From all accounts, it's nothing short of a miracle that the album was ever recorded in the first place because he and Keith were so fracking high the whole time -- and shooting up in the bathroom and whatever when they bothered to show up, anyway. When he died, lots of people in the business who knew him said that they would miss the music -- but when he traipsed through most of his professional life single-handedly sabotaging himself with such free-wheeling elan at almost every turn, weren't they missing it, anyway?
Wow. And to think that I thought David Crosby in his heroin/freebase "I'm a pistolero" years was so bad. I mean, yeah, he was. But John Phillips could give that freak a run for his money. Hard time in prison stopped "The Cros" in his tracks, too - although to his credit, David actually ended up going for several years. In the Texas penal system, no less. But I digress.
Interestingly enough, this isn’t the only song that John Phillips ever wrote about Mackenzie. I don’t know what’s more disturbing – what he says in the lyrics or that the song is actually quite good. Both he and Mick sound high as all get out on vox. Click here if you want to hear it. Click here if you want to read a blow by blow description of how it all came together, what happened in the studio and the demise of the album. Basically, the album is The Rolling Stones doing John Phillips songs, and him singing with Mick backing him up here and there, as far as I can tell. This would have worked if they'd landed long enough to pull it off and if the Stones had held it together long enough to get along with Mick Taylor, probably because it sounds like such a good idea on paper. Oh, well.
Did Mick sleep with Mackenzie -- in the bed he shared with Jerry Hall, after some drug-fueled party on the upper west side in New York City -- because he was feeling vengeful towards John Phillips for sleeping with Bianca? Had Mick really been jonesing for her ever since she was 10 years old? Did John Phillips sleep with his daughter for 10 years running? The world may never know. When the smoke clears and time marches on, all we really have left is the lyrics that live inside of the music.
With no further ado, here they are:She’s just 14, little movie star queen
There isn’t much she hasn’t seen
She “did it” in a limousine car
She dated pop stars
Hey Rainbow Hair, say that’s no where
But she always says
I’m just a sexy trash can
But she’s just a little girl who thinks like a man
And sometimes her Daddy’s spoiled her
Sometimes he treated her rough
Sometimes she’s gentle
Sometimes she’s tough
But she is always too nice to the driver
She says, “James, have you had your supper”
And she’s always too high on arrival
And she runs on her high platform heels
And she falls flat on her face and she knows how life feels
She got the moves, yeah she got the looks
She got the style, she’s read all the books
And nobody got her on their hooks
She’s on a real smooth, yeah a real smooth trip
She’s always too nice to the driver
She says, “James, have you had your supper”
And she’s always too high on arrival
And she runs on her high platform heels
And she falls flat on her face and she knows how life feels
I see her sipping her Thunderbird wine
Wonderin’ if she’s the last word in space and time
And she knows she is, she’s so pleased to discover
She’s so hip. She’s on a smooth trip.
Well she’s always too nice to the driver
She says, “James, have you had your supper”
And she’s always too high on arrival
And she runs on her high platform heels
And she falls flat on her face and she knows how life feels
- Yay! Yay! Yay!
-
- 1queenesther
- September 18th, 2009
sick
i've finished recording and mixing the jazz cd. finally, at long last. yay!
i've been working the graveyard shift (11pm - 7am) in the bowels of corporate hell all week to pay for this. the end of the recording session on monday night found me wired and in some kind of a hightone frenzy, festooned with sweet relief and gratitude and glee, trekking to midtown like some kind of a supertrooper to get on with the rest of my day. and believe me, it was quite a night. i did that for three nights in a row, actually. somewhere in there, i caught a nasty snotty fevery headcold and i was hobbling internally. but i wouldn't stop moving, i wouldn't stop going and going and going...
sudafed, vitamins, wheatgrass - oh, my! i was so spent after completing the final mixdown and then traipsing to the graveyard shift and working until the wee small hours of the morning that i stayed in bed all day today and slept, deeply and peacefully. when i awoke after 3pm, i could breathe again. that was a really good sign. a huge pot of irish breakfast tea later, i could bravely face the world in my favorite panties from the distinct comfort of my comfy comfy sofa. flick on the tv, see who died today. upload the newly mixed songs, send them to my lovey. text ralph. drink a quart of water. do a shot of green vibrance. call my grandma.
so now what? oh, gee. i thought you'd never ask.
there'll be a listening party in the next week or so, to let a few people that i love and respect sonically have a listen to the album in its entirety and make pertinent suggestions - like what the song order should be. we've gotta take a meeting with garry veletri at bug music. so he can make suggestions as to who should hear it, who should promote it, etc. it gets mastered before the end of the month. in early october, my permanent boyfriend takes pictures of me for the album art and does the graphic design. if everything is as on track as i'd like for it to be, a publicist and a radio promoter will have cds to promote and the album will be in cue at digital music stores everywhere by all hallows eve.
a good music publicist isn't cheap. it could cost upwards of $500 to $1000 a month and then some. and a good radio promoter isn't cheap, either. just check out these numbers. most artists i know who self-release material don't follow up with these two very important elements - and that's fine, everybody's different, everybody has their own vision and everybody does their own thing. sometimes they do the publicity and the radio promotion themselves, and that's an option, too. but i've been at this way too long to not get the fact that once you come down from the mountain with something wonderful in your hands, that's when the work begins all over again, on this whole other level that you never thought about while you were listening to someone take a solo in the recording studio. for me, to not follow through with publicity and radio would be like i didn't do anything at all. sure, word of mouth means a lot but how is anyone supposed to buy it if they don't know that it exists?
the release date is my Daddy's birthday - march 24, 2010. i'd like to give him something creative and cool every year until - God willing - i see him again.
- The upshot of it all...
