Sheila Jordan

As I have already said in one of my recent posts – I have been to a workshop given by an amazing singer – Sheila Jordan. The workshop took place in Torino in a very unexpected location. It reminded me of a German-Jewish friendship, but a bit backwards – a workshop of an American singer was given in a Vietnamese house… Ironic, isn’t it? Well, maybe it’s just my imagination, but I thought at the moment that it was fun.

Anyway, Sheila. She is just an amazing person. She is 85 or something, but she is so full of energy, I envy, I would love to be like her when I’m her age! First of all – she still sings, and that’s an achievement, because with time our body gets older, as in sports, we are no longer able to do things as clear, fast and strong as if we still were 16. She is 85, but she sings, and sings more than well! And the story of her life is so exciting, not always in a good way, but she turned to music every time something unpleasant happened to her. And she got to sing with Charlie Parker and guys, which is just unbelievable, because she’s white ant the times were different than now, and because Bird is a jazz legend. Who BTW told her one thing, that is considered to be the credo of every jazz musician and as to me, the most obvious thing in the world, which we usually forget about: “Just be yourself and don’t give up”

I’m not going to tell you everything we did there, it would be pointless, because this workshop was more dedicated to practice than to theory, and this aspect made me think that this time the money is spent well. Every participant had a chance to sing in front of Sheila and receive a feedback, which was very constructive. One thing is worth mentioning, actually it was a topic I was willing to write about and I guess this is my chance to do this now. So, Lyrics!

What makes a singer so different from an instrumentalist? Lyrics. We are given the power of words and with these words we tell the story of the song. Sounds lame – telling a story, blah blah, but these are the terms we use to describe what we do – we send a message. Lyrics usually help the listener to understand the message more precisely, lyrics help the performer to send the message, because it is something understandable to everyone (who understands the language). But also, surprising as it is, lyrics can help an instrumentalist to tell his story. When I did the counting I have realized that I know only one instrumentalist, who reads the lyrics before playing with or without a singer. He told me that knowing the lyrics is useful for 2 reasons:

1. When you know what the singer sings about, you can be with him in music more fully, you can unite with him in his message, helping to spread the emotion with the means available to you.

2. If you’re lost, you can easily find where you are in the score according to the lyrics.
Anyway, I am a singer, so I can judge only from this point of view.

With the power of words comes the burden of responsibility. Nothing critical, but a lot of things we have to think about. First of all (this was the thing where I agreed with Sheila), you have to learn the lyrics by heart. “You don’t know the song if you don’t know the lyrics by heart” – that is a quote. It’s like telling a poem with an expression – you can’t do that if you are constantly trying to remember what was the next line. Or if you suddenly got lost in the majority of words on a piece of paper. That’s that simple, you just learn it by heart. You can’t dive in the message if you don’t know the message.

Second thing, but not less important – you have to know the language. Surely, there are a lot of jazz singers that are not American or French (despite everything the question to whom jazz “belongs” remains open, but no argument in the fact, that thanks to the USA it became world popular and thanks to the huge work Americans did it is now taught in schools and high schools), but most of the jazz tunes are in – surprise – English! So, in order to understand the message hidden in the text you must be able to understand the text. Not only to learn it by heart, but to know different meanings of the words, because they can be tricky. And you must be able to pronounce the words in an understandable way, for the people.

It is my belief that lyrics are important. Once a musician asked me what the song was about in a tune we were performing together for some 6-8 years, it was one of my songs, and the lyrics weren’t very difficult, everything was simple. So I told him – can’t you hear what I’m singing? And he answered that he wasn’t listening. I must say that I was very offended, because since you are involved in a process with me that sends some energy to the listener, you have to know what you are doing. Of course not knowing the lyrics can’t harm anyone, it’s not a surgery, but every song is a piece of art and it needs to be respected, either way why are you getting involved in it, right?

Well, that’s my opinion on life and everything, enough with the text, here are some videos of Sheila to give you a hint about the person I have spent a day with, and a couple of pictures!

Enjoy!

And here’s something of young Sheila