Crossover Musicians

[papeetepatrick]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/arts/mus...=1&ref=arts

This is by far the best article I've read on 'crossover' and what it can mean and has meant. Focussing on Renee Fleming's new Decca release in a week or so, Tommasini outlines the problems we often do hear in these attempts of classical singers and musicians to make their way into other musical worlds (or 'visiting a paralle universe', as Ms. Fleming calls it (gimme a break, frankly), with perhaps some hyperbole if you don't get all the way there--and I didn't get the impression that she did quite, and never have thought anyone quite did).

What do people at BT think of crossover musicians? Are there some you think are totally successful? A couple of examples come to mind, some suggested by the article. Jean-Yves Thibaudet is one of my favourite pianists, but his Bill Evans record is just good, as I perceive it: It's not loose and easy enough, you still hear something too formal in it, and I only wanted to listen to it once. Most of Kiri Tekanawa's pop recordings don't convince me, although there will be an exception, as 'Cockeyed Optimist' on her South Pacific album is perfect. Article does remind me that, for some unknown reason, I've never listened to 'Classical Barbra', and I need to do this. It was so badly received at the time, I stayed away from it, mainly because that was the period she seemed to think she could do anything. Some of the opera singers sound okay on the R & H things, but he mentioned Birgit Nilsson in 'I Could Have Danced All Night', which I once heard. It sounds great till the last high C, which is this real Nilsson-sharpie kind of note, literally either a C # or the quarter- (or third-) tone in between C and C#, but sometimes she pierced the ears anyway.

One thing I might add, even though it's well-known and obvious, is that within the realms of pop and jazz there's already so much specialization, that you would rather hear Dionne Warwick sing 'Alfie' than Barbra, but usually rather hear Barbra sing 'Sleepin' Bee' than anybody; not really want to hear Dionne's Cole Porter all that much (though it's not bad), never want to hear the old pop-country 50s singer Brenda Lee sing Cole Porter (although I like her countryish pop songs, including a countrified version of a Manos Hadjidakis song)--Sinatra and Ella are going to be better at most of the Cole Porter, as is Merman, and the list is endless. Plus there are things like Dolly Parton's attempt to 'crossover' from country to pop, which is where I first heard the term, and I think '9 to 5' may have been the only truly successful song in that venture.

I wouldn't care to even listen to the Fleming CD, frankly, because I respect her more than quite love her as an opera singer even. But the article is very thought-provoking, and has interesting observations on corny Domingo crossovers, Eileen Farrell's early efforts in these areas (he liked her things more than I did), and numerous others. Joshua Bell has done a lot of crossover, and has sometimes been accompanied by a jazz pianist, Simon Mulligan in his classical concerts; I imagine that works pretty well, as did his duets with Kristin Chenoweth on 'Glitter and be Gay', I believe, in CP a few years ago.

Thoughts, please.

[Ray]

I liked September Songs, that 1997 CD of rock singers covering Kurt Weill, especially Elvis Costello singing "Lost in the Stars" and Lou Reed doing "September Song." But I suppose Weill is more amenable to crossover interpretations than a lot of other composers...

(The CD has other kinds of singers on it too--Teresa Stratas and Betty Carter, for instance.)

[dirac]

Nice article and thank you for putting it up for discussion, papeetepatrick. I don't much care for opera singers doing pop but if they want to try something different and maybe make a little money, why not. Kern, with his roots in operetta, writes melodies that attract classical singers, sometimes with agreeable results. But I tend to think of such efforts they way I do of jazz-rock fusion: why fuse two things that were perfectly fine apart?

Article does remind me that, for some unknown reason, I've never listened to 'Classical Barbra', and I need to do this. It was so badly received at the time, I stayed away from it, mainly because that was the period she seemed to think she could do anything.

I would be interested to hear what you think. I haven't listened to the album in years, but I thought it was an honorable and well meant effort to test her range.

Without having heard Fleming's latest effort, I would agree with Tommasini that there is the matter of target audience - was there anyone asking for this?

[kfw]

Without having heard Fleming's latest effort, I would agree with Tommasini that there is the matter of target audience - was there anyone asking for this?