-
- 1queenesther
- September 12th, 2009
- happy
Here's the line-up, in no apparent order.- Warren Smith, drums
- Hilliard Green, bass
- Matt Ray, piano
- Vincent Chancey, french horn
- Kenyatta Beasley, trumpet
- Patience Higgins, tenor saxophone
- J. Walter Hawkes, ukelele and trombone
- Everything Is Going to be Alright (the title track) ***
- You Don't Know How Much I Love You*
- Either He's Crazy Or I Am*
- Stardust
- I Cover The Waterfront
- Remember When?*
- What Is Love?*
- I'll Never Be The Same
- Do You Want To Go To France?*
- Dreamland**
**written by JC and myself
***written by JC and Victoria Williams
On Monday, we go into The Maid's Room to finish what JC and i started in January. It's only 5 songs but it feels like I'm about to climb Mt. Everest - probably because I've been thinking about this for a very long time, and the wait between sessions feels enormous.
Why did I make a jazz album?As a vocalist, I'm way more flexible and rangy and interesting than anyone is giving me credit for, simply because they haven't heard otherwise. And that is all my fault. The music that I self-release should reflect the fact that I sing all kinds of material, not just one genre, not just one thing. I've been cultivating different audiences for awhile now in so many different directions and they want to hear the sounds that they're plugged into. So I'm going to give it to them.
I sing jazz to keep my chops up, to develop my ear, to delve into music theory more deeply and to stay on my toes sonically. Lots of musicians who aren't jazz musicians practice jazz or take lessons from jazz musicians for the same reasons. After I won the Jazzmobile Vocal Competition in 2008, everyone kept asking me, Where's the album? until after awhile, i started wondering where it was, too! So i started looking for it. I'd had many a conversation with Warren Smith and Hill Green for awhile about ideas I had, standards I wanted to sing, material that JC had written that was really cool, and the overall vibe that I wanted to present. The lineup was carefully thought out, and the first time around, it all came together like I imagined that it would. And why wouldn't it? We've all known each other forever, in various and sundry configurations, and there is always a great deal of love and mutual respect in the room. And fun.
It's not all that confusing and it's really not that deep. Everybody doesn't like everything. I'm so not expecting that. If you don't like jazz, you won't be interested in this album. You'll say, When is she going to make another rock and roll album like Talkin' Fishbowl Blues? But if you've been listening to me sing jazz all over the place for God knows how long, you'll sit back and listen to this and say, finally! And frankly, so will I. Because if nothing else, this CD will be a terrific calling card, no matter how well it does.
I'm just growing and going on into whatever is next. Music is such a many splendored thing. I can't imagine singing only one kind of music like i can't imagine eating only one kind of food. But everybody isn't me...
- i just thought i'd share...
-
- 1queenesther
- September 8th, 2009
i've finally written lyrics to a love song that aren't so depressing or morose. finally. (yay.) so nice to know that i'm capable of such a thing. this is for a waltz that jc wrote for the jazz cd we're finishing up. it sounds like a lullaby and i'm singing it in a higher register. still mulling over the instrumentation.he came to me at our last gig and he was like,"yeah, um. those lyrics you came up with were kinda...dark. maybe its me, maybe i've been listening to a lot of hoagy carmichael lately but you've really got to lighten it up with some romance or something. trees, flowers? i'm just saying."
all those world war two popular songs are full of syrupy sweet romance. all anyone was thinking about after the war was domestication: getting married, nesting and making babies. if i tried to write something like that, it would sound like a leg being pulled. but something or someone criscrossed my mind and these lyrics fell out of me. we record this next week. it's called dreamland. most people think that romance at its best is sort of gauzy and ethereal, right?
you're lost in your thoughts
of yellow and blue
your heart is wide open
and your aim is true
you've wandered so far
with love in your arms
and crashlanded under
the moon and the stars
see you in dreamland
in dreamland you'll see me too
in shadow and light
in darkness so bright
a flower of sunshine
bloomed into the night
the daytime conceals
what my heart reveals
sleep takes me away
to a place that's so real
see you in dreamland
in dreamland you'll see me too
in dreamland
in dreamland
in dreamland
- guitar stuff
-
- 1queenesther
- August 15th, 2009
i finished a blues guitar class at new york city guitar school a few weeks ago with much sweet relief. although a lot of stuff swung over my head, it did get me to start messing around all over the neck of the guitar, and solo a little, and finally move away from clinging to open "cowboy" chords. although i think the cowboy reference is really disparaging and a really lame way to describe them. there's absolutely nothing wrong with simple, straightforward stuff. that's what blues and country music are all about. they're really two sides of the same coin. it's the feeling i bring to it that makes it come alive, not necessarily the complexity of the chords.
i also did a lot of practicing and songwriting and there were ideas that i revisited eventually with a fresh perspective. because i'm still on that three album kick i keep thinking about and that means doing quite a bit of recording this fall. so yeah, i'm glad i took the class. i may take another one this fall, we'll see how busy i get. more on that kick inside later. for now, when i get stuck i go to look no hands. i LOVE that website. really simple and easy to digest and use. they're doing God's work by putting it up and not charging anyone for it.
i don't know why i don't just reach for a capo. maybe it's because everyone that's teaching me doesn't reach for them and isn't too keen on showing me how they work. kelvyn was like, "oh good, your hands are strong enough to play bar chords now, lemmie show you this..." and we're off to the races. the word "capo" isn't in blood's vocabulary. and lennie never mentioned it. i recall playing something that wasn't right for my voice and he casually remarked, oh, you'll have to play somewhere else on the neck." and that was it.
i really loved the class but the one thing that bothered me was that the teacher sang while everyone took turns and played. i kept having to resist the urge to sing in class, mostly because blood makes me sing and play. he says that's what it takes to play the blues. according to him, you have to sing to lead you through the changes. i can't think of any blues performers that play and don't sing. and lennie didn't ask anyone to vocalize or offer any explanation. i didn't want to impose. if i did, then maybe everyone else would feel wierd about not singing. (ew.)
i need a flatpicking class and some brushup work from kelvyn so i'll be able to ask him stupid questions and know that i'm on the right track...
- progress is sweet!
