(Review/Photo
by Peter Jones)
The room was swarming with family, friends and admirers, but most of
all, singers on Sunday night in the acoustically perfect Hall 1 at
London’s Kings Place. Yes, there were more singers than you could shake a
tuning fork at. And it seemed as if they all personally knew choirmaster
extraordinaire Pete Churchill and his wife Nikki Iles, or had at the very least
participated in a vocal workshop at some time with the dynamic, charismatic
Churchill. It was, in short, a musical love-fest.
The pianist, composer and arranger has been immersed for seven
years in rendering the Gil Evans/Miles Davis Miles Ahead album into
vocalese, and performing it with the 23-strong London Vocal Project. In order
to achieve this Churchill has crossed the Atlantic a number of times to
collaborate with the legend that is Jon Hendricks, helping to add the great
man’s lyrics to the themes and solos on that epoch-busting album. Way back in
1957, Hendricks, Dave Lambert and Annie Ross prepared the ground with their Sing
a Song of Basie album, an early exercise in multi-tracking, on which all
Basie’s instrumental parts were sung rather than played.
It’s not easy getting humans to sing like trumpets or alto saxophones. And
never mind that the chords are rich - and sometimes richly crunchy. You find
yourself holding your breath just listening to it, wondering how anyone could
sing that low, or that high, let alone making it sound as good as this.
Not surprisingly, Hendricks wanted it done right. ‘Each singer,’ he
stated in an email written in 2010, ‘must have a copy of this album, to which
they should listen first thing each morning and the last thing each night until
the performance. No other way will they be able to keep pace with the endless
subtleties and nuances the work is fraught with.’
It helped that they had Hendricks’s daughter Michele as one of the
soloists, along with New York veteran Kevin Fitzgerald Burke and also a woman
introduced by Churchill as a ‘national treasure’ – Norma Winstone.
Before the main event they limbered up with some other tunes with
Hendricks lyrics: It’s Sand, Man, followed by Summertime; then
I’ll Bet You Thought I’d Never Find You, introduced by Burke as the first
song to be written about stalking. His vocal solo was fabulously trumpet-like.
Then Hi-Fly (sung by Winstone); Ev’rybody’s Boppin’ (sung by
Michele Hendricks, with an amazing high-velocity scat solo); and finishing off
with Li’l Darlin’ and O Pato.
But it was the album that everyone had come to hear, and the Project
did not disappoint. As everyone who has heard it knows, Miles Ahead is a
sweet and lyrical listen, but tunes like My Ship or Lament reveal
new harmonic beauties when sung by a choir of this calibre. It was a highly
emotional occasion for Churchill, particularly as he told the story of Blues
for Pablo, whose lyrics Jon Hendricks had to change when he learned from
composer Gil Evans that it was about the Spanish Civil War, and not what he’d
thought it was about.
Hendricks has been working on this project since the late Sixties, and
was finally rewarded last February in New York when he witnessed this ensemble
perform it for the first time. Tonight they were sensitively backed by Dave
Whitford on bass and Steve Brown on drums.
Peter
Jones
3 comments :
This got me back to listening to Miles Ahead again. Reminding me, as if I need to be reminded, what a wonderful arranger/composer was Gil Evans. Listen to his arrangements for Claude Thornhill and how far advanced they were of the other swing bands of the time. This vocal project, however, needs to be heard far and wide - are you listening Sage Gateshead?
It was sublime. And you missed something special if you weren't there. Make sure you buy the album when it comes out.
It was one of the best things I've ever seen. Totally joyful and goosebumpy throughout!
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