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September 17, 2004
TT: Brush with greatness
I went to Joe's Pub on Thursday to hear the debut of what may ultimately evolve into something of a vocal supergroup. Voices Collective consists of Theo Bleckmann, Peter Eldridge, Kate McGarry, Lauren Kinhan, and Luciana Souza, all of whom have formidable individual reputations (and one of whom has figured frequently and prominently on this blog right from the start).Here's how the Joe's Pub Web site described them:
Voices Collective is a meeting of some of New York's most talented and diverse jazz singers...For this evening at Joe's Pub, they make their world premiere, uniting all their creative talents; presenting original compositions from each member and resetting them for five voices and a trio. Peter Eldridge and Lauren Kinhan are members of New York Voices and also have solo projects of their own in the original song writing arena; Theo Bleckmann is one of the vocal magicians with Meredith Monk and his own genre-bending work; Kate McGarry has been gracing New Yorkers with her soulful timbre for many years; Luciana Souza has been at the Pub in all her incarnations, Brazilian, jazz, and poetry-inspired.
The extreme stylistic diversity of these five singers is part of what made their first performance as a group so thrilling, ranging as it did from a heartfelt version by McGarry of Neil Young's "Old Man" to an electronically enhanced duet by Bleckmann and the avant-garde jazz guitarist Ben Monder, a member of the trio that accompanied Voices Collective and another of my favorite New York-based instrumentalists. Most of the ensemble vocals, including Souza's gorgeous unaccompanied setting of Joni Mitchell's "Shadows and Light," were sung in skin-tight five-part harmony à la the Singers Unlimited, and much of the original material, including a brand-new standard-style ballad by Eldridge called "Busy Being Blue," was immediately memorable.
I won't kid you: the first set last night was rough around the edges. All five singers were visibly nervous (and occasionally sounded that way). To forge a unified, smoothly finished ensemble sound is more than sufficiently tricky under the easiest of circumstances. For five stylistically disparate vocalists to do it while singing such demanding material is...well, let's just say they set themselves one hell of an obstacle course. But the promise outweighed the problems, and the palpable excitement of the crowd clearly buoyed up the members of Voices Collective. They all assured me after the show that this won't be the last time they step up to the plate together, and my guess is that they mean it. I hope so.
As if all that weren't enough for one weeknight, Souza announced from the stage that Jonatha Brooke was in the audience, a piece of news that just about made me fall out of my seat, seeing as how I'd heard her live album for the first time last Friday and had an instantaneous on-the-spot conversion experience. I couldn't spot her in the semidarkness of the club, nor did I run into her backstage, but the mere fact that we happened to show up at the same gig a mere six days after she became my new musical superhero struck me as nothing short of omenesque.
Have I mentioned lately that New York City is the coolest place on the planet? Because it is.
Posted September 17, 2004 12:01 PM