-
- 1queenesther
- July 27th, 2009
- relaxed
jc hopkins came over to my place tonight. it was ultimately a production meeting, really. it didn't feel like it. thank Jesus. it felt like we were hanging out and talking ideas and catching up and listening to music and goofing off. but it was a production meeting, and a very important one. we're co-producing a jazz cd and we're something like halfway there. i want it done by the end of the summer at the latest. as it stands, we're right on schedule.
of course, i had to make dinner. you know me.
i got a couple of bunches of beautiful incredibly fresh lush green watercress (i love watercress when it's like that, so tart and tangy and tasty) from the dominican grocery store a block away -- has my neighborhood changed or what?! -- tossed it with sliced grape tomatoes, cucumber, lemon juice, that newman's own olive oil and vinegar salad dressing that i'm addicted to. very simple. then i topped all that with large shrimp that i sauteed with a ton of garlic and some potlach seasonings from williams sonoma. chili peppers, thyme, and so on. wakes up the flavor of seafood, like wow. (thanks, chris!) dessert? dark chocolate klondike bars. way too hot to crank that oven to bake anything -- though i have found a recipe for red velvet whoopie pies that i am positively dying to try. but not without a small hoarde to eat them. i'm not going to fall for my own okey-doke.
jc actually texted me a high hearty "whoopie!" when i told him that i was making dinner. he knows that i know what i'm doing in any kitchen. God knows i've worked in enough of them. like a runaway frackin' slave, i tell ya. but i digress.
i wonder: how do people usually have production meetings. in boardrooms? at round tables? at expensive restaurants? in late-night diners in the middle of the night, or the middle of the day, out in the middle of nowhere? something dressed up and formal with lots of angel hair pasta and handshakes? or dressed down with no place to go? whatever gets the job done, right?
i'm making my own rules as i go. it's a freeing thing.
all through the watercress, all through the shrimp and all that garlic, and after that klondike bar and then the espresso he took and the hazelnut creme-stuffed cookies he refused, he kept saying, you really know how to treat a guy. all i could think was, i should have made popsicles.
what would have been perfect is if we could have gone for a long walk down to the harlem piers park after that wunderbar dinner and talked and talked and talked -- on the waterfront, as it were. nothing like a long walk to shake ideas loose. but watching jc struggle through my absolute disaster of a junk room to get to the slightly out of tune piano witih my five guitars hung over it was more than enough to balance all of that out. he would struggle back and forth in and out of there, like a coal miner into the darkness or something, all night long. at one point, he abrubtly leaped off the sofa, staggered back there and played a snippet of a song he's working on called what is love? and then just as abrubtly, he stopped playing, struggled out of there and back to the sofa, mumbled an explanation and looked at what i was stitching together on a long pad. songs, ideas, where we are now, what we should do, what we shouldn't do. sheet music and lyrics and such. i would have an idea and i'd roll it to him like a ball and he'd mess with it and roll it back to me and on and on we went, rolling that ball until we had something of a finished product and our minds were reading the same thing when these songs floated over our heads.
oh, yeah. that's right. I live in new york city. i'm not supposed to have a junk room, am i. or a kitchen i can twirl in. or a bathroom with a tub in it. but the truth is, i live in harlem. when it comes to city living, this place is a two bedroom masterpiece, of sorts. that junk room has got to be dealt with, metroshelving and all. oy. but i digress.
the upshot is, everything is coming together. yay. as the 2008 grand prize winner, i've got a guest spot singing at jazzmobile's vocal competition tomorrow night, with jc accompanying me. that should be colorful and interesting. i'll meet grady tate, finally. he's been my big time hero since schoolhouse rock. i can't be the only one that remembers him singing "naughty number nine"...
- what i've been doing since you heard from me last
-
- 1queenesther
- July 13th, 2009
- calm
and when is the last time you heard from me, really?
it was cold and bleak, and winter just kept going and going.
and now summer can't stay long enough.
this is kind of in chronological order, more or less.
yes, i'm leaving out quite a lot and no, you can't know everything.- i worked on the book and lyrics for a jazz burlesque musical. done with act one, sketched out act two. loving the process, loving the disappearing into the script and coming up with things i didn't even know i had in me. loving that.
- i reconnected with a lot of old friends via facebook, of all things. we picked up right where we left off, like no time at all had passed. how about that?
- polished off another bio, another book about the music industry, a book about black hair that is a total naval gazing triumph (if there is such a thing) and picked up 4 more that have become essential summer reads. currently reading lena horne's bio stormy weather. so far, her life is quite the monsoon...
- i detoxed. yes, it wasn't that hard and no it didn't last long enough. if i'm smart -- and let's face it, i really am -- i'll do it again before the end of the summer.
- i got a lot of stuff off my chest that had been bothering me for quite some time by writing a slew of songs. apparently, there was no other way to say it. i'm being told by those who would know that it's my best material so far, which kind of skeeves me out because i really didn't want to believe that i had to endure that kind of misery to come up with something so beautiful. but hey -- at least i've got something to show for what happened besides wrecked nerves and a broken heart.
- i worked on an idea for a book that would basically be me stitching my old/new blog kudzu, mon amour together with a bunch of photos and songs and postcards and stuff, to make a poppy little memoir. l like the idea of giving the reader something to listen to while they read my little stories.
- i started taking guitar lessons from kelvyn bell (rythymeen), james blood ulmer (harmelodics on blues on me) and lenny (i hate reading guitar tabs) at nyc guitar school and practicing all the time because i want to play out by the end of the year.
- i got hitched, to a really cool guy that "gets" me -- and he totally loves me and adores me, anyway. we did the deed down south, we jumped over a broom. my handmade african dress had a four foot train. the most triumphant moment of all? my 92 year old Daddy walked me down the aisle and gave me away. yes, he's an artist and no, he isn't a musician or an actor. or a pseudointellectual. thank Jesus.
- i did gigs all over nyc and whatnot, and picked up a biweekly residence for the month of august at a lovely room called duane park -- which, interestingly enough, reminds me a lot of torch.
- i took a meeting with Garry Veletri at Bug Music to let him hear what i'd been up to and i let JC tag along because he hadn't seen him in awhile and we're coproducing that jazz cd.
- i did a lengthy interview with a nice polish lady music journalist for an online sonic magazine -- out of warsaw, i think. she found me on last.fm. yes, i'll post it here and no you won't be able to understand a word of it. i like poland. yay.
