THIS IS THE SIXTH OF OUR BEST OF 23 REVIEW OF INTERVIEWS: “It’s kind of a remarkable thing to be able to have a real relationship with your heroes. It would be beyond my 11 or 12-year-old self. It would be beyond anything he really dreamed of. To know people like Herbie Hancock…they’re almost like mythical figures to us.” That’s how saxophonist and composer Kamasi Washington describes the opportunity to co-curate this weekend’s Hollywood Bowl Jazz Festival with the legendary Hancock.

The two-day festival takes place Saturday and Sunday. The line-up Washington and Hancock have assembled features Bell Biv DeVoe, St. Paul & The Broken Bones, Grammy winner Samara Joy, Aziza, Poncho Sanchez, Lionel Loueke and Gretchen Parlato, Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz Performance Ensemble at UCLA and LACHSA Jazz on Saturday. Arsenio Hall is the emcee both days.

On Sunday the line-up includes Leon Bridges, Raphael Saadiq, Ledisi, Digable Planets, The Soul Rebels, Big Freedia, Andrew Gouché & Prayze Connection, Boukman Eksperyans, Butcher Brown, The Cardinal Divas of SC and LAUSD Beyond the Bell All District Jazz Band.  

Washington will perform both nights. On Saturday with his own band and on Sunday with West Coast Get Down. The members of West Coast Get Down are Washington, Miles Mosley, Tony Austin, Cameron Graves, Ryan Porter, Ronald Bruner, Brandon Coleman and Patrice Quinn.

In 2015 his album The Epic introduced the world in a very serious way to Washington’s other-worldly vision for jazz. He continued with 2018’s Heaven and Earth and the score to the documentary Becoming in 2020.

Washington and I spoke in March about this year’s jazz festival and more. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

I spoke to Herbie Hancock in 2019 when he was on tour in Denver with you. He was curating a show for the Los Angeles Philharmonic called The Next Generation in Jazz. I asked him what he was looking for and he said there so many things changing exponentially. What do you see as the biggest changes in the four years since he and I spoke?

The biggest change I see, which I think it’s a good change – but it can be a scary one as well, is that jazz seems to be, more so than it has in a number of years, kind of re-integrating into the larger musical conversation. For a long time jazz was kind of isolated. We had our own little jazz festivals. We had our own little clubs.

Jazz is now starting to infuse into non-jazz arenas. You see people like Robert Glasper, Terrace Martin, Thundercat, all these other people who are taking jazz and bringing it into other arenas. And I think that’s a beautiful thing. I think that’s good for the music. 

I saw a video that you did for [record store] Amoeba’s What’s in My Bag series seven years ago. You were talking about participating in Grammy Camp and how you were so impressed with the young musicians who were there. You said you have to “watch out because they’re coming up so fast.” I don’t think 15 years ago we would have thought that young musicians would take this kind of interest in this type of music. What do you think’s changed?

We live in a different world. They grew up in a different world than where I grew up. There’s some young musicians that are so amazing. I hear them and I’m just floored. There are things that we had that they don’t necessarily have as much anymore. And things that they have now that we didn’t ever dream about having. 

Jazz, in its purest form, is an open and freeing art form that those people who are searching for artistry in music, some of them are going to find it no matter what. I think future generations are going to see even more kids gravitating towards jazz and gravitating towards the kind of the freedom and expressiveness that it lends itself to. 

These kids are going to bring stuff to the music that I just didn’t have to bring. They have a new a new reality to add. If we want them to play the music, then we have to accept who they are. They’re going to bring who they are and what they’ve been through and what their thoughts and their experiences are. That’s going to be something different to the music than its ever been. And that’s the beauty of it.

Is the word jazz, as a descriptive term for a genre of music, even appropriate anymore? You performed with Metallica. Vijay Iyer had a quote unquote classical work at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Terence Blanchard has his second opera at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Do you think that labels or genres are becoming passe?

The definition of the word jazz, having any type of control over what the musicians play themselves, that’s always been kind of no good to me. The functionality of a genre, to me, is just an organizational tool. If you’re scrolling through the infinite world of iTunes and you want to try to find some music that is similar to Wayne Shorter, well that’s sort of where it comes in handy. But I think when you put too much weight on it and you make it something that should dictate what the musicians are playing – jazz is this and if you play jazz, you should play this – that’s where it’s inappropriate and always has been. 

You’ve released a few singles since Becoming in 2020. And [at the time of this interview] you’re about to embark on a fairly substantial U.S. tour before the Jazz Festival. Does that mean you’re working on some new music that that might finally be recorded?

I’m almost finished now. I got one song that I have to figure out exactly what I want to do with it. I want to put it on this record. Just one more song to record. Pretty soon there’ll be some music coming down the pipeline. If I can finish this one last song.

This is one of those songs that I know is beautiful, but I’m just having a hard time figuring out exactly what it should be. That’s a weird way of saying things, but it’s like having a beautiful flower that you know you want in the garden. You just can’t really figure out exactly where it should be planted, you know?

You told Marc Maron in 2016, “The trick is letting go. Bird and those other guys, they ran right to the edge of the cliff. With Trane you got to run and jump off and just be okay falling down this cliff and have the confidence that somehow I’m going to have to land on my feet.” How does that perspective of Coltrane’s work influence the decisions you make as an artist, as a musician, and even as a man?

Fearlessness is a very important ingredient to making music. It can be kind of scary because you’re revealing your heart. It’s like you’re cracking open your chest and opening your heart up. It’s scary, but the greatest music needs to be fearless. Ultimately you have to have faith in the music and that it will lead you to where it should be.

Listening to someone like John Coltrane and hearing how far he would go, it’s almost like a cliff diver who has a parachute but he just never opens the parachute. 

Every musician has a different way of getting to the music that they have in their hearts. I’ve always been a bit meticulous. It’s always been a struggle for me to push the button to go. Once we go it is super easy for me to let go and let the music be what it is. But for some reason in my own head, I feel a need to measure everything is good. Now let’s push this plane out and see how it flies.

Maybe that’s the composer equivalent of measure twice, cut once. 

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I’m measure, measure, measure. Ten times.

Ronald Bernard Jr., who is a member of West Coast Get Down, said that being in this band is a gig forever. He went on to say that, “I could be 90 and Kamasi will still call me.” What makes West Coast Get Down a forever gig for you?

Our friendship and our musical relationship started when we were three years old. We’ve all had great teachers and mentors. But we’re probably all most heavily influenced by each other, you know? Whenever one of us would get into something, we all get into it. Every time we find a gem it would circulate among us.

It was just our friends who grew up in our neighborhood and we all just happened to love music and it stuck to us for our whole lives. Our friendship is more on a life level. I always say life is bigger than music and music is a propeller to life. But life is the real thing. Our friendship is forever and music is going to be forever Our musical relationship will be forever.

Max Roach, who I believe has been a big influence on you, said, “Music mirrors where we should go, have gone and can go. Music is an abstraction.” Looking forward to your next album or into the future, what strikes you at this moment in time as the most important thing you’d like your music to mirror?

This next record that I’m doing, it came during a time of me having a lot of personal reflection. A very kind of swirling transitional period in my life. I recently became a father. Normally my thoughts and music are aimed at the infinite. This record is much more based in my reality. I’m a super spacey guy, so it still has that element in it. It’s just more grounded than I’ve ever made before. Really close personally for me.

