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downsizing a duo


pogo97

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I'm rehearsing with two different women in hopes of performing as a duo. One duo would be jazz-age pop and the other old country. I'm a full-time musician and have listened to and played in both idioms for fifty years. Neither of the women are full-time musicians and neither seem to understand that this stuff takes work.

 

Jazz-age partner is literate and a well-trained singer but didn't recognise Billie Holiday when I played her "What a Little Moonlight Can Do." Hadn't heard of Billy Holiday. Need I say more? Old Country singer knows the repertory cold and plays goodish campfire-level guitar, but sounds more like Kitty Wells than I might prefer and -- here's the killer -- can't sing harmony. Neither of these problems will go away without a LOT of work on their part and I don't think that's going to happen.

 

I think I'll draw back and focus on solo, which is mostly what I've always done.

 

So. . . how to let them go gently.

1) cancel rehearsals and be generally unavailable until they get the hint (I've seen this used with great effect in all manner of relationships)

2) phone and say "it isn't working"

3) email and say "it isn't working"

4) other

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Be honest and up front with them [and it is Billie, not Billy, btw...shame on you!]. Frankly, many people don't know the greats of the classic jazz era like Holliday, Waters, Horne any more, but that is not a reason to not work with them...I deal with this all the time, people who are not aware of Louis Jordan, or the Nat Cole Trio [his later stuff, yes], or Charles Brown for instance.

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Frankly' date=' many people don't know the greats of the classic jazz era like Holliday, Waters, Horne any more, but that is not a reason to not work with them...I deal with this all the time, people who are not aware of Louis Jordan, or the Nat Cole Trio [his later stuff, yes'], or Charles Brown for instance.

 

Maybe so, but I'm looking for an equal partner, not a student. If she was just hiring me as an accompanist, I wouldn't much care. But my hope was to focus on the jazz age -- 20s 30s -- and to be ignorant of Billie Holiday seems pretty serious. It suggests to me that she doesn't really know *anything* about jazz age music. Like wanting to sing 70s hard rock and not know who AC/DC were.

 

(It's Holiday, with one "l" by the way. ahem)

 

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'What a Little Moonlight Can Do' is, IMHO, not necessarily the most recognizable BH tune, though [plus, IIRC Benny Goodman took the long intro on that session, BH doesn't even get into it until halfway in...].

'Good Morning Heartache', 'Strange Fruit', 'Body and Soul', 'Don't Explain', 'All of Me' or 'God Bless the Child' are far more associated with her. Arguably, they don't swing like 'Moonlight', but torch tunes were far more in her wheelhouse.

 

Back to the real issue: Just tell her what you've said here. You are not looking to train anyone, you need someone already up to speed who can bring the 'A' game from day one.

 

Frankly, the Kitty Wells clone seems like an interesting opportunity, if you can/are willing to do multiple sets of KW songs, plus I'll bet she can cover Patsy Cline*, Jean Shepard* [omg, she just passed away today!!!], Patti Page and Skeeter Davis material, even if it sounds like KW ;)

 

 

*little known factoid: Jean Shepard's hubby, Hawkshaw Hawkins, was on the plane with Patsy Cline when it crashed

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How did Jazz Age react when you played the Billie Holiday song? Did she show any genuine enthusiasm? If it seemed to light a spark I would stick with her, but not if she doesn't have any real affinity for that era and genre.

FWIW, I have never heard of that song either. I play about a hundred standards from memory but with no focus on any particular era.

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I guess it's not one of the famous ones, but man! they swing! But it couldn't be anyone else. She made a couple of perceptive comments but didn't shout hallelujah. It's not that she didn't recognise Billie; it's that she had no idea of who Billie Holiday was. She's had a half century to find her way to Billie Holiday and hasn't. She also cancels rehearsals and doesn't do her homework. I want a partner who is already close to speed. I'm pretty happy with my solo chops right now and I don't want a partner who, at least in the short run, will make me sound worse.

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Billie has a very distinctive voice and any serious Jazz singers would recognize What A Little Moonlight and Billie's voice, but there is a flip side... I know of a great many singers that could pass the "Billie test", some of them professionals some of them hobbyists, but I don't know if any of them would want to form a duo unless there were extenuating circumstances - cruise ship work, marriage and so on. Mostly, they would want to be in charge and not share the stage. If I wanted to start a duo, where billing, bookings and the limelight were shared, I would probably have to find someone that wanted to learn about Jazz, and didn't mind putting in some rehearsal time.

 

The real question might be, can the Jazzer sing and learn quickly, and get you more work than you could as a solo? If so, no harm in trying. If not, solo it is.

 

Now, Country music without harmony could be tricky unless it's material that just has ooh's and aah's like Crazy or He Stopped Loving Her Today. If it's Country Rock or New Country - I'm not so sure.

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Country singer just emailed ". . . rehearsals are going to be a problem for me. Do you think we should wait till the new year when I might have some time off in the day? Perhaps I can work on my guitar playing and potential to sing harmony this fall." Which is dandy.

 

edit: And jazz singer played locally with her old (and desperately underrehearsed) pop trio last weekend without telling me. So I think I'll just let things slide and get back to focussing on my own gigs and practise. Nothing major lost except a little time.

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so 'jazz singer' is really a pop singer who would like to sing jazz...and gigging with an 'underrehearsed' band is never a good idea.

 

So wait for the KW clone to get her act together..a few months is no biggie.

 

Thinking about country singers...funny story, sort of...back in the mid 80s, an old friend and I were looking to branch out and do some country gigs* [which on the outskirts of L.A. were easy to get at the time], and we wanted a female vocalist to round out the sound. So he ran an ad and got a few responses. The most promising was from a lady who said she was 'Patsy Cline's evil twin'; I was expecting an 'outlaw' country singer with some serious pipes....but when she arrived at the audition, I knew we'd been had. All attitude and costume, no vocal range [or apparent ability except to yell lyrics], no real feel for country music, magenta and purple hair, tats, facial piercings and a black 'cowgirl ensemble'...an escapee from the local punk scene [which I knew well having done sound for a number of nascent punk bands like X, Black Flag, etc.], and weighing in at about 275 lbs. Patsy's 'evil twin' indeed...but she was definitely a progenitor of cow punk...

 

 

*we eventually formed a 'schizophrenic' band which gigged under different names: Desert Rose, doing straight and 'new' country; Small Crowd, doing folk rock and pop, and Mall Crow [name achieved by removing 1st and last letters of Small Crowd] doing power trio blues-rock.

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so 'jazz singer' is really a pop singer who would like to sing jazz...and gigging with an 'underrehearsed' band is never a good idea.

 

She said things like 'performing is the best rehearsal.' And there are certainly lots of local players who buy into it. I say things like 'you only get one chance to make a good first impression.' And I'll stick with that.

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No, I believe Chris Hillman 'stole' our name; we were using it in the late 80s...all over So Cal [LA, Ventura, OC, SBC, Kern]. We didn't bother with a TM, since it was not a big deal to us, and we 'folded' that performing unit in 1990. We did get some interesting calls from venues where we had performed after their album came out, though...:eek:

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So do I. She responded to a Kijiji ad I put up entitled "you know who Kitty Wells is" so I got what I asked for. She's actually quite a find but not the quick study I'd hoped for -- too much other life stuff. We'll get together casually I suspect -- much more fertile.

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