- i had a blackgrrl's night out with gina and tanya in soho that had us running from one end of broome street to the other.
- i threw myself a birthday cocktail party at tailor and baked my own cake. how else would i know if it was any good? only the best for my buddies. and yes, it was red velvet.
- i started to grieve and i am still grieving and i will probably continue to grieve for the rest of my natural life. so help me Jesus.
- had a great 4th of july on a farm in appalachia -- the georgia end of things.
- i lost a little weight and will probably spend the rest of the summer slowly becoming The Incredible Shrinking Woman until i get back into everything in my closet. i'm doing this by working out everyday and surrendering my subway pass -- at $2.25 a pop, i was happy to let that go, and unless we get another monthlong monsoon, i won't get another one. That weight loss had better happen by the beginning of September. Not only do I miss my pencil skirts -- Byron Lars gave me a beautiful dress on my birthday and an open invitation to raid his sample closet. yee-haaa!
- i started clearing out my oh-so-layered and ever-expansive junk room. the one with the upright piano in it. yep -- this is going to take awhile...
- i finished my medical narration voice over demo with dan duckworth at voiceovers unlimited in chelsea. FINALLY! i'd like an animation demo, hopefully before the end of the year. click here to give it a listen.
- because i'm determined to have crystal clear skin by any means necessary, i had a massively righteous and totally necessary spa visit to a really cool spot in koreatown that i can't get enough of. probably because of all those tasty, tasty korean/asian snacks. i have no idea what they are until i eat them because i can't read the packaging, so just about every unwrapped morsel is a big surprise.
- redux on #3 -- actually, i'm still writing songs all the time, so whatever. to paraphrase sonny bono, the beat goes on. it's not like a bell is going to go off and all of a sudden, i'm not going to write any more songs about the craptastic happenings in my life -- or anyone else's, for that matter. at this point, it's way cheaper than therapy, it's better than any sort of confrontation, and it gives me a release that ultimately lets me get better at songwriting.
more later. stay tuned.
- nope!
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- 1queenesther
- May 9th, 2009
Unfortunately, Discmakers/Billboard Magazine isn't doing the Independent Music World Series this year (2009) because the economy sucks and nobody has any money -- or if they do, they're not trying to give any of it away. And they're not too quick to part with merchandise, either.
Oh, well. Better luck next year.
Yup. I can feel it. All that money? All that equipment? I'm going to fracking keep trying until i fracking win -- or take myself out by signing to a label or doing whatever else gets me disqualified. Or I get up so much money that I don't care anymore...
- running commentary
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- 1queenesther
- February 22nd, 2009
contemplative
i let it blurt on a music thread on linkedin.com -- the question was, which route would you go? independent or major? (heh.) enjoy.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------- ------------------------
it was true at the inception of rock and roll and it's true now: major label recording contracts are essentially banks that loan the artist money to make and promote music while (eventually) owning the rights to the artist's material. think about it: how many major label artists own their publishing? how many artists working through a production company that has a deal with a major label own their publishing? take note as to who owns their publishing and who doesn't: many of those major label artists had to give up a large portion of their publishing to get their foot in the door. and anyone that knows anything about the music business knows that publishing is where the money is.interestingly enough, this and much, much more is nothing that wasn't said in 2000 by courtney love when the music industry was still reeling from the threat of napster. http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/20
00/06/14/love
you think 50 cent is a great businessman? that may be so, but one thing is for sure: he doesn't make his millions with his music. he makes his money in clothing and vitamin water, just like everyone else. jay z, puffy, beyonce, etc. they're all haberdashers, really. nowadays, it's clear that for them, music is a way to sell everything else they're doing -- the movies, the cologne, the lifestyle, the clothes and other luxury items -- NOT the music.everything is changing. the old model is falling apart. the internet has leveled the playing field. and so has protools. and filesharing services like limewire. and licensing services like pump audio. and social media outlets like myspace and facebook and twitter and pownce and whatever. nowadays, musicians like me can self-release their work, get a ton of radio airplay, own their publishing and merch and actually make a living at this which -- ironically enough -- is more than what a lot of artists end up with when they sign a major label deal.
- ...writing and writing and writing...
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- 1queenesther
- February 20th, 2009
- contemplative
so now that i've had a minute to live with the songs from both recording sessions and listen to them carefully as i roam around the city, now that i've been able to bounce them off of friends and cohorts and coconspirators alike, now that the high of being in the studio and birthing so many ideas at once has receded, i'm rethinking things. i'm becoming more and more objective about what i want to say and how i want to say it, and the little stories i want to tell. and i['m messing around with more ideas to augment what i want. so it's back to the songwriting drawing board. the songs i have right now on the rock and roll/black americana side of things sounds more like black country than a black country rock and that's got some people looking forward to a country album but that's not it, exactly. there are rock and roll songs and much poppier stuff that's coming down the pike that will balance everything out to make a picture of me that i don't think anyone will recognize. but then again, those people were looking at me for years and they never saw me anyway, so what of it. most of my spare time finds me on my loveseat with my bennett guitar, fleshing out more songs and messing around with new ideas. and there are quite a few.
the jazz project is percolating right along and will probably be finished first because so much of it is already in place. i'm not comfortable releasing any cd that doesn't have orignal music on it from me, so i'm working on at least 2 songs and they have to be arranged and whatever, so there you have it.
as it turns out, both projects are filled with happy sounding songs that are very sad, or very sad songs that are very sad. what can i say?
when i was writing a lot of this stuff, i was a sad girl.
here's a funny aside.
after a really great meeting with bug, jc and i went out for coffee at jack's in the west village. and we're talking about both of the projects and what each one needs and the songs i'm working on right now, and stuff like that. and he goes, why don't you write a love song? and i say, a love song? and he goes, yeah. you know. stuff about holding hands, walking through the park and stuff like that. and i snort and laugh and say, didn't jill scott do that already? and he goes, you know what i mean. a love song! i love you and you love me and all that. where's the love, queen? and i tell him, these ARE love songs! you don't feel the urge to rip someone's heart out if you don't love them. yeah, jc had to marinate on that one for a sec. but then he bounced back like a red rubber ball. and as he went on about love and whatnot, i realized that perhaps i'm incapable of writing a fluffy pink floaty syrupy sweet song like that. even if i did, i would sing it sardonically and snark my way through it and stick a razor blade up in it or something. i really wouldn't be able to help myself.