Not me, that's for sure. I didn't care for what little I heard of Fleming singing jazz, and I don't listen to contemporary pop, and I wasn't even going to read this article until Patrick posted it. But I'm impressed with the clips, with how well she's adapted her voice to the songs and how little she sounds like an opera singer.

Lou Reed doing "September Song," yeah, I loved that. It suits his voice and the song sounds like something he could have written. Jim Morrison did "Alabama Song" very well too.

[papeetepatrick]

Thanks, kfw, I thought she sounded best in 'Mad World', but I don't basically buy this. As Tommasini says, she's managed to get this 'indie rock voice', but that is still within the classical realm of cultivating something. I mean, wouldn't you rather hear Kate Bush or the Dixie Chicks any day? There's is theirs, not 'bonsai'ed'. It doesn't come across as natural the way Deborah Harry's does. I thnk opera singers do have their best luck with Broadway, things like Bernstein, Sondheim, R & H, some Gershwin, rarely Ellington, though. TeKanawa's pop things are pretty bad if they're not B'way and even then the batting average is not that great, but at least she never gave the impression of wanting to 'get funky', this doesn't work for me, because you can't not know it's Renee Fleming, so it comes across as something of an ego trip, which is all right, but not that interesting except to her die-hard fans. She's a great opera singer, even if not my favourite. Some of the things I've heard are truly stellar, and she has a smoky sound that is very attractive sometimes. In other cases, as with the big Massenet aria 'Il est doux, il est bon' from 'Herodiade', I've listened to her version and TeKanawa's next to each other, and TeKanawa has the more beautiful timbre for that one. I probably prefer Kiri's voice and personality somewhat, although I can see what attracts people to Fleming. She probably can just afford to do this, and thinks of it as a diversion. It's okay, nothing great. I'd go a step further than Tommasini: I'd say it's not even 'crossover', it's 'classical pop/rock'.

This explains what I don't like about the whole concept:

Adapting her voice to rock took hard work. She and Mr. Kahne realized that it was best for her to sing in the range of her speaking voice, which is sometimes two octaves lower. Any idea that she would discard technique and just jam was quashed by Mr. Kahne, who, Ms. Fleming writes, enforced “stringent stylistic rules,” including a softening of diction and rhythm, less overt drama and no dropping of the ends of the phrases.

Tommasini mentioned Annie Lennox, but I think we can safely say that Ms. Fleming is never going to pull THIS off. Man, does this sound hot:

[papeetepatrick]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/01/arts/mus...sover.html?8dpc

Here's more, for anyone interested. I will read it later and see if there's anything worthwhile in it.

[Kathleen O'Connell]

Sigh. I'm not a huge Fleming fan. I thought her jazz album stank for exactly the same reason that I find her classical singing generally grating: she's not particularly musical. Her undeniably gorgeous instrument tempts her into a degree of self-indulgent phrasing that a more modestly endowed singer wouldn't even think to try. (Tommasini's take: "Ms. Fleming has fared well with her own ventures into jazz, scatting away and shaping phrases with the subdued beauty of Betty Carter." He and I must agree to disagree on the extent to which her phrasing exhibits "subdued beauty.")

The clips from her new pop album sound way too slickly over-produced and tidy for indie rock. Yes, Arcade Fire's members variously play piano, violin, viola, cello, double bass, xylophone, glockenspiel, keyboard, French horn, accordion, harp, mandolin and hurdy-gurdy in addition to guitars and drums, but they hardly sound like studio musicians backing a vocal track. And why covers? It seems as if no one ever thinks to cross over with original material, except maybe Elvis Costello and Paul Simon.

My current favorite guilty pleasure crossover track: David Byrne and Rufus Wainwright singing the duet "Au fond du temple saint" from Bizet's opera The Pearl Fishers. Neither Byrne nor Wainwright even bothers to approximate classically trained singing, but they (Byrne especially) deliver the duet with the kind of overt emotionality that 19th century opera demands. Byrne doesn't sing the material like he respects it; he sings it like he loves it.