When you’re speaking a bit more directly, I want to make sure that I am conveying the thoughts that I actually have. Having the courage to just be able to let it be what it is, you know, despite whatever anyone may think.

To see the full interview with Kamasi Washington, please go here.

All photos of Kamasi Washington at the Hollywood Bowl by Farah Sosa (Courtesy Los Angeles Philharmonic Association)

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Prima Facie – Golden Theatre – New York, NY

Jodie Comer stars in this play by Suzie Miller that is now playing on Broadway. Miller and Comer won Olivier Awards for Best New Play and Best Actress at this year’s Olivier Awards. Could Tony Awards all come their way?

For tickets and more information, please go here.

Good Night, Oscar – Belasco Theatre – New York, NY Sean Hayes stars in this play about Oscar Levant written by Doug Wright and directed by Lisa Peterson. The show originated in Chicago and received rave reviews for both the play and for Hayes.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

TRADE/Mary Motorhead – LA Opera at REDCAT – Los Angeles, CA – April 27^th – April 30^th

These two one-act operas by composer Emma O’Halloran and her librettist uncle, Mark O’Halloran, debuted at the Prototype Festival in New York earlier this year. Now they are in Los Angeles with original cast members Kyle Bielfield, Mark Kudisch and Naomi Louisa O’Connell in tow.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

Dee Dee Bridgewater & Bill Charlap – SFJAZZ – San Francisco April 27^th – April 30^th

Rarely have two artists so perfectly melded their talents the way jazz singer Bridgewater and pianist Charlap do in concert. I’ve seen them twice and would go again and again given the opportunity. You have the opportunity to hear how great this duo is even if you don’t live in San Francisco. Their performance on April 28^th will be streaming live at 7:30 PM PT (with an encore showing on April 29^th at 11 AM PT).  

For in-person tickets and more information, please go here. For streaming tickets and information, please go here.

Champion – Met Opera Live in HD – Cinemas Worldwide – April 29^th – 12:55 PM ET/9:55 AM PT

This Saturday the Metropolitan Opera will present Terence Blanchard’s first opera, Champion, in a live transmission from the Met in New York City. Ryan Speedo Green, Eric Owens, Latonia Moore, Stephanie Blythe, Paul Groves and Eric Greene star in this opera based on the true story of boxer Emile Griffith. The production is directed by James Robinson with choreography by Camille A. Brown (both of whom were involved in the world premiere of Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones.) Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts.

To find a theater near you, please go here.

Photo: Ryan Speedo Green in Champion (Photo by Ken Howard/Courtesy Met Opera)

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The world was casually introduced to jazz saxophonist and composer Walter Smith III with his 2005 album Casually Introducing Walter Smith III. Fourteen years later we learned he was Still Casual on his 2019 album. On Friday he makes his Blue Note Records debut with Return to Casual. Simply put, Smith is one casual dude.

He’s worked with some of the biggest names in jazz: Terence Blanchard, Herbie Hancock, Joe Lovano, Christian McBride, Jason Moran and more. What he’s been trying to do, as he told me recently when we spoke, is to “become a better composer. And slowly but surely, over time, I’ve kind of hit milestones that were important to me. I feel now I’m at kind of a foundational level of composition.”

Return to Casual features nine new songs composed by Smith. When he started writing the album, he wanted to make some fundamental changes in the way he wrote.

“One of the things that I noticed is as I started to improve as a composer,” he revealed, “I was leaving less space for the musicians to really interject. I was controlling every aspect of it. So in this one my goal was to keep the compositional aspect at the forefront, but to somehow build in space. A lot of my favorite composers, people that I work with, they leave space for personality. So that was what I was going for here.”

The album begins with a very playful song entitled Contra which reflects, in part, Smith’s own sense of humor, which he readily admits to and finds essential to who he is.

“To me, it is everything,” he admitted. “Because even when things are bad, you can still find there’s always humor in everything. Anything that happens to you, there’s always some kind of aspect of it that you can look at and have a chuckle. Even if it’s inappropriate to share with others. For your own well-being you can find it in there.”

In our conversation he shows how his sense of humor factors into how people might hear Return to Casual. The sixth song on the album, quiet song, is anything but. It smacks listeners in the face from the opening notes and surprised the musicians who joined him on the record.

“I wanted it to just be that. Even in the rehearsal I had to convince people from the very first note, it needs to just be crazy,” he says with a laugh before revealing another part of his thinking. “Also entitling it I pictured an algorithm picking that up and ending up on a Spotify Jazz for Calm Cooking playlist or something. I would get a lot of delight over someone putting it on and then spilling sauce or something.”

Smith did find an opportunity to arrange a song by Kate Bush that he’s always loved and put it on the album. The song is Mother Stands for Comfort which can be found on her Hounds of Love album.

“It’s a song that I’ve had on my radar for years and I’ve been trying to figure out a way to make it work in the context of original music. That’s something that I’m always trying to figure out, to take standards or popular music and try to make it work where if I played it on a concert, it would not be an outlier. It would feel very much connected to all the other music.”

While writing Pup – Pow for the album he recognized some similarities between his new work and Bush’s song which might suggest his mind had finally figured out how to make it all work.

“When I was writing that song, I was like, it’s like the same chord progression, the same key. There we go. Now I’ve got a way to tie it in. Now I’ve got a way to use it.” And when he played the songs back-to-back at the Village Vanguard nobody seemed to notice. Which gave Smith tremendous satisfaction.

“That’s the whole point. Since that track was released as a single, I’ve gotten probably like a hundred DMs on Instagram from people that are like, ‘Man, I listened to this song every day for the last ten years. My mom had it on a tape and I forgot all about it. Then I found it on Apple Music and yours came up.’ All these people are in love with it. I don’t know if the Stranger Things situation helped put that on other people’s radar, but whatever it is, I think that’s kind of a cool way for people to find my music – which is a very unexpected situation.”

Equally unexpected was losing a good friend last year. Megan Stabile, a New York promoter who created unique opportunities for jazz and hip-hop to intersect and boosting awareness of jazz, took her own life. She was the head of Revive Music Group. Smith wrote the final song on the album, REVIVE, as a tribute to Stabile. It is, perhaps, the most emotional composition Smith has ever written.

“It’s bigger than just a personal thing. It is like a groundswell amongst a countless number of people. I look at her imprint on Blue Note, which launched Otis Brown and Marcus Strickland’s first records for the label. I look at the the first time I played Winter Jazzfest as a leader was through Megan on the Revive stage. I look at Igmar Thomas in the Revive big band. I look at the the Zinc Bar Session that was happening every week. Anytime you’d go down there, she would be there to greet you at the door. ‘Come in and have a drink. This is Walter, he doesn’t live here, but take care of him.’ Just creating community for people.”

Creating and having a community is a top priority for Smith. He is the Chair of the Woodwind Department at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. How and when he was most influenced by others inspires his desire to pass on the kind of experiences and information he gleaned from being mentored by Blanchard and being on the road with Hancock or the late Wayne Shorter.