what can i tell you. i'm such a nice girl, really -- though only the one who truly loves me would know that for real. i suppose i got my feelings hurt way too many times. i dated one freakshow too many. there's way too much feeling and darkness and wierdness in what i come up with, even when i try to smooth everything out and make it nice and clean and acceptable. maybe i shouldn't have taken all those advanced placement english classes when i was a kid. maybe carrie was right about me, maybe i really am a freak magnet. i know who hubert sumlin is and i love him and memphis minnie and t-bone and so on. freddie king. i know who the cramps are, and i love them, i love that guitar sound that's a throughline for me to the blues and to church. the black church, anyway. that's how we threw down in COGIC. but i digress.
so much of what i'm doing are snapshots, really. everything is a snapshot. listening to bob wills while i'm knitting. flipping a buttermilk pancake without a spatula while i'm on the phone with some texas galpal, and it's totally perfect, and no one sees it but me. that bizarre conversation i had with my grandfather when i was nine. the painting in the post-impressionist wing at the met that i can't stop looking at or thinking about. chamucos, my little friend. a moment in time. a season. a project. an idea. i'm documenting my life. i'm taking pictures with my words and phrases. i'm just doing it through songs, through songwriting. and sometimes performance.
now i know the cure for what ails me: something's bothering me, something happens, bad or good -- write an album about it, then self-release it. really freakin' churn it out, wring it all out of me, get it out of my system, if that's even possible. because at this point, there are some things that won't leave me alone. so i guess that's the stuff i'll always keep writing songs about.
the less i talk about where this stuff comes from, the better off i'll be. God knows it helps to empathize. writing about someone else's heartache feels as authentic as the scribblings i come up with about my own hurts and frustrations. the good news is, i get ideas all the time.
maybe i'll write a love song about not being able to write a love song.
- ...listening and listening and listening...
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- 1queenesther
- January 28th, 2009
- grateful
so ralph and i went over to kelvyn bell's place and sat around listening to everything that i had recorded all weekend. rough mixes. very rough. i don't think kelvyn had seen ralph in ages. their last guitar lesson had to be when ralph was 19. he's in his 30s now. time flies.
later, as we walked through the sunny cold down broadway like a gang of three, we ran into drummer warren smith as he exited the pioneer grocery store. i was still remembering all of us finishing a standard and just as we all stopped playing, he blurted, "don't mess with it! don't mess with it!" and everyone laughed.
kelvyn said that warren had a loft in chelsea back in the day and gave him his first gig when he first came to the city a million years ago. warren spoke so glowingly of the session and had nothing but great advice for me. i'm going to make a dreamy chocolate cake and bring it to his place on riverside drive, and listen to the jazz songs very carefully, and talk things over with him -- probably sometime early next month, before i go to the ATL. he did an incredible arrangement of a little esther philips song let me know when it's over that i performed with his ensemble awhile back. i had never heard it before and i still can't stop thinking about it. i really want to record it for this CD.
as ralph and i zipped downtown to barrio chino in his ralphmobile, he explained that i was on my way towards building a body of work that would not only precede me but would also generate work and money and a great deal of independence and freedom, if i keep my business end of things straight. his thoughts echoed my own. all of it parallels what johnny cash described in his bio -- how, when columbia dropped him and everyone in nashville wrote him off, he could put together a great road show and tour for as long as he wanted thanks to his solid back catalog and his loyal country fans. and believe me -- NO fan of any kind of music out there anywhere is more steadfastly loyal than a country music fan. i also thought of my college years and how certain bands -- like mudhoney and r.e.m. and the butthole surfers and a few others i could name -- put out cds every fall when everyone was back in school and toured in the spring, like clockwork. at the very least, they came through town on a regular basis. and every show that they did was always sold out.
but that was a long time ago, before the dollar tanked and gas prices went sky high and touring became such a hassle. it's not smart to go on tour with a band if you aren't an established artist. and when i say established, i mean everybody knows who you are and they're sick of your song already. if you are going to play live, you have to give people the full monty, as it were -- or they won't know who you are or what they're getting. not really. the live set, it has to happen if one is to be taken seriously. and there's ways to dance around it. like video. enhanced cds. a private showcase. or strategic gigs here and there.
i suppose this is common sense -- on the rock and roll end of things. it's definitely not the way it usually happens in the r&b world. and of course, none of this means anything if you don't have any songs. and by songs i mean something that's three and a half minutes long with a memorable hook that anyone would want to sing along to, and could, if they felt so moved by what they were listening to that they would somehow emotionally attach themselves to it. don't be fooled. production is one thing, but when someone emotionally sinks their hooks into a song that you've created, that means your songs have wrapped their tentacles around them from the inside out and they are yours for life.
that connection is ultimately what sells music. it's definitely the reason why i'm still listening to boston's more than a feeling after all this time. (i see my marianne walking away-ay-AAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!)
i see my mission quite clearly -- make lots of great records, and make sure they get press and radio airplay.
