Sunday Diva/Three From The Hip: Carmen McRae

Sunday Diva/Three From The Hip:

Carmen McRae

In my own personal big gay church there is a wing dedicated to those who are truly unique and one of a kind. For one such fine example, look no further than...

Carmen McRae.

Vocally? No one conjures up the kind of magic this lady so effortlessly delivers.

Her sound spreads across a song like butter on bread. 

Emotionally direct. Truthful. Vulnerable. You want to find meaning in the lyrics? Look no further.

Her phrasing? Poetic. Her interp? Forthright and logical. She's a musician at heart. That's why she can take the risks, take liberties... and maintain control.

She credits Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald as influences, however one lady changed her life forever...

Billie Holiday.

She never forgot the lessons imparted and paid tribute to Lady Day in the form of a song at every concert she ever performed. 

Born in 1920, in Harlem, she began studying classical piano at  the age of eight. After winning an amateur contest at the famed Apollo Theater, she began recording; her 12 albums for the Decca label stand as an excellent testament to this woman's talent.

Unfamiliar. Get familiar. 

Come on, now... she don't bite. Much.

The gospel according to her?

Well, here are three from the hip, dropping from her lips. 

The topic? Developing As An Artist

"I imagine my interest in music must have started when I was a baby. My father was a very musical man. Not a performer, but someone who loved good music. I don’t remember this, but I’m told that as a child, I used to know all the popular tunes of the day, like most children do today because of listening to music that’s being played constantly on radio and television. I found out later on that there were two or three relatives of mine who were musically inclined. I mean musically inclined to the point of having good sounding voices. They could have been singers if they had wanted to be, but I guess they never did. So maybe that’s where whatever musical talent I have came from."

I’m the only one in my family that’s in this business. I have been fortunate: they all wished me well and they might have wished me their talent. Their talent and maybe a bit of my own have helped me get where I am today. I had to become one of two things in life: someone who was musically inclined and good enough to be able to perform or else a good audience of music. I just happen to be a performer.
When I was still in my teens, I met a woman who became my idol. She was my idol then and continued to be my idol; though she is dead now, she is still my idol. That’s Billie Holiday. I met Lady when I was very young, and she was one of the most impressive women I have ever met in my life. She really scared me as far as singing was concerned. She seemed so utterly perfect to me that I felt anything after her would be anticlimactic. Consequently, I was afraid of becoming what I had hoped to become at an earlier stage in my life. That was a very important phase to me. After that I had some minor experiences with Benny Carter’s band, Mercer Ellington’s and Count Basie’s band, just short stints which really couldn’t influence me much because I was too young. What helped me was Billie Holiday, which happened at a very early stage in my life."

"I went to Chicago and liked the city. In order to stay I had to make a living. A friend of mine who was an ex-chorus girl knew I could play and sing, which I would do just for friends, not professionally. She said, 'Why don’t you take a job playing and singing?' I said to her, 'Lulu, that sounds great, but I don’t know if I’m capable.' She said, 'I know someone who wants a girl singer and piano player. If you go and you don’t make it at least you tried.' I said, 'It’s hard for a woman like myself, who is an Aries, to take a defeat. I would rather hear nothing than hear no.' She convinced me, I went, and the man there was beautiful to me. I will never forget him. He gave me a job for two weeks, with a two-week option to play the piano and sing. He advanced me money to join the union. I stayed two weeks, and he picked up the option."

"I realized that my piano playing was very limited, because I had never intended to become a real pianist except just to play for myself or to rehearse a tune. It became essential to play better. I stayed at that job for seventeen weeks. During that time I hired a piano, and as my repertoire was very shallow, I rehearsed every day until my repertoire grew bigger. I stayed in Chicago and worked there for three and a half years, which was the greatest experience I could ever have had. I don’t care that it happened in Chicago. I don’t care where it happened, as long as it happened. I found out that I could make a living playing and singing. My idols were great pianists like Teddy Wilson and Art Tatum, so I could not be fooled by my own piano playing at all. My piano playing was just a means to get where I wanted to get as a singer."

"Going by my experience, it is one of the most important things. I don’t believe I would have whatever reputation I have today if I had not had any knowledge of the piano. That experience of studying music is what put me where I am today. Without it I would perhaps not even be singing, or of I had become a singer, it might not be as impressive as whatever it is I do now. I have said this for years and I still think it is extremely important. It is important if you want to be a lasting artist. Any artist who really knows what he or she is doing musically will last. I think it’s the non-professional professionals who fade out. They earn a lot of money in a minute, yet don’t make it somehow. After they're gone, people don’t even remember who they were. That’s why it’s very important to know your craft."

"You have to improvise. You have to have something of your own that has to do with that song."

"If it gets to the point where you have to add an extra consonant or vowel at the end of a word... you don’t even know what is being said. Embellishing lyrics is fine, if it’s just an extra word here or there; but when you make a whole new sentence out of two words that the lyricist put there because that was what he wanted? Well, I can’t see that, either."

I am jazz oriented; if it weren’t for jazz I wouldn’t be anywhere. I only want to be categorized as a good or a bad singer. I originally started as a so-called jazz singer. I was dubbed that somewhere along the line, and I never really thought about it. I really didn’t start out to be a jazz singer; I just started out to sing. But it was awfully hard, as it is for any musician, to play and not to improvise in some sort of way on the melody. If doing that made me a jazz singer, then yes, that’s what I am. I have also done many tunes that couldn’t possibly be called jazz tunes and made many single records that were not jazz."