[kfw]

(Tommasini's take: "Ms. Fleming has fared well with her own ventures into jazz, scatting away and shaping phrases with the subdued beauty of Betty Carter."

What I want to know is when Betty Carter was ever subdued! (And I'm not even considering the fact that the first time I saw her she was wearing a spiderweb print dress).

[richard53dog]

Sigh. I'm not a huge Fleming fan. I thought her jazz album stank for exactly the same reason that I find her classical singing generally grating: she's not particularly musical. Her undeniably gorgeous instrument tempts her into a degree of self-indulgent phrasing that a more modestly endowed singer wouldn't even think to try. (Tommasini's take: "Ms. Fleming has fared well with her own ventures into jazz, scatting away and shaping phrases with the subdued beauty of Betty Carter." He and I must agree to disagree on the extent to which her phrasing exhibits "subdued beauty.")

I used to be a huge Fleming fan but no more so. Mostly I'm pretty much in line with Kathleen's comments, Fleming doesn't really sound authentic in the jazz/pop stuff she does and a lot of her operatic/classical singing is being taken over by jazzy, very unstylish type treatments. A lot of her singing is horribly distorted.

I differ a bit from KAthleen in thinking that Fleming IS musical, it's her judgement that's all messed up. She's not consistently bad in her operatic stuff, sometimes with a strong conductor she stays with the program and doesn't turn the music into a taffy pull with all the rhythms pulled out of shape and slippin' and slidin'. But it's hard to predict whether it will be the good Fleming or the bad Renee that will show up that night.

It's sad, I really thought she was the best thing since sliced bread when I heard her on a broadcast from Lyric Opera of Chicago in Floyd's Susannah back in the early 90's. But by the end of that decade I was very wary .

This clip is a very nice reminder of that. From 1995:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk9JV3gpwvc

If only she would sing in this appropriate way today.

[Kathleen O'Connell]

richard53dog: I absolutely agree that when Fleming is on she's transcendent. (That "pretty" in the opening phrase of "Ain't it a pretty night" is thankless to sing, and Fleming makes it sound as easy as a sigh. Thanks for posting the link!) But to me, judgment--conscious or otherwise--is part and parcel of genuine musicality. So, when Fleming turns an aria into a taffy-pull, I'm inclined to judge her basic musicality harshly.

Anyway, I don’t mind Fleming singing not–opera; I do mind that she sounds like she’s pulling a Meryl Streep — i.e., impersonating a pop singer rather than figuring out where her instrument, her sensibility, and the music could meet on equal terms.

Back to Tommasini: There’s crossover and there’s crossover. Fleming’s is the PBS pledge drive bonus–CD–with–membership version of crossover; the alternative is engaging with music that genuinely intrigues you and trusting that the audience will find you. (The narrative laid out in Tommasini's article is one in which two record producers found Fleming and pitched her on doing a pop crossover album rather than one in which Fleming found Arcade Fire or whoever, loved the music, and decided she had to perform it, come what may.)

So, I found it intriguing when I stumbled across this review of string quartet Brooklyn Rider’s latest album on Pitchfork*, of all places:

“Dominant Curve succeeds in its attempt to bridge a classic work of a great composer with the work of that composer's stylistic descendants. Debussy's music and ideas still hold a lot of creative possibilities today. In performing the work of the man himself, Brooklyn Rider bring the "String Quartet in G Minor" vividly to life. On surrounding pieces, they extend invitations to listeners of modern minimalism and post-rock. With more work like this, Brooklyn Rider seem poised to earn attention on their own terms-- regardless of which composers they work with.”

Which prompted me to dredge up Alex Ross’ 2004 New Yorker article about the divide between popular and classical music, from the perspective of “a thirty-six-year-old white American male who first started listening to popular music at the age of twenty.”

I hate “classical music”: not the thing but the name. It traps a tenaciously living art in a theme park of the past. It cancels out the possibility that music in the spirit of Beethoven could still be created today. It banishes into limbo the work of thousands of active composers who have to explain to otherwise well-informed people what it is they do for a living. The phrase is a masterpiece of negative publicity, a tour de force of anti-hype. I wish there were another name. I envy jazz people who speak simply of “the music.” Some jazz aficionados also call their art “America’s classical music,” and I propose a trade: they can have “classical,” I’ll take “the music.”