- seven more songs
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- 1queenesther
- January 26th, 2009
i showed up at 3:45pm once more with feeling, in padded velcroed snowpants i could zip in and out of, and a woolen hoodie pullover, along with my usual army issue parka. i was hell-bent on maintaining a super-toasty stance for the rest of the night. only my nose would be cold. weird, the way it was already getting dark. but there was so much light in me, so much happiness. something in me was jumping for joy already even though i was only halfway done -- the songs that had lived my head for more than a year were beginning to sound like the songs we'd recorded. the second project of jazz would start tonight.
as jc let me into the maid's room, he let me know that j walter -- everyone's favorite singer/trombonist/uke player -- was running a little late. in my gut, i knew that everything would fall together the way it would supposed to happen, just as it had for the past two days. whatever nervousness i had disintegrated as i listened to the black country rock playbacks. completely and utterly sublime. worth all the work, all the sacrifice. i knew that whenever i felt a little sad or down about any of this, i could listen to those songs and jump for joy all over again.
so j walter shows up around 4:30pm with two ukeleles. one of them was his grandfather's, a 1931 martin. somewhere in there, it's decided that this is the one he'll use with me. he transposes the song i cover the waterfront and goes over the chords, finding the right shapes. and then we sing it down a few times as jason moves around us and mics us. we are going to do this facing each other, with a mic on his uike, a mic for my vocal and an overhead mic in the room. we make mistakes, we stop and start. we listen. we access. we do it again. we think we nail it. we do it one more time. and somewhere in there, we stop looking at the paper and we listen to each other. we follow each other's rythyms and all. and we do it again. and we know we nail it. and then we do it again. and that one is even better than the one we just did.
it's exactly what i wanted: something so completely naked, so bare. boiling it down to its essence, really. it was dizzying, listening to just the two of us wring so much feeling out of that song. i love it love it love it. as we stood in the control room and listened, i actually grabbed j walter and held onto him.
as we ended, the other musicians began to show up: warren smith on drums; hilliard green on upright bass and his friend joan, who just wanted to be in the room; vincent chancey on french horn; and matt ray on piano. so much of it is a blur, but basically, we went through each song before we recorded it, then laid it down with all of us playing as one, on 2 inch tape. i did my vocals in the bedroom, while everyone else was in the main room and drum room, respectively. we did three of jc's songs and three standards. that plus j walter's song with me makes seven.
at one point, it felt like a cocktail party without the alcohol.
i've known all of them for so long and i've done so many gigs with them over the years that the listening and the connecting and the bonding was understood. we sound like we've been playing together for years because, well. we have. this music doesn't fit into the jazz flavors market in a place like the ATL, but it will give anyone that loves music a reason to listen -- and jazz purists much reason to pause.
we finished past midnight -- i had to sing rough back ups on the black country rock songs for a possible male vocalist/back up singer, so he can hear what i want him to do. and i wanted rough mixes of everything. and then it was over.
fourteen songs in one weekend. now that i think about it, that's quite a lot.
- seven songs (so far)
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- 1queenesther
- January 24th, 2009
today started at high noon.
i started working on vocals right away. my friend and jason in the control room, and my voice waking up slower than i'd rather, and a chai soy latte within easy reach. and sheet music and lyrics and sunlight in a cold white room. and then naisha called. she was two hours early. would it be okay to come up and listen? and then bob hoffnar showed up 30 minutes early. so my friend runs down to the street to help him carry everything up five flights of stairs -- guitar amp and heavy padded seat and everything. more sunlight. still cold.
so there is bob, setting up his beautiful pedal steel guitar in the kitchen while i'm singing, and we're waving at each other through the glass paneled door. and then charles burnham walked up just as jc was buzzing at the door downstairs around 2pm like he said he would. all of a sudden, everyone is shoeless in the kitchen, with introductions all around. jc in a suit, looking like a frumpy accountant from the 30s as usual. charles, looking dapper in a button-down shirt and tie, and a button-front knit vest, sitting in the control room listening to bob solo. and then bob does another song that charles will play on, too. and then he's done and packing up and charles is in the not-so-cold white room and unpacking his violin, fingerpicking the guitar, playing the piano and spontaneously bursting into gospel song wonderment as jason sets up his mic and all.
what do these songs sound like? topenga canyon meets the sea islands. geechee blackgrrl singing 70s country rock filtered through her gospel soundscape. strum and twang, soulfully. bounce and sway with feeling. this sad buffalo girl and her songs of heartbreak and misery.
and did i mention that ayana shows up with her video camera to capture all this for the five minute documentary that we're going to make? i suppose you could call it an EPK (electronic press kit) but those seem to have much more in it than a show and tell video. she shot the better part of the session and caught all of charles burnham's effusive, spontaneous happenings. i figured it would be a great way for the world to meet me and get to know my sound.
somewhere within all the switching up and in and out and talking and figuring it out and all, charles and bob hug each other goodbye. it is filled with sweetness and light. it is cold and warm all at once.
naisha and jc and i carry bob's stuff downstairs to his pick-up truck and then jc goes looking for a bowl of beans and rice while we pop back upstairs and into the control room to hear what charles does with what bob has left him. i try describe to him what it is that i want. there's no technical anything in my verbal sketch. only mood and feeling and stops and starts. he takes it in, then plays. it leaves all of us gasping and it leaves me reeling. he's nailed it in one take.
"that's exactly what i wanted!" i blurt. and he says, "well -- let me do it again so i can give you more of exactly what you want!" and we all laugh. he does a fine second take. but it's clear that he got it right the first time. and then he plays on another song and knocks that out of the park. and another one. and then he is done.
somewhere in there, the guitarist shows up -- bruce edwards. unfortunately, he was downstairs buzzing while charles was soloing so we didn't hear him at the door. but no matter. it's after 4pm. the drummer sir earl grice is running late -- he's bouncing in for two hours so we can finish up basic tracks for two rock and roll songs -- but i'm unfazed because he's always right on time. i get a text from him that he's circling the block in that escalade, looking for parking. jc looks over my shoulder at my phone, reads the message and mumbles, good luck. (heh.)
everything rolls along exactly as it should.
earl finds parking and we plow through those two songs, changing the form to significantly shorten one of them -- because i want radio-friendly rock songs on any CD i do. we don't have much time because the drummer has a gig in montclair and he has to bounce by 6:15pm. but we do it, we pull it off. it feels like a miracle. he leaves, and i hug him, and i almost can't let go, i am so grateful and happy.
and then we touch and review any acoustic guitar moments in the songs. and then bruce goes home. and then we mess around with mic changes. does the neuman sound better than the mic we're using? no, not really. and all of a sudden, there's only time for rough mixes. so my friend and naisha listen as jason the engineer and i go through the seven songs and lay them down lovely.
we bid jason goodbye after washing up the dishes from afternoon tea, jumped in a cab and zipped off to a very crowded new york noodletown, where i had my favorite -- duck rolls -- to celebrate getting this far with this much. i feel like i walked all the way to east texas from west harlem. (hm. there's a song in that line somewhere...maybe i'll try to find it sometime next week.) these songs were flashes in my head for so long that it's making me a little giddy, having them out in the air, bright and shining and freefloating and unafraid. it's beyond surreal.
i don't know how long it's going to take me to get used to feeling this way. because i know this feeling isn't going anywhere.