“For a while there was a very lopsided aspect of in higher ed – and actually all levels – where everything was based on academic achievement and very little in the field. I guess the people that always inspired me were the people that were in the field. So getting to talk to Terence or Herbie as a student, that meant whether or not I learned how to spell a C major triad from them, it didn’t matter. What I did get from them is the reason that I’m doing this now, if that makes sense. There is the part where you’re dispensing knowledge to people, but there’s the part where you actually inspire them to do something with that knowledge and to actually stick with it. It’s not easy to do this. Especially in the beginning stages, you have to really love it and want to do it.”

He recalls one impactful moment from his time in high school (where he met Kendrick Scott who has played drums with Smith ever since and does so on Return to Casual. Smith returns the favor by playing sax on Scott’s recently released Corridors).

“I remember Roy Hargrove came to my high school. That one hour he was there kept me going for ten years after that. One of the things that I want to do is to continue to grow as an artist and have that work in the field and bring that directly to people that I get to work with. If I can give that same feeling to someone, that’s that’s the goal.”

As he continues to play and write music and inspire students, one thing he’ll always be is casual.

“I think it really does refer to kind of how I carry myself in general. I’m not really stressed out in any way. I’m pretty laid back, even when it comes to music. It was just something that we always talked about in high school. We would use it as a silly word. Being a touring musician, anything and everything does go wrong and you kind of learn by watching other people and seeing how different things affect the music, affect the tour, affect all of the aspects of it. To just relax and let it happen as it happens and roll with it is how I live in many ways.”

To check out Walter Smith III’s concert schedule, please go here.

All photos of Walter Smith III by George Clarke/Courtesy Blue Note Records

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Billy Stritch is an accomplished pianist, arranger, music director and a wonderful ambassador for jazz. As he celebrated his sixtieth birthday we talked about his vast career.

The Hollywood Bowl celebrated Peggy Lee and Frank Sinatra with an all-star line-up that included Billie Eilish, Deborah Harry, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Dianne Reeves and more. The least known member of the concert was arguably vocalist Gretchen Parlato. She was the perfect representative for Sinatra’s work with Jobim. She was also a wonderfully engaging interview.

Anyone who reads Cultural Attaché knows how much we love the work of composer/musician Terence Blanchard. Even though it was late in Spain we we spoke, we had a great conversation about jazz, film music and more.

John Beasley, who participated in the Peggy Lee and Frank Sinatra tribute, also collaborated with Chucho Valdés on La Creación. He talks about working with the 81-year-old legend on this mammoth work. A pianist, composer and arranger, Beasley is a fountain of knowledge and he’s happy to share it.

Those are four of our Jazz Interview Highlights for 2022. Be sure to go to our YouTube channel to check out all of our interviews to date and to subscribe. Come back tomorrow to see our stage (plays and musical) interview highlights from 2022.

Photo: Terence Blanchard (Courtesy TerenceBlanchard.com)

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CABARET

Two shows stood out for us this year. The first was Kim David Smith’s Mostly Marlene which we saw at Joe’s Pub in New York City. His gender-bending tribute to Marlene Dietrich was massively entertaining. This performance has apparently been recorded and will be released next year. Check it out. He’s got a great voice.

The other show was Eleri Ward‘s concert – also at Joe’s Pub. Her lo-fi renditions of Stephen Sondheim‘s songs seemed like just the tonic we needed during the pandemic when she first started posting videos filmed in her apartment. Ward ultimately received a recording contract and has her second album coming out next year on Ghostlight Records. She also opened for Josh Groban on his tour this year.

CLASSICAL MUSIC

This was a year in which Duke Ellington was acknowledged as being more than a jazz musician and composer. With that acknowledgment came long overdue recognition of Billy Strayhorn. The Los Angeles Philharmonic performed two different Ellington concerts in January called Symphonic Ellington and Sacred Ellington in January (with Gerald Clayton – whose Bells on Sand was one of the year’s best jazz albums – appearing as a soloist for the first and a member of the ensemble for the latter). In December the perennial holiday classic The Nutcracker was performed. But rather than playing just Tchaikovsky’s music, the LA Phil also performed the Strayhorn/Ellington arrangements of music from the second half of the ballet.

J’Nai Bridges singing Neruda Songs by composer Peter Lieberson was also a highlight at the LA Phil. So, too, was seeing Maestro Michael Tilson Thomas performing Prokofiev’s 5th Symphony and also his own Meditations on Rilke was a great way to have begun 2022.

Composer Osvaldo Golijov‘s Falling Out of Time had a COVID-delayed LA debut when this staggeringly powerful work was performed at the Wallis in Beverly Hills.

JAZZ

Easily topping our list this year are Cécile McLorin Salvant’s concerts at Blue Note in New York City. We saw two shows and had we had the time and the ability we would have seen them all. Salvant performed music by Handel, original songs, a song from Gypsy and more. It was a truly memorable show. Her most recent album, Ghost Song, is one of the year’s best.

A close second were the two shows we saw Dee Dee Bridgewater and Bill Charlap perform. We first saw this remarkable pair at Catalina Jazz Club in Hollywood. We caught a second show at the Oasis Music Festival in Palm Springs.

Terence Blanchard at the Ford Theatre and Wynton Marsalis performing All Rise at the Hollywood Bowl also easily make our list.

MUSICALS

You might quibble with us about one of these, but here goes:

Our favorite musical of the year was the Tony Award-winning musical A Strange Loop at the Lyceum Theatre in New York City. Bold, adventurous, thought-provoking and moving, this is everything a musical should be – at least to us. The show is still running but only until January 15th. We strongly recommend seeing it. For tickets and more information, please go here.

The revival of Little Shop of Horrors was absolutely delightful. Two hours of entertainment that makes you forget about everything else going on in the world. When we saw the show Lena Hall was playing “Audrey” and Rob McClure was “Seymour.” Hall is still in the show and her new Seymour is Tony Award-winner Matt Doyle. The show has an open-ended run. For tickets and more information, please go here.

Into the Woods, which began its life at New York City Center’s Encores series, was pure pleasure from the first note to the last. If you are or will be in New York, you can still catch it at the St. James Theatre until January 8th. A US tour begins in February. For tickets and more information, please go here.

David Byrne’s American Utopia doesn’t quite qualify as a musical per se, but it was another utterly enjoyable show. We also saw Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story at the Hollywood Bowl with live orchestral accompaniment by the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. That performance made Spielberg’s under-seen film even more powerful than when we first saw it in theaters.

OPERA

For the first time we finally saw a production at the Metropolitan Opera. Ariadne auf Naxos is not necessarily our favorite opera, but soprano Lise Davidsen’s powerfully strong voice could probably be heard in the lobby of the Met even with the doors closed. It was a staggering performance we will not soon forget.

Countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński gave an incredible recital at Broad Stage in Santa Monica. It was our first time seeing him and we can’t wait for the opportunity to see Orliński in an opera production. We also have to give him special mention for his patience. Someone’s cell phone alarm went off and either the owner was oblivious to the noise or didn’t care. Orliński stopped the show, sat downstage and said he’d wait it out.

Getting the opportunity to revisit the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Tristan Project late this year was a treat. We had experienced it when it first happened and its return was more than welcome (and perhaps a bit overdue). This collaboration with Bill Viola, Peter Sellars and the LA Phil remains breathtaking.