Tommasini's article focuses on "crossover" as a record-label genre; Ross tries to figure out how we got to a place where it seems necessary.

* Pitchfork focuses primarily on indie rock, but covers other popular music genres as well. It’s as derided for its writers’ sometimes self-conscious, mannered reviewing as Fleming is for her sometimes self-conscious, mannered singing.

PS - I like Dominant Curve too. You can listen to clips here:brooklynrider.com

[dirac]

(The narrative laid out in Tommasini's article is one in which two record producers found Fleming and pitched her on doing a pop crossover album rather than one in which Fleming found Arcade Fire or whoever, loved the music, and decided she had to perform it, come what may.)

I don't think the backstory makes much of a difference. If the end product is poor, it would only bring to mind Wilde's line about killing what you love. It doesn't matter how passionate you are about the music if you don't have the chops and the range for it. Fleming was approached with a challenging opportunity that could have made her look very foolish and decided to take it. Nothing wrong with that, surely.

That said, I agree that these days Fleming has become too much the diva - and not in a good way.

[papeetepatrick]

Anyway, I don’t mind Fleming singing not–opera; I do mind that she sounds like she’s pulling a Meryl Streep — i.e., impersonating a pop singer rather than figuring out where her instrument, her sensibility, and the music could meet on equal terms.

But that is what she's doing, and so the second thing you've outlined, more naturalistic, might be finding her way toward 'another music'. She can never meet this music 'on equal terms' no matter what she does, unless she decided it matter more to her than opera-then maybe she could get out in Madison Square Garden or some stadium and fill it out like Annie Lennox does. Then maybe somebody will take it seriously aside from her huge fans. I had somebody shoving her down my throat around 2002 constantly, I'm surprised I ended up liking the few things I've listened to as much as I do, but I don't find her personally charismatic (although she is beautiful visually.) I have yet to hear an opera singer do anything well but B'way and operetta, which are close enough and formal enough. They do not know how to 'swing' as if they were born with it, and that's what it has to have.

I hate “classical music”: not the thing but the name. It traps a tenaciously living art in a theme park of the past. It cancels out the possibility that music in the spirit of Beethoven could still be created today. It banishes into limbo the work of thousands of active composers who have to explain to otherwise well-informed people what it is they do for a living. The phrase is a masterpiece of negative publicity, a tour de force of anti-hype. I wish there were another name. I envy jazz people who speak simply of “the music.” Some jazz aficionados also call their art “America’s classical music,” and I propose a trade: they can have “classical,” I’ll take “the music.”

The term is imperfect, but it's the best we can do. 'Concert music' is sometimes used, but it doesn't cover quite as much, I don't think it includes opera or even ballet music unless performed by just the orchestra in a concert hall. I'm just glad we can agree that it also refers to Haydn, Mozart as the 'classical period' and that the term doesn't get us any more confused than we are.

Tommasini's article focuses on "crossover" as a record-label genre; Ross tries to figure out how we got to a place where it seems necessary.

I can't see too much in that argument. And jazz people who "speak simply of 'the music'" are at least as imprecise as 'classical music (the term)', and it even sounds a little 'insider-smug'. Broadway music is not 'classical music' and neither is rock nor r & b nor jazz. What does happen is we get 'classical music for dummies', like much of the minimalist music, which is very often like one refined migraine after another (who'd know that Andriesson's 'De Staat' was about Plato's Republic without reading the programme notes?). In any case, I used to know people who were involved in pop-rock but whose only concert-going was Philip Glass and Steve Reich. Maybe we do have a transition, and the crossover didn't work (although it's considered to have.) And esp. if you talk about pop artists going into classical music as Classical Barbra did, you have a problem because, to a great degree, pop artists cannot even do a bad job of, say, opera singing or lieder. I'm sure Barbra's is presentable and technically adept or she wouldn't have allowed it into the public arena, but even though there are highly skilled jazz pianists, with fingers as good as any classical player, I do remember Gary Giddins in his book from about 2000 talking about the technique of a classical pianist being something that wouldn't automatically follow for a jazz player. And it does work the other way around (at least technically, if not quite as authentically as, say, McCoy Tyner or Red Garland--there are some good, if not great, classical pianists who can do jazz well). Not unlike the technique that modern dancers not trained in ballet just are not going to be able to do. You may have the most superior dance sense and creativity, as Martha Graham did, but there was never any question that we'd see her doing Aurora or Tchai Pas de Deux.