:
oh, yeah. and you know what else? surprise! i LOVE producing music. it soooo suits me, my personality. i hear it all in my head and i am learning how to get it out of me and onto the tape. getting those performances, those moments. everyone has their style. i'm still growing mine. but i love this, i love the process, i love the sounds, all of it.
and i REALLY love the maid's room. i want to make many more records there. let's see what develops.
okay. yesterday was sir earl, naisha, bruce and i starting in mid-afternoon and laying down the basics for 5 songs that can only be described as black country rock. tomorrow is matt ray, vincent chancey, hilliard green, and warren smith doing 4 of jc's songs that sound so old and so new all at once -- very tin pan alley and full of sentiment and longing -- and one tried and true standard that i can't get enough of.
i'm hoping and praying that j. walter hawkes shows up with his ukelele at 4pm. we're going to do i cover the waterfront together -- verse and chorus, just the two of us. it will be so stark and beautiful, and depressing as all hell. at least, that's the way it sounded the last time we did it, at the apollo last september.
God is good.
- writing out loud
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- 1queenesther
- January 19th, 2009
- happy
Thankfully, I’m at the point where I can write out chord charts for all the new songs that I’ve created. When I create a chart, that means the song is as done as it could be in that moment and it’s pretty much ready to be recorded somewhere down the line, someday. I can’t sing it all out arbitrarily. These things have to be laid out just so. Ideas, themes. A mood I’m in. All of a sudden, there’s all these songs that fit. And whatever I was going through is what stitched it all together.
I’m pretty comfortable with the process of putting anything on paper -- and for me, that’s something to be truly happy about. It’s simple enough – there are no 14th chords involved – but the simplicity of it is why I do it. When everything is on paper, everyone is on the same page. Literally. Rehearsals go smoother, less time is wasted and things are much more cohesive. And it makes it easier to keep up with everything. Everybody can make their own notes or whatever. I love it.
I remember when writing stuff out was just flat-out impossible. It certainly wasn’t beyond me. My thinking was, that was something that musicians did, and I wasn’t a musician, so I didn’t do it. But I threw all of that out the window awhile ago, when I started taking songwriting seriously. I kind of had to. I had all these ideas and there was no one to get them out of me except me. So that was the impetus.
It’s definitely a growing thing. The thing is, I’m always learning and I’m always getting stuck on something so nothing feels like it’s coming easier even though I know it is because I can do things that I couldn’t before. Like write out those charts and transpose stuff and sight read and play augmented chords with both hands and so on.
My piano teacher Bill has me working towards writing everything down on sheet music – chords, melody and lyrics. I’ve done it with a few songs. When I think I’ve got it right, I usually show it to Ralph before I show it to Bill to see how far off the mark I am. And with a glance, he can see where I veered left. He explains things without talking down to me, in this really accessible, levelheaded way that makes me want to grow. Good man, that Ralph. He’s my secret weapon.
Tonight, I showed him quite a few of the new songs that I’d written out and we played through them and wrote out one of them all over again. It was a country song, a waltz, and the melody was right but the time was wonky. It’s a nice song, I think. I’m not sure it belongs on the Black Americana/electric blues CD I’m thinking of. We’ll see.
I think I’m going to want another guitar lesson from Kelvyn before I record anything.
- about that guitar lesson...
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- 1queenesther
- December 20th, 2008
i called kelvyn bell earlier in the week, to catch up on his goings on and such. i wanted a guitar lesson before the end of the year that would give me enough to chew on through the new year. times are tight, so these days i'm all about barter and trade. and since kelvyn loves my cooking, putting something delicious together for him was a no brainer. heh. thank Jesus i can cook and bake.
kelvyn is MD for the classical theater of harlem. it seems that black nativity, their latest holiday production, has got legs. they're talking a seasonal run at the apollo, a limited broadway run, and an indie art house film. defunkt is gearing up for gigs in europe next summer. he's got projects popping off here and there. i'm up to my usual hi-jinx, sort of. musicwise, i'm writing new songs, practicing the guitar and the piano, and bouncing downstairs to get a piano lesson from bill when i can. for both of us, the beat clearly goes on.
i don't know what got into me in the last year or so, but i am on a mission to play guitar and write better songs. i'm freaking on fire about it, actually. and to think i started this whole adventure wanting to learn my intervals, to become stronger as a jazz vocalist. i started with basic lessons at nyc guitar school and so far i've burned past the pain in my left hand, i'm learning bar chords, i'm learning scales. every day i grow a little more. it's like working out -- you burn through it and one day, poof, you've lost 30 pounds. you can't necessarily see the flab leaving your backside. and then one day, you slip into that pencil skirt that you didn't have a hope of zipping yourself into the year before. and then one day, i can play. really, really play. and sing while i'm playing, without having to think about it or whatever.
yeah. that's what it's like.
i told him that i'm revisiting the bessie smith material that i delved into when he and i met. once upon a time, i wanted him to transcribe a few of her songs for me and he laughed at me because thought it was just some more of that gut bucket blues he already knew. after the first song made it to paper, i remember him saying, with plenty of awe in his voice, "this is like ellington!" heh.
so i want to sit in with michael arenella's dreamland sextet on sunday because i want to sing this material again. i think it would do interesting things to my voice and my delivery. like when i had that burt bacharach kick and i had to sing do you know the way to san jose. stuff like that. but i couldn't help it. it was so rangy. and it made my voice explore and reach in ways that weren't necessarily in it's comfort zone. "la is a great big freeway..." but that's when i was singing at torch every week and i could mess around with a piano and an upright and i could sing whatever i wanted and nobody ever stopped me. i could sing stuff like chances are and let my voice sail through the room and something inside me would go wheeeee!!! you know? good times. (seriously.)