"Either people like what I do or they don’t. They can say: 'She has a good voice, but I wish she wouldn’t do…' I don’t care, but they must not categorize me. I know what people expect when you sing a song, and if you scat, that’s jazz; that’s understandable. I hear people who are not categorized as jazz singers, such as Ray Charles, Nancy Wilson, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra and many others who all making exorbitant amounts of money. I haven’t heard them sing one song the way it was written yet. If they can deviate from the melody, which is categorized as jazz, where does it begin and where does it end? What makes one person a jazz singer and another one not a jazz singer? Is it a question of how much improvising they do? I don’t understand it."

Isn't It Romantic - Carmen McRae

Love For Sale - Carmen McRae

I'm Glad There Is You - Carmen McRae

And one last parting shot...

"Today we have contemporary music, a lot of which is fantastic. A lot of it is also garbage. I’m very happy about contemporary developments in music, because to keep doing all the rest of my life eight bars and a channel and eight bars, and 4/4-time and3/4 time would have driven me crazy. I’m happy we have 7/8 time and 5/4 time; I’m happy we’re saying something different than moon June and love dove. I love what I’m doing now. I do Beatles tunes. Incidentally, I think they are excellent songwriters. I don’t think they are so great singing or doing their thing, but their songs are fantastic. If they want to call them jazz, I don’t mind just as long as they call me to do it."

Swimming

Swimming

The water is cold.  It always is, at first.  I have to wade in bit by bit, each body part marking a limit reached; ankles, calves, knees, thighs.  There is always a big pause at the thighs.  I know once my groin hits that water, there will be a moment of total displeasure and I put that off until goaded on by my inner voice, ashamed of my cowardice. 

Waist deep, it seems pointless to put off the inevitable. 

Yet I do.

Throughout this procedure, I’ve been dipping my hands and wrists in the water.  It helps my body adapt. I rub the water on my face and head.  This also helps. 

And then, even if the body and mind is not completely convinced, there comes that moment when it’s only a matter of counting to three.  Get it over with. Get on with it. 

The sun is shining, which makes it seem warm, but there is also a slight breeze which diminishes whatever comfort the sun has to offer.  The breeze causes me to shiver.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

One, two… three!

My hands slice into the surface and soon the weight of the water rushes about me.  My eyes are shut tight, as is my mouth.  Moving through the water, I skim the surface of the bottom.  I swim until the panic takes hold.  Breath.  I’m running out.  I reason with myself.  Just a few more yards, but, no. 

Up toward the surface I go.  It always takes a bit longer than I am comfortable with.  As I break the water’s surface, my mouth opens, attempting to inhale and exhale at the same time. 

I take note of the temperature of the water and wonder why I was being such a big baby.  It’s fine.  It feels great.  I dive down once more.

I love the water.

It’s quiet down there.

The boyfriend and I have been going swimming at least once a week at this outdoor swimming hole in the boonies.  It’s part of a park reserve.  The whole facility is really well cared for.  There are changing rooms, a concession stand, and the beach is combed daily.  The pool itself has a sand/pebble bottom and is lightly chlorinated.  You can see all the way to the bottom.  At its deepest, which is at the center of the pond, it is only six feet, but that’s deep enough for me.  

Lifeguards are on duty during certain hours; otherwise you swim at your own risk.  The boyfriend and I get there as early as possible to avoid the crowds.  That means the heat of the day hasn’t yet hit, nor has the sun had ample enough time to warm up the water, so it’s always a challenge, working up the courage to dive in.

We swim laps for about an hour, commenting on each other’s form and horsing around occasionally.  I count my laps, which annoys the boyfriend, but I like to set a goal. 

Some mornings, I must say, I am not feeling it at all.  But once there, and once in the water, I am good to go, though I lose all interest once I have reached my goal for the day, which is typically about the same time that families with small children start taking over the beach.  The boyfriend and I are of one mind when it comes to children and crowds: exit stage right.

I really enjoy our time together, and am so grateful for this opportunity.  We laugh a lot.  And it costs next to nothing - twelve bucks for a season’s pass.

I’ve really missed it.  Swimming.

I used to go swimming twice a week at the YMCA, when I worked downtown.  I loved breaking up my workout routine with what I consider to be the best full body work out ever.  I’d do laps then, too

Swimming has been a part of my life ever since I can remember.  Like piano lessons and scouting, it was one of those things that my mother insisted all her children participate in.  I never thought about it as a sport, only recreation.  The local municipal pool was where I spent the bulk of my summers.

So, this summer is a return to those days.  Only this time, I am not a lone wolf.   I actually have, for the first time in my life, someone with whom to share the joys of swimming outdoors.

I still can’t believe how lucky I am to have found him.  We have much in common, while our differences tend to complement one another.  Our brains actually work on a similar wavelength. 

It’s still all new and exciting.  A little scary.  A little thrilling.  A little challenging.

Like dipping a toe into a swimming hole first thing in the morning.

Toes and feet, first.  Then the ankles, the calves...

One, two… three!

Sure, you wish you could dive right in...

...but it's best if you take your time.