Kevin Puts and Greg Pierce turned Michael Cunningham’s novel The Hours into a mesmerizing and emotional new opera. Written for Renée Fleming, Joyce DiDonato and Kelli O’Hara, this is an opera we experienced through the Met Live in HD simulcast.

Intimate Apparel by composer Ricky Ian Gordon and librettist Lynn Nottage was absolutely first-rate at Lincoln Center. Nottage did a wonderful job adapted her own play for this opera. Gordon wrote a stunning score. The end result is an opera that is equally as powerful as the play.

PLAYS

We’ve always loved Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. But until the new Broadway revival, we never had such a visceral and emotional response to Willy Loman’s story. That’s largely attributable to the impeccable performances of the entire cast including Wendell Pierce, Sharon D. Clarke, McKinley Belcher III, Khris Davis and André De Shields. By now you know this is a Black Loman family. That gave Miller’s piece an added resonance that no doubt contributed to the tears streaming down our faces. The use of music was brilliant. The show is still running at the Hudson Theatre in New York through January 15th. For tickets and more information, please go here.

Perhaps nothing moved us as much as the last 15 minutes of the first half of Matthew López’s The Inheritance at the Geffen Playhouse. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. If the second part of this mammoth work doesn’t end up resonating as strongly as the first, it was still a powerful day in the theater (It’s nearly 7 hours long).

Watching Holland Taylor as the late Ann Richards (former Texas governor) at the Pasadena Playhouse was an opportunity to watch a master class in acting.

That’s our complete list of the Best of 2022! What will inspire and move us in 2023? Come back to find out and to meet the artists, creators, performers and more who make it happen.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

Photo: Cécile McLorin Salvant at Blue Note New York (Photo by Craig L. Byrd)

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But her story begins in California. She was raised here and went to UCLA. Her education was financed by entering and winning several beauty pageants. Blue won the titles of Miss Hollywood in 2005 and Miss Southern California in 2006. She spent three years in the Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program at LA Opera. From there the world welcomed her with rave reviews and this year Blue was named the winner of the Richard Tucker Award.

She is back in Southern California as the lead in the LA Opera production of Puccini’s Tosca. She appears with tenor Michael Fabiano (through December 4th) and Gregory Kunde (December 7th – 10th) as Tosca’s lover, Cavaradossi. Ryan McKinny sings Scarpia. This John Caird production, first seen in Houston in 2010, made its debut at LA opera in 2013.

Last week, after the dress rehearsal for Tosca, I spoke with Blue who was at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. She was being followed around by a documentary film crew from Germany.

Our conversation took place via Zoom. What follows are excerpts from that conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

Before we talk all things Tosca, I want to congratulate you on this week’s Grammy nomination for Fire Shut Up in My Bones. 

Thank you.

I saw the opera through Live in HD and found it incredibly powerful and incredibly moving. What made that opera special for you? 

I think for me it was the historical aspect of it. It was the first time that the Metropolitan Opera had done an opera written by a Black composer [Terence Blanchard]. Of course, coming back after COVID and having the opera be shut down for a whole year like that, I think all of those historical moments made it what it was for me. I just felt very blessed to be a part of it because it was such a moving moment in time for me. 

And a moving one for the audience as well. What challenges did composer Terence Blanchard give you that you feel are unique to the way he writes opera?

I think the biggest challenge for me was that on the first day of rehearsal he told all of us, “You guys are classical musicians, so I know that you’re going to do what is on the page, how it’s written.” And he said, “I want you to do what is on the page. But I also want you to go back to your roots.”

When he said that I thought about my dad and how I grew up. I did grow up singing opera and listening to classical music. But I also grew up in church, playing the bass guitar and listening to gospel, singing gospel, hearing my father sing gospel, having my father sing classical music as well.

He made basically a blueprint for all of us to follow. Then within that blueprint, he said, I want you to kind of come out of the confines of the blueprint and make it your own by being able to sing something like Peculiar Grace with more of an R&B gospel style. [That] was something that I never get to do in an opera. So it was a challenge in that we wanted to honor what Terence had written, but we also wanted to bring in our roots. So it was definitely a challenge to be able to put the two together, to give myself the freedom to do that in an opera on a stage like the Met. It was awesome.

Now let’s talk Tosca. If my research is correct, this production in Los Angeles is only the second time you’ve sung Tosca. Part of that was because you had two different productions canceled during the pandemic that you were scheduled to do. So after the disappointment that I’m assuming comes along with those cancelations, what does finally being able to revisit this role mean to you now?

First I want to say I wasn’t disappointed. I wasn’t. To be honest with you I felt like, and I still feel, that when something like what happened with COVID and all of those cancellations, what that afforded me was not just a break, but it also afforded me the time to sit back and think. Maybe this is not the right time to be singing these pieces back-to-back like that in one season. So I wasn’t so disappointed with it because I’m happy with how it is now. I have this production and then I do it again next summer.

I don’t believe in coincidences, so I think that was perfect. This production is very, very traditional. It’s so helpful to sing Tosca in such a way that allows for me to actually really invest in who the character is and really, I think, become Tosca. 

The first production you did would not be defined by anybody as a traditional production. Does this almost feels like this is your first, I don’t want to say conventional, but traditional Tosca anyway?

This is definitely my first conventional Tosca – you’re fine to say that it is. I’m happy to do it. For me the music has always had the same meaning. The singing has always been the same in terms of the challenges. It’s all the same music. Being able to express it in this way is something that I’m very thankful for. It’s a special time and it is the right time – that’s more important. 

What makes it the right time?

It’s just kind of like with COVID; if it wasn’t supposed to happen, it wouldn’t have. It’s the right time and everything is right. I’m at the right age for it. I feel right in my body about it. I’m back in Los Angeles where it couldn’t possibly be more comfortable to be singing this role. This is a role that comes with a lot of, for lack of a better word, a lot of stress. You have to be vocally prepared and ready, also dramatically prepared and ready. As my band Radiohead says, everything is in its right place.

If the schedule had happened as it was planned to this would be your fourth Tosca instead of your second. Is your approach to this opera any different today than it might have been had that schedule actually played out as as originally scheduled?

I think if it was my fourth Tosca production, I think maybe I would have been honestly less excited. I’m just being honest. I probably would have been less excited. Not less excited because of the opera or what have you. For example, I’ve done eight productions, I think, now of La Traviata and it’s not that I’m not excited by the opera. But at some point the artist grows out of something and you grow into something else.

I see myself having the opportunity to really grow into Tosca. The journey is really just starting and that’s good because it’s the right time for it to start. And I hope it’s the beginning of a very wonderful run of Toscas for years to come.

Let me ask you about that 2019 production in Provence that you did – the Christophe Honoré production. There was a new character introduced and you were wearing a hoodie. Not how I normally look at Tosca, but to each his own. What did you learn from that first experience that is informing what you’re doing as a singer, as an actor, in this one?

Flexibility. We have to be flexible as opera singers. It’s important to be able to sing, of course, that’s what our job is. What I really loved about Christophe was that his imagination was just all over the place. It was wild and it was everywhere. And what I loved about it was that he wanted us to go on that wonderful journey with him. Because of that I had to know the music really, really well. What I was saying and what I was singing did not go along with the dramaturgy. It didn’t go along with the staging. So I had to make sure that I knew my music well.

