Last update - 00:00 12/02/2007
Charlie Parker, bebop and me
By Ben Shalev
Jazz singer Sheila Jordan will arrive in Israel this week and perform in four concerts with the Yellow Submarine ensemble. Throughout her long career, Jordan, 79, has been a very unique and often daring singer. Unlike other jazz singers, who drew their inspiration from the jazz vocal tradition, Jordan has been influenced mostly by groundbreaking composers and instrumentalists, most notably Charlie Parker.
She grew up in a poor family in a mining town in Pennsylvania and her encounter with Parker's revolutionary music encouraged her to devote her life to music. "Charlie Parker and bebop gave me my life," she once said in an interview.
In her youth, she moved to Detroit and was a member of a trio of women singers who sang vocal renditions of Parker's solos. After that, in New York, she worked as a typist and at night she would frequent Minton's Playhouse in Harlem, where the bebop greats played. She became friends with Parker, married his pianist Duke Jordan and studied with another groundbreaking composer, pianist Lenny Tristano, one of the pioneers of free jazz. She made her first album at the beginning of the 1960s; it was the Blue Note label's first album by a vocalist. Jordan was also the first singer to record a duet with a bass player and some of her best albums over the years were made in this unusual format. She did not record much during the 1960s and only at the end of the 1970s did she return to the stage, collaborating with adventurous musicians like pianist Carla Bley and trombonist Rosewell Rudd. The past decade has been the most fruitful of her career.
The Yellow Submarine ensemble, with which Jordan will perform in Israel, comprises pianist Itai Rosenbaum, bass player Guy Levi, percussionist Udi Shlomo and guitarist Atcha Bar. Bar met Jordan in New York about two months ago and the singer provided him with adaptations (most of them written especially for her) of 40 songs. "I told her that 40 numbers was way too many, but she said, 'rehearse all of them and before the performance we'll decide what to play,'" says Bar. About a month ago Jordan cut the possible repertoire down to 20 numbers, of which 10 will be played at the performances. According to Bar, Jordan will sing mainly classics (apparently also the Beatles' "Blackbird") in her unique style, which has drawn so much from bebop. "If she sings Hatikvah (the national anthem), it will sound a bit like a Charlie Parker improvisation," says Bar.
Jordan's first performance with the ensemble will take place on Wednesday at the Camelot Club in Herzliya. On Thursday she will appear at The Yellow Submarine club in Jerusalem; on Friday, February 16, at the Tel-Aviv-Jaffa Music Center and on Saturday at Abba Khoushy House in Haifa. Jordan will also hold two master classes (on Wednesday at 4 P.M. at the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Music Center and on Thursday at 6 P.M. at the Yellow Submarine), as well as a workshop for singers (on Friday at 2:30 P.M. at the Music Center).