[Kathleen O'Connell]

Fleming was approached with a challenging opportunity that could have made her look very foolish and decided to take it. Nothing wrong with that, surely.

Absolutely nothing at all! I do think the outcome might have been different artistically (but not necessarily any better) had Fleming been drawn to the music rather than brought to it.

Fleming (who is now 50) is likely in the late afternoon of her operatic career and may be feeling around for what comes next. Not that indie rock covers is it, of course, but the new album may have been an experiment in completely detaching her voice from her accustomed genre just to see what else she could do with it besides show tunes and jazz standards.

[sidwich]

I have yet to hear an opera singer do anything well but B'way and operetta, which are close enough and formal enough. They do not know how to 'swing' as if they were born with it, and that's what it has to have.

I have very rarely heard opera singers do Broadway well. The balance of emphasis on the vowels vs. the consonants in opera is very different than in musical theatre, and the phrasing tends to get very distorted. Interestingly, I find pop singers attempting standards have the same problem. Even with Nelson Riddle's guidance, Linda Ronstadt's phrasing in her standards albums seems to miss the intricacy of the internal rhyming that is key to what she is singing.

My high school music teacher worshipped Jessye Norman, but he seemed to take fiendish delight in playing us a particularly horrific recording she had done of Bernstein's "Somewhere," complete with incomprehensible lyrics and faux pop slides, which he'd then follow-up with Ethel Merman's disco album. I think it was his version of "two great tastes don't always taste great together." (He did also sometimes play Norman's rendition of the Arlen/Harburg "Right as Rain" which was a much more creditable effort.)

[Helene]

In an interview published yesterday, Sondra Radvanovsky weighs in (scroll to bottom):

[Nolan Gasser]:... And finally: I know that your good friend Dmitri has embarked on a few cross-over projects, such as his recent appearance at Radio Music Hall; I also saw that you’ve got a friend in Josh Groban. So the question is: when are you going to cross that line?

[sondra Radvanovsky]: You know, some people can do it, and some people can’t. I have never, ever done pop or Broadway or any of that – and never had a desire to. I love listening to Josh; he’s a great guy and brings so much passion to his singing; and Barbara Streisand too, who’s a friend of ours. But I think I was given a gift – and that was to sing opera. It’s my passion, and when I do something, I want to give it 110%. Some singers have a more varied background: Rene Fleming has a long-standing passion for jazz, as does Deborah Voigt; Dmitri sang Russian folk songs, and was a pop singer when he was young; he was even in a rock band – with that hair, I mean come on [laughs]!

But I started singing opera at eleven years old; I never sang Broadway or musical theater. Opera was my calling, so I just sound funny when I sing anything besides opera, really. I sing art songs, yes; but when I try to sing along with pop songs in the car, my husband is like, “Oh no!” – that’s a square peg in a round hole.

NG: So you won’t be singing in a concert with Lou Reed, like Renée [Fleming] did?

SR: No, and you know what? Part of me really wishes that I could, because there’s a whole other audience that I could attract. But it just sounds funny; it just sounds like an opera singer singing jazz or pop. Renée can do it so gracefully, and she’s so good at it – and I just can’t. Oh well.

[ballet_n00b]

Anna Moffo did a great version of Kern's "Smoke get's in your eyes", though I'm not sure how many other show-tunes she recorded. For the most part I don't like mixture of Jazz and Classical. As far as crossover artists (classical/pop) are concerned, I can't say I've listened to many but the few I am familiar with (Maksim et al) appealed to me as much as 7 straight Andre Rieu specials.