Then on top of that I had to take my imagination to another level of my Tosca being this student, learning from the prima donna who was played by Catherine Malfitano. So I enjoyed it because it stretched my imagination and it made me realize that I’m an opera singer. But I feel like I’m so much more than that because of that production and hopefully the flexibility and the the open-mindedness that I had to learn doing that production. I hope I bring that into this production, even though it is traditional. 

I looked at an interview that John Caird gave to the Los Angeles Times when this production was first performed at LA Opera. Caird said something that I thought was really interesting: that the opera could have benefited from a second female character. He then went on to say, “There are things that are not terribly well done, but you can’t worry too much about the infelicities and the dramaturgy. The music sorts out all the problems.” Do you agree with John Caird? Do you think that it’s a rocky dramaturgical piece of work, but that Puccini’s music compensates for that? 

I’m very fortunate because I have sung the opera with another soprano and not just any soprano, she’s a legendary Tosca. Who knows if sopranos really want to share the role of Tosca. But I think there would be something if there was another protagonist maybe in the show. But Puccini’s heart, everything about this man, every ounce of his being, comes out in the music. I don’t want to say it like this, but I don’t know how else to say it. Perhaps the drama doesn’t fail. Maybe that’s not the right word. But I’ll say this. The music is constantly going. It doesn’t ever really stop. So I’ll say that when the drama sort of slows down, that’s when the music kind of kicks in and keeps it going. So I would agree with him.

In 2019 you did an interview with with Gramilano and you mentioned that Violetta and Tosca were your favorite characters, your favorite roles and that Don Giovanni and Tosca were your favorite operas to watch. From a spectator’s point of view and being in your shoes, what makes Tosca so special for you to watch? 

I enjoy the drama. I enjoy the brass. I love the brass section of the orchestra. Actually I should have said my favorite opera is Turandot. I love the brass section. Puccini, Strauss, Wagner, they use the brass section like none other. And Terence Blanchard, too! I know that because I had to sing with them.

But I love the way he writes for the orchestra in Tosca. The singers just being able to, if I may say it this way, accommodate what he’s written. You can actually listen to the whole opera of Tosca – just the orchestra. Take out everything else: take out the voices, all of it, the choir, and you can listen to it and I imagine it would play the same. That’s why I said we’re there to accommodate. We’re there to almost, in a way, backup the orchestra. Maybe I’ve always felt that way about Tosca. I don’t know how correct that is to say as a singer, but that is my impression of the opera. 

I think for any soprano the shadow of Maria Callas is is unavoidable. In 2021, BBC’s music magazine, Classical Music, named Callas’s 1953 recording of Tosca as the finest recording ever. How long is her shadow and at what point do you think you and other sopranos are not going to have to face the the Callas of it all?

I can only say that I greatly admire her dedication, diligence and devotion to her craft. If it happens that she is the quintessential Tosca for the rest of humanity, then so be it. I’m happy to say that I’ve lived in her shadow. I don’t mind that. I can only say that I’m grateful that I’ve been able to sing the same music that she sings. I was singing, of course, with my voice and with my heart and my experience.

Tosca is one of the greatest opera roles ever. From my perspective any woman who can put herself into Tosca’s shoes, make it through the whole evening and come off stage with their head held high – you’ve done a great thing, regardless of who has the finest recording. In the moment that I’m singing Tosca and whoever else is singing Tosca, that’s our moment. And we honor Maria Callas. We thank her. I honor her and I thank her for the role that she’s played for us sopranos. But if it’s a shadow, I’ll stand in it.

I’m going to finish by asking you about something that Callas is quoted as having said. She said, “An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down. It starts in my imagination. It becomes my life and stays part of my life long after I’ve left the opera house.” Do you feel similarly to Maria Callas? 

I was a young artist here at Los Angeles Opera 15, 16 years ago. Going from being a young artist to singing such a role where I was a young artist – I’m where I want to be. I don’t know if I can, honestly say, “Oh, I have this great dream to sing Tosca here or there or wherever.” I just know that I’m grateful to sing it here.

I agree with her in that the opera starts way before the curtain goes up, because we have to be thinking about it all of the time. I’m constantly working on the music. I’m constantly studying and that will never change. I will be studying until, you know, God takes me out of here.

But I differ from from Ms. Callas in that the opera does stop, because it can’t be my whole life. I have a family. I have a husband. I have a stepson. I have people in my life. That curtain must go down so that I can be Angel. I’m not always Angel Blue singing.

As soon as we’re done with this Zoom and I leave this opera house, I’m going to go eat. I’m going to do my thing. And the curtain will definitely be down. It’ll be down good, too, you know? And it doesn’t come back up until I have to come back and do my job, if that makes sense. But I’m thankful for Tosca. It’s brought me back home. Literally all I can think about is that I’m home.

To see the full interview with Angel Blue, please go here.

Main Photo: Angel Blue (Photo by Dario Acosta/Courtesy Askonas Holt)

The post Angel Blue Comes Home with “Tosca” appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Blanchard has scored the upcoming film The Woman King, which marks his first epic film score. Next March the Los Angeles Philharmonic will dedicate an entire evening to his film scores for director Spike Lee.

But wait, there’s more! He begins a tour on August 4th with The E-Collective and the Turtle Island Quartet that will find him performing music from Absence and many of his other albums. They’ll also perform music from Fire Shut Up in My Bones (see more about that below) in San Francisco.

Which means this was a great time to catch up, once again, with Blanchard. We spoke via Zoom last month while he was on the road with Hancock. Blanchard was in Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Spain. What follows are excerpts from that conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

Q: This is our third conversation over the course of several years. Each conversation we’ve had, we’ve always talked about whether the world is getting to be a better place for jazz music. In 2015 you thought we were in the dirty part of the recovery. In 2019 you said, “I think we recovered a great deal.” Three years later where are we?

I think extremely healthy. You look at all the young people who are making records and doing a lot of great things. I didn’t see that necessarily happening this way when I first got in the business in the eighties, but to see it now, it’s like extremely exciting. Ambrose Akinmusire, the list is endless: Walter Smith, Theo Crocker, there are so many young people who are doing a lot of great things that I’m looking at them to see what’s going to happen next.

I listened to new albums by Tyshawn Sorey or Gerald Clayton or Joel Ross. I’m struck by how there’s so much calm and a quieter approach to their music right now. Even your album, Absence, has a lot of calm music in it. Do you think that’s a coincidence or is that a reaction to the upheaval that we’ve experienced in the last few years? 

I think it’s kind of a reflection of what’s happening with where we are as a society. With everything that’s been going on within the last five to ten years we started to have demonstrations again. Prior to that there was a lot of things going on and we weren’t in the streets like we were in the sixties, you know. But I think once we hit well past the 2000s people started coming out again.

And I think you’ll start to see that in the music. Actually you are seeing it in the music. It’s just that these guys have a different way of approaching it and dealing with it. It’s not about screaming and yelling, it’s about dealing with facts. It’s about dealing with issues and dealing with them head on. So I think that’s something that’s reflected in what’s going on with the music.

You’re working right now with Herbie Hancock, an artist who has had a major impact in the world. Your recent album, Absence, was a tribute to Wayne Shorter. When you have been working with and around these guys who have had incredible careers, do you consider what your own legacy might be when you’re at that age and is that important to you?

I’m not thinking about it now. I’m thinking about how does he do what he does every night? You know what I mean? It’s crazy, man. I can’t pin him down to anything. He plays differently every night. He’s always stretching and he’s always finding new ideas. And it’s pretty miraculous when you think about it, because he’s 82 and he’s had enough hits where he could just sit out and go and play his hits and just be cool. But that’s not what he’s about. He’s a true artist in terms of trying to find new things all the time.

Speaking of trying new things, I wish I lived in San Francisco because I know you’re doing four nights with the Turtle Island Quartet of music from Fire Shut Up in My Bones with vocalists. How are you reimagining some of that music for that configuration of musicians?

I love David Balakrishnan’s writing and arranging, so I hired him to do the arrangements and we sat down and talked about what it is that we want to do. And I told them I’m not trying to mimic what the orchestrations are in the opera. This is a chance for us to show the world what The E Collective and Turtle Island is along with this music so people can re-imagine this music in a different way. And I’m really excited about what he’s coming out with, man, because it’s going to be very unique. It’s going to be very different. 

Is that something that you can foresee recording at some point? 

Definitely. I mean, it’s something we’re talking about for sure. 

I’m sure that would appeal to people who see the word opera and get scared.

I’m trying to demystify that. Look, it’s the same thing used to happen with some of our friends when you said the word jazz. “I don’t know anything about jazz.” I didn’t ask you if you did. I just want you to come and check out the music.

You should just go experience music, whether you think you like it or not, because you never know what you’re going to respond to.

Of course. But in this world that we live in, and especially in the pop culture side of our existence, there’s always these kind of images that people have of whether it’s jazz or whether it’s opera, anything, [they] take a small snippet of an idea and try to portray it as being the entire thing. So people always get the wrong impression about what these things are. A lot of my friends would come to see the opera in New York. [They] got really excited about opera because they’d never been before. And I was trying to tell them, “Listen, man, you have to experience this. It is the highest form of musical theater you could ever experience in the world.“

Fire Shut Up in My Bones was a huge success for the Met. I’m wondering what that says to you about new works and what impact they can have versus the classic repertoire and maybe in particular about works by Black composers? 

Well, I think really what it boils down to is just trying to be as honest as you can in your writing. You know, one of the things Art Blakey used to tell us, “Man, you never want to be too hip when you when you’re composing music”. And he said “Two hips make an ass.” That was always his thing you know. And it’s one of the things that I try to live my life by.

I’m not trying to write music that goes over people’s heads. I’m trying to write music that’s right with them in their souls. I think when you do that the music can have an effect on people and it’s what people are looking for. It’s what we need in this world. We need music that’s not going to intimidate you.

The other thing Art Blakey used to always say was “The easiest thing to do is to write something that nobody can understand – that’s easy to do.” He said the hardest thing to do is to write something that touches people in their soul and still have your own identity within it, you know? That’s what’s been on my mind. The thing that’s been driving me throughout my career is to be right with the public who’s listening to the music and hopefully create something that everybody can enjoy.

When we spoke in 2019, which was which was before Fire was at the Met, you said that you were under no illusion that you were standing on the shoulders of a lot of people who didn’t have the same opportunities that you did. With your first opera, Champion, coming up next season as well, your shoulders are the ones that are now supporting other musicians who perhaps thought the glass ceiling at the Met could never be broken. 

That really hasn’t hit me as of yet. I’m still thinking of William Grant Still. I’m still thinking of people who should have been at the Met, who deserved to be there. I read that ledger that had all of these names of rejected projects. Then to see his name in it three times and listen to some of and read some of the excuses as to why his music was turned away, it’s infuriating. Because you start to think to yourself there’s somebody who doesn’t know anything about opera claiming that he doesn’t know anything about opera when actually he’s revolutionizing opera with what he’s written.

So those things make me really determined to make sure that what we’re doing is going to live up to the legacy of those guys and hopefully open the door for other composers to come through later on. Which we already know is already happening. Peter Gelb has made it his mission to open up the doors to all different races, every gender, to express themselves on the stage. I think this has been a profound thing and it should be an eye-opening thing for everybody across the globe in the opera world to see that people are clamoring to see themselves on a stage.

The Santa Fe Opera has a world premiere of a new opera inspired by the play M. Butterfly. I think it’s incumbent upon institutions to give opportunities, but also not just be one and done and say, well, we’ve done it.

The other thing, too, is not only one and done, but not only be one and done with composers. Writing an opera is a very arduous thing, obviously. As soon as I had written my first one and it premiered, there was a certain amount of clarity that came over me the night of the premiere that went into the development of the second one, you know what I mean? And I look at it and think to myself, had I been one and done, I wouldn’t have gotten a chance to make Fire better.

Now with Champion going to the Met, I get a chance to go back and revisit that and even kind of beef that up based on what I did the first time. So I think it’s incumbent upon these companies to really understand that it’s really about trying to develop the talent, not just giving them a chance, but to also help them to develop their craft. 

One of the things I love about about Absence, going back to this album, is that it isn’t a traditional tribute album. You’ve said before in interviews that Wayne Shorter instilled in you the idea that he didn’t want to hear you do what he did. He wanted to hear you do what you do – to paraphrase. Now that you’re going on the road with The E Collective and Turtle Island Quartet, how are you giving new life to the compositions so that you aren’t doing just what you did on the record, but you’re doing what you need to do live?

I mean, it’s one of those things where those guys play it differently every night. And I can’t explain it to you. You have to experience it. There are people who have come to hear us play at a club date when we play a few nights and they come to hear us on different nights and can’t believe that we’re the same band. And that’s what I take from Wayne. That’s what I take from Herbie. You know, I’ve been around those guys where you can’t have any expectations because it’s really about being in the moment.

I know teaching is important to you. How much are you learning from guys like David Ginyard, Charles Altura and David Balakrishnan? [Members of The E-Collective]

You can’t even put it in the words because I feel blessed to be around those guys because they bring in ideas that I never would have thought of. They are so creative in their approach, not only to composition, but improvisation that it becomes a really a big challenge man just to be on a stage with them. If you make a musical statement, they respond to it in a way where now you have to be flexible. You have to be able to just shift on a dime with these guys. And it’s been a learning experience of which I’m grateful for and I feel truly blessed to be experiencing right now.

Is it nice to know at this point in your career that there’s still new stuff to learn and that there always will be or to be reminded of that? 

Of course. I would quit if it weren’t that way. I couldn’t just do the same thing night after night just to make a dollar. No, no, no, no, no. Because this isn’t all about money, but about uplifting my spirit and my soul. What’s going to help other people to hear, you know? So that’s really what it’s about.

I do want to ask you about something that Wayne Shorter said in a 2005 interview with Abstract Logix. He said, “It’s okay to be vulnerable, to open one’s self and take chances and not to be afraid of the unknown. And that goes for the audience wise, too. Because we’re going to have to deal with the unexpected from now on.” How much does the unexpected inform who you are today and the work you do? 

It’s one of those things where you’d like to think that it’s a huge part of it, because you want to be open to what’s going on in the universe. But the reality of it is that we do have a style and a sound. Just by merely having a style means that you’ve already eliminated other things that are possible for you to play because you’re playing within a context and that’s what dictates your style.

It goes back to find a balance between all of those things, you know, allowing yourself to be in the moment and allowing yourself to be free to respond to things that you may not have thought of, but are really a part of what’s going on in music at that time. Because that’s one of the things that we have to do as a community as well.

I always think jazz is probably the best representation of how we should live as a community. We all have ideas about what it is that we want to do, but at a certain point it’s really about the music. So I have to throw away some of my ideas if they’re not relevant to what’s going on at that particular time. That in itself is a thing that excites me because it keeps you on your toes and it keeps you guessing and it makes you quick. You know, it keeps you moving. 

To watch our full interview with Terence Blanchard, please go here.

For tickets and more information about Blanchard’s four shows (August 4th-7th) at SFJAZZ, please go here. For tickets and more information about Blanchard’s August 8th performance at Kuumbwa Jazz in Santa Cruz, please go here. For tickets and more information about the August 9th performance at The Ford in Los Angeles, please go here. For tickets and more information about Blanchard’s August 12th appearance at the Telluride Jazz Festival, please go here. For additional tour dates, please go here.

Photo: Terence Blanchard (Photo by Cedric Angeles/Courtesy Blue Note Records)

The post This Is The Golden Age of Terence Blanchard appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

I’ve seen him in Fire Shut Up In My Bones and MJ The Musical. He’s enormously talented.

Russell is on a two-week break from MJ The Musical so he can play the role of Young Lola in the Hollywood Bowl production of the musical Kinky Boots from July 8th – July 10th. Not bad for a thirteen-year-old, is it?

So how does this young man approach roles that involve molestation (Fire Shut Up In My Bones), depict an enormously popular worldwide superstar like Michael Jackson (even if the show overlooks most of the controversy surrounding him) and now the younger version of a drag queen?

These were just a few of the things I discussed with Russell who wants to be an EGOT (winner of an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Award). What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity.

How much do you look at what Wayne Brady is doing in his performance to try to figure out how you can be a believable younger version of who his character grows up to be?

So to be the younger version of Wayne Brady it’s just so amazing. And when I’m acting, I normally play younger versions of these people, so I try to practice their actions and like the way they express and like their movements a lot. 

What do you what do you think this show has to say to people your age?

I think to just be yourself and express it as much as possible, especially during like this time. I think this is a very important show, especially during Pride Month.

Tell me about the boots and the experience of being in them. 

It gives me height, which I love. And it’s just mainly about stretching like the heels and the knees and it’s mainly balance. When it comes to wearing the heels, it’s just practice, practice, practice right now.

You’ve got Jerry Mitchell, who’s the director choreographer since day one of this show. You also have Wayne Brady, who’s been in the show before. Jake Shears has been in the show before. What advice are you getting from them? What are you learning from them about this show and the role of young Lola?

I mainly have been following Wayne Brady’s lead when it comes to this role and how this character expresses in a certain form and how a lot of people express themselves and play in different forms as well. And then coming back to that to myself and also expressing myself as how I want to be. And it might be different. It might be the same, but it’s mainly just the process of switching myself into a different character.

Unlike other shows you’ve done, this whole production gets put together in two weeks and is done. What’s that process like for you? 

For me it’s mainly just thinking straight and really focusing on what I have to do during this time. So when it came to MJ and Fire, we had a bit more time. It was like a month at least. And I had more of a chance to discover the role. When it comes to Kinky Boots, it’s fictional so I have a little bit more freedom. But it’s more focusing on this play and to just get it done and be ready.

What’s the difference for you when you’re playing a real person versus a character that’s been created solely for the show? 

When it comes to playing a fictional character, I do have more a little bit more freedom than playing someone who is a nonfiction character. When it comes to playing real people we have to study them and practice their emotions. When it comes to fiction, it’s kind of like something that I could choose.

Fire Shut Up In My Bones is really intense material. You can make an argument that there is intense material in MJ just by virtue of the controversy around who you are portraying in the show. How do you, at your age, process all of this stuff that you’re being asked to do? 

Normally before I do the show I sit down with a parent or guardian and just think about what do you think about it and talk about it. And that it’s just a play, it’s not real. But the events have been real. I think it’s very serious, but it’s also very emotional and very important.

Are there any of the characters that you’ve played the most like you? 

Oh, probably the most like me has been MJ, but when I was younger, Simba has been like the closest to me.

I’m sure you were happy for Myles Frost when he got the Tony Award. (Best Actor in a Musical for MJ)

I was ecstatic. There is a video of us like going crazy about it. I wanted him to win. But of course, there was some doubt because there were these huge stars: Billy Crystal, Hugh Jackman. So him winning, it was just surreal and it was so exciting.

When I saw you in the show, I saw his understudy, Aramie Payton, who I thought was amazing. I couldn’t imagine Myles being any better than that because I thought the understudy was so good.

I know. That’s what I love. He was amazing to me. And that’s just the understudy. The level that they’re both on is just so good and I’m just so happy that I’m able to work with them.

When you look at what Myles has been able to accomplish or what Will Liverman (Fire) has been able to accomplish, or, you look at Wayne and Jake in this show, what do you see in them that you would like your career to be?

I’m only taking the little things from all those people and put them into my experience and what like level I want to reach.

Where do you want to go from here?

I want to be an EGOT.

So where do you start? What’s the first one to get and how are you going to do it? 

Just, of course, originating a role and just something that I love to do. What I want to do is getting a Tony first. So hopefully that does happen.

And where does opera fit into this?

Hopefully it’s in the Grammy selections because Porgy and Bess did win. So hopefully [Fire] will go into that.

Have they made a recording of Fire? You’ve been in the studio or was it from Live in HD?

Yes. It was a live deal. It was very is very exciting. They had to put mikes on me I think three times. It was just very fun knowing that I’ll be able to be on the opera album.

Do you want to do more opera? 

I do.

There’s nothing you don’t want to do, is there?

No, not really. 

So what’s next is going back into M.J… 

Yeah and hopefully just more Broadway shows and more TV shows or just more movies in general.

One last question for you. When you do Kinky Boots at the Hollywood Bowl you’ll be in front of more people that can fit into a Broadway house for an entire week. And that’s just in one show. What do you have to do as a young actor to just be in the moment and do the show and have fun and not worry about however many people might be there? 

So you know there’s a fourth wall. I think of it as no wall. It’s just the center and back. And it’s mainly just keeping my mind on the show and not what everyone else is thinking outside.

Photo: Walter Russell III (Photo courtesy his Facebook page)

The post Walter Russell III: I Want to Be an EGOT appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Moore is playing the title character in this Francesca Zambello production that is the first Aida to be performed at LA Opera in over 15 years. She’s very familiar with the part having first performed it in 2009. Moore made her Metropolitan Opera debut in the role in 2012 as a last-minute substitute for Violeta Urmana who was sick.

Since then, in addition to Aida, she’s regularly performed the role of Cio-Cio San in Madama Butterfly and was seen in the Met Opera productions of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess and Terence Blanchard‘s Fire Shut Up In My Bones. Italian operas are her passion, but as you’ll see from this interview, her jazz background earlier in her life has been the gift that keeps on giving.

What follows are excerpts from our conversation earlier this week that have been edited for length and clarity.

