kerubiino wrote:
> I saw Ms. Fleming on her recital tour a couple of years ago and she sang some
jazz numbers as encores.
My reaction was very similar to yours: it didn't sound right. I
believe it is extremely difficult to do both genres well. She may
have sung jazz while a student but now her vocal style is very
defined and the jazz just sounded 'classical'.>>
I have heard the same encores, and I enjoyed them a great deal. It should be
said that I don't spend a lot of time listening to jazz singers, so I don't have
the traditional jazz style in my head as a preconception. So I listened without
prejudice and enjoyed hearing her fantastic vocal technique (she can do ANYTHING
she wants with her voice, and did) put to the service of Duke Ellington, which
it turned out I liked. Maybe it wasn't what most of us think of as "jazz", but
it was also different from the way she performed her song repertoire. I'd say
most of the sellout, KC Concert Hall audience I was with enjoyed it also.
Though my friends who were there who didn't like it as I did.
Perhaps, too, the fact that she was accompanied by Stephen Blier, who played
this repertoire with no sheet music on the piano and with a humonguous smile on
his face, contributed to my reaction. (Anybody hear him playing rock songs for
opera characters on the Texaco Opera Quiz during the Met Opera Broadcast earlier
this season?)
Peggy
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Margaret Harrison, Alexandria, Virginia, USA
"Music for a While Shall All Your Cares Beguile"
mailto:peggyh@i...
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