so yeah, i want to sit in with the sextet and sing bessie smith and maybe some sippie wallace and probably victoria spivey. so many lovely songs, so little time. and i'm stuck on learning the verse and the chorus for all of these ditties. they don't seem complete anymore without them.
never veered toward vintage clothes from the 20s. i'm way too curvy for the androgynous look. my bra size is a 36DD. how am i supposed to flatten those?
kelvyn is like, yeah, come over for a guitar lesson and that sheet music and stuff. it snowed all day. i braved the frozen tundra for the just-right ingredients and after i made something amazing, i tromped over to his place up the way through what felt like a mini-blizzard, with a guitar strapped to me and everytihng. crazy. he had his i'm-gonna-teach-you-this-tonight-so-pay-attention train running all around me at something like a million miles a minute but at the very end of it all, i was playing the chorus to the bessie smith song, my sweetie went away. playing it well enough for kelvyn to jump up and squeal. and that made me kind of giddy with, well, joy.
if i don't have another lesson from him until the middle of january, i'll be straight. but i think i'm going to want one sooner than that, so i'll know i'm on the right track.
- my first rhythm lesson
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- 1queenesther
- August 21st, 2008
- happy
kelvyn bell came over last night, really upbeat and jocular and laidback, with a yellow shirt on that matched his sunshiny disposition. he lives in the neighborhood -- it took him maybe 10 minutes to get here. his guitar was in a huge padded case that was dutifully strapped to his back. surprisingly, he never opened it. i showed him my music room, with the guitars hanging above the piano and he let out this long drawn out wwwwooooooowwwwwww that still makes me laugh when i think about it. i let him play the baby bennett that i like best because it's compact and light and black. later, he would perch himself on my ottoman and scribble and observe with that guitar in his lap. but first there was much fellowship. he had never met my friend and i made dinner for us (roasted salmon with couscous and broccoli rabe) and then we had the last of the red velvet cake that i'd made from scratch a few days ago. we talked nonstop, of course. he said dinner was so good, he owed me 900 lessons. and then we got down to brass tacks.
kelvyn asked me to play my favorite song, so he could see "where i was at" (it's a george jones song called (s)he thinks i still care) and then i played a happy sounding angry pop song that i'd written called somebody else's baby that he played along with me and really liked. and then he asked me what i wanted (to play rhythm guitar, and to to be better than just good at it) and then he told me what he wanted for me (to play jazz). he was like, yeah, your americana thing is on and you've got the open chords and that's important but you have to start playing bar chords. and i was like, i can play bar chords and then i played a few. and then he got excited because my fingers are strong enough to bar, so he wrote out a chart for (Take the) A Train and showed me the chords and had me moving around the neck, strumming in different ways, naming chords and notes and notes in the scales. back and forth and up and down the neck i went, like i was running up and down and hill with my hands.
oh yeah, and he made me play with a pick. blood never does that. as a matter of fact, i don't think i've ever seen a guitar pick in blood's house, ever. and one time, i actually looked. (heh.) i pulled one out of my pocket once when i was messing around with his gibson and he snorted and asked me what i was doing. i thought, i'm doing what i'm supposed to be doing, but he knew i didn't like picks and i suppose he thought i was pulling it out because he would want me to. but it's not about what he was expecting or what i was supposed to do. it's about what i'm comfortable with, what makes me happy. playing with my hands makes me happy. picks are annoying. they get in the way.
of course, kelvyn pitched all of that right out the window. he doesn't care about what i'm comfortable with -- in a good way. he's been teaching kids for years at harlem school of the arts, so he knows how to poke and prod and challenge without breaking anything and he can keep it fun. he has this academic side that's a real hassle, like making me write out charts and read things and asking me out of nowhere stuff like how many flats are in the key of F.
mostly, i realize that music is a constant learning growing thing and that it never really stops. no one knows everything about all of it. there's always something more to listen to, some new song to make. the learning never stops.
in the meantime, i'm playing bar chords in rhythm a la django, breaking bad habits and building good ones. i don't know how often i'll get a lesson from him, but between what he's given me and the piano lessons, i've got plenty to chew on while he's not around.
next lesson: roasted cornish game hens with italian sausage stuffing and scratch cake for dessert. and more bar chords, of course.
- songwriting, sort of
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- 1queenesther
- August 10th, 2008
it's the strangest thing.
there's almost always music in my head: snippets of songs, bits of lyrical ideas here and there, a melody of some sort that's running amok through my daydreams, my nightmares. everywhere, all over the place, almost all the time. more often than not, something stitches the song together -- a conversation with an old friend, a long walk, a strong memory that won't leave me alone. somewhere in there i find myself singing that song to myself, the way people hum while they're doing the laundry. and then the song takes shape on paper, on garageband, in my fingers as i play my way through it on guitar. still blaring in my head as i piece it together, like a radio i can't unplug.
does anyone else write songs this way?
sometimes the songs come at me, like schrapnel. instinctively, i duck and dodge. and then it becomes a heat-seeking missle. it won't leave me alone until i get it down in some form. and then comes another song, another melody, another idea. i don't feel like a songwriter. i feel like a song stenographer.
henry miller wrote of having wordy ideas while he was walking around without any way of writing them down, so he would let them wash over him and as he did, he would have these mental orgasms that would have him floating through the better part of his day, whether he was working a crummy day job or banging someone else's wife. you can't write everything down, i suppose. but when it's a song and not that last expansive chapter you've been aching to write, it's different. it keeps coming back at me, in waves.
it would be a beautiful thing, to sit down at a piano and crank something out the way songwriters used to do, a la the brill building. there's a skill and a joy in that, because you're working in a group, you're all together and where you are weak, someone else is strong so you find a way to fit together.
a songwriting partnership is a beautiful marriage. and yes, i'd love to marry the right musician/lyricist. but at this point, i can't imagine writing songs with someone else. at least, not until i get all of these songs out of my head.
here's to hoping that what i hear after the recording process sounds as good as it does right now.