You’re 13 years into singing this part and 10 years after your Met debut as Aida. What’s your relationship to Verdi’s opera today?

When I first started doing the role, I didn’t know if that was really for me vocally. I thought my voice was a bit light for it. So as the years went on, I started getting more [performances] added. I was doing it all over the world. The more I did, the deeper I fell into the character. By about 2016 my voice caught up with where I should be vocally with the character.

Every time I do it I find something new. I tend to put my own stamp on it and try to break away from the traditional way of doing it and singing it and provide the audience with something they’re not used to hearing. I feel like such a staple like this is done mostly one way for so many years. Every time I go out on the stage, even within a production – even within one performance – I like to spice it up and do something that’s more Latonia.

What have you learned or discovered about the character in that time?

Aida, you really hear about who she really is and her struggle and things like that. But one thing that I’ve learned about a character like hers is she’s a lot more like her father than I ever thought. She’s very much an outsider. The more I delve into the text and the way I’m singing and the way I’m saying words, it’s becoming a lot more visceral than it ever was before. She’s the daughter of a warrior, she’s been trained to fight, she knows how to do it. She’s an animalistic person by nature, but has been forced to seem like something submissive. She actually is not and I think that I’ve embraced more of the power of a person like that. 

In previous interviews you’ve discussed your concern that you were only being cast in Aida because you are Black. Do you still feel that way?

I still believe that, especially initially, it was definitely the color of my skin, because vocally I was not right for Aida when I first started doing it. The people who hired me knew that, but they didn’t care because they wanted someone Black. I started to wrap my head around the fact that maybe I was being cast for Aida because I was appropriate for the role was four years after my Met debut. I was just like, you know what? I’m a pretty good Aida. This actually fits now, but it didn’t before. Maybe it took having a couple kids for my voice to settle into it a a little more and then make it a bit deeper of a sound for Aida.

Do I still think that people cast me because I’m Black? Yes. I think that’s why I’m here in L.A. I don’t think that it was only because I’m a good Aida. I think they wanted to cast a good Black Aida. And hopefully that’s what they got. But yes, that’s the factor here because I’m Black and I think that continues to be. I think that for many companies, especially in this climate, they’re just like we have to cast the Black Aida because, you know, we don’t want any pushback for it. You know, casting a white Aida right now in the climate here in America, it’s dicey.

Does that become limiting for you and the roles you can play?

This is where I’ve become a bit up in arms with the casting, because I see where they’re coming from. You know, it’s like they have to have a Black Aida. But does that mean that I can’t be Madame Butterfly anymore? That it has to be an Asian one? Because my whole reason for getting into the business was so I could be someone Japanese. I could be a Venetian. I played Leila in The Pearl Fishers, a Sri Lankan. That’s what I love about an art form like this that is so exotic and I can transform into anything. So when people are saying, yes, we should cast a Black Aida, you know, that doesn’t sit right with me because it feels like where I’m then limited.

The moment everyone is waiting for in Aida is o patria mia. What’s your approach before and during the singing of this aria?

Any soprano that sits there and says they’re not thinking about it; I think one of two things about that. Either one, they have done therapeutic things to change their mindset or two, they’re lying to try to convince themselves that it’s not torture. Every single soprano, and this is for everybody that’s about all these sopranos, we all know y’all are thinking about it, too. Surely Maria Callas, when she got there, started thinking and you can hear it. You can hear the people start thinking about it. You can’t completely throw caution to the wind because there’s a lot riding on it. What’s giving everybody so much anxiety about it is exactly what you said – the expectation. It’s that everybody’s waiting on you to stick the landing. To this day it will always terrify me. Always. I’m not going to sit here and pretend Oh, no, I’ve mastered it. No, no, no. I’m going to go to my grave having never mastered that part of it.

I do feel like one difference between the way I used to think about o patria mia and now. Now I’m not so focused on whether or not I stick the landing. Either it’s going to happen or it’s not, but I have to use this character to my advantage no matter what. A lot of times people are expecting it to sound like something off a recording that they heard. Can she do it like Leontyne Price? Can she do it like Zinka Milanov? I’m never going to be able to do it like them. However, you know what I am able to do that maybe not a lot of people are able to do is convince you that I am that person doing it. Even if I crash and burn and bust all over the high C it’ll still be Aida doing it, not Latonia. So that’s one thing that I had to retrain my brain about it. No matter what I end up doing, if she’s going to bust a note, she’s busting it because Aida wanted to.

How would you compare the joy that you get in singing a classic role like Aida or singing Madama Butterfly to the opportunity to sing new work like Fire Shut Up in My Bones?

I’ve always thought of myself as an Italian soprano, one that just focuses mostly on Italian opera. However, I have a big jazz background and I switched to opera while I was in college. But jazz is really my focus. I don’t particularly like singing in English, but what was so appealing about these works, like Fire Shut Up in My Bones and the upcoming Champion, is that they are jazz operas. And this goes for Porgy and Bess, too. It goes back to me saying that Leontyne was beamed down for the planet to sing Aida. That’s what she was here for. I feel like the reason I started in jazz and came into the opera the way I did was for the work that I’m doing right now on Fire Shut Up in My Bones and stuff like Porgy and Bess, Champion and whatever comes in that vein.

I love Italian opera. I’ll never give it up if I can help it. But some people fit right in the pocket of something. I’m the one that fits in the pocket of being the soprano in these Black jazz operas. I guess I find myself on the planet at the right place, right time. I feel like it’s what I was meant to do.

On your Instagram account earlier this year, you quoted Charles M. Blow’s memoir that served as the inspiration for Fire Shut Up in My Bones. You quoted, “I would have to learn to accept myself joyfully, fully as the amalgamation of both the gifts and the tragedies of fate as the person destiny had chosen me to be.” So today, Latonia, in 2022, who is the person destiny has chosen you to be? 

I’m a beautiful example of somebody that may be viewed as an underdog, but an example of somebody that no matter what you look like, no matter what you’ve gone through or what you said, you still persevere. I feel like I’m here to be an example to other people.

I hope that every other kid like me sees what I’m doing and knows that they can do it, too. I feel like my place in a business like this is to show you that what you look like as a person will never matter more than what it is you can create as an artist. I’m simply put here to create and make art for people, to encourage them, to hear them, to show them that they can do it. Yes, you can have children. Yes, you can go up there and you can look like anything and transform into something else. Yes, you can go up and help the youth and you can help them lift up into a great career.

I feel like I’m a very good example in this business of what perseverance can really get you. I’m the sort of person that is like if you streamline your energy toward what you want and you believe it with unwavering faith, you’re going to make your mark. Period. But it has to be unwavering faith. Be patient and don’t care how long it’s going to take. It’ll happen.

There are six performances of Aida at LA Opera from May 21st through June 12th

All photos of Latonia Moore in LA Opera’s production of Aida by Cory Weaver. (Courtesy LA Opera)

The post Latonia Moore Once Again Faces Down Verdi’s “Aida” appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

“I think it’s a tragic perspective that for all of the years of of opera existing and then in America and then for the Met[ropolitan Opera]. That this one person gets, as you say, maybe not the door down, but the reality is there was William Grant Still, there’s Leslie Adams.”

Burrs is alluding to the Metropolitan Opera finally performing the work of a Black composer this year with the staging of Terence Blanchard‘