In Search of the Authentic Jazz Voice
“In Search of the Authentic Jazz Voice” is the title of my presentation to the Second IJVC in Helsinki in October, held at the Sibelius Academy. Here’s the abstract:
Jazz accommodates diverse and distinct voices. Besides the ‘Greats’, think of Johnny Hartman, Carmen McRae, Andy Bey, Abbey Lincoln, Mel Tormé, Anita O’Day, Mark Murphy or Blossom Dearie. Our study of distinct jazz voices and approaches to story telling, rhythmic gesture, expression, and improvising, signals our membership of the jazz tradition. Yet we want to sound distinctly and authentically ourselves. So how to reconcile being authentic to tradition as we search for personal authenticity in the creative present? This presentation evaluates jazz voices in terms of vocal tone, production, style and personal expression, demonstrating how the evaluation system can help performers and teachers to model distinct voices and better hear and understand what is distinctive about one’s own voice.
I’ll be in excellent company with vocalist-educators Deborah Brown and Damon Meader who are Keynote Speakers for IJVC2.
