Happy New Year! I know it’s been ages since I last wrote and to be quite honest there hasn’t been too much new to tell except I did present a staged reading of one piece from my one woman show and it was well received. The response was almost overwhelming. I performed it during a cabaret show I did in late November. Since then I have mostly been scraping by as I experience some of the toughest economic times of my life. I have been poorer in the past, but I had no bills in those days. Yet, I remain optimistic. There is a bright spot and it’s in my future. I am going to Paris to sing in a Jazz Opera. How’s that for news?
The composer is a French harpist named Isabelle Olivier. She’s a gentle soul, a great musician and definitely a go-getter! I am very impressed with her. She makes that harp sound like a guitar, steel pedal guitar and a bass. She bangs on it with her hands or mallets for percussion. It’s crazy! The gig was passed on to me by the great jazz singer Dee Alexander who is a dear acquaintance of mine for many years. I was thrilled to hear about the project. I haven’t been to Europe in years. I was honored that Dee thought of me! Then I saw the music: Charts for days, notes everywhere, lyrics for the entire show that need to be memorized and performance-ready in just a few weeks. It is a challenge to say the least. This is definitely not the Blues, or Pop music.
Isabelle wrote the piece which is entitled “Don’t Worry, Be HaRpy” over two years and its theme is sweet, cool and quirky. There’s plenty of room for improvisation and vocalizing – in one piece we are chirping like birds and shouting out phrases in another. There are three other singers in the cast (it’s really an opera) all young and full of music degrees and theory and talent of course – loads of talent. I was intimidated at first (all of that music theory they had made me feel like a faker idiot) but they are so dear and supportive and well, Mama can “do the thang” when she puts her mind to it! The ability to sight-sing would have been a huge benefit at first, but we won’t be reading charts. This show will be performed off-book. There’s staging and blocking. It takes me right back to my musical theater days!
I actually have only one solo and a duet and the rest is ensemble singing – easy right? But because I am replacing Dee there was a caveat. I have to perform the entire opera by myself for three performances in Paris and Velizy, France. So I have to learn all of the parts (male and female leads) and perform them with a smaller version of the band than we are using with the full cast. Portraying the multiple characters and genders didn’t frighten me at all – Hell, that’s the easy part. The hard part was absorbing and learning the material and it’s not easy stuff. The melodies and lyrics are actually coming fairly easily to me once I bear down: repetition, repetition. But remember this material is Jazz, so it doesn’t follow rules. Things don’t always resolve, a couple tunes change time signatures twice in the same song, triplets everywhere – all kinds of crazy challenging wonderful stuff.
So I hired someone to go through the charts and create rehearsal tracks of the songs so I could have a jump-start for our first of five marathon rehearsals which I also recorded. I was so stressed out before that first rehearsal that my back went out! I was just terrified that I would be the big idiot in the room. I never doubted my singing ability but when confronted with Berklee School of Music alums and the like … well, you get what I’m saying. But something inside of me gave me the will and the the belief that I could do this project and you know what? I am doing it! And frankly, everyone was struggling with this material at first. I have become accustomed to the way Isabelle writes and I really do LOVE the material. It’s a gift to me. Another thing to build up my resume and self confidence that being broke and broke down will chip away over time. Talk about leaving one’s comfort zone! Oh and and I will be in Paris. Bonus!
It’s a blessing on so many levels.
So Paris, here I come! I will be blogging from France. Stay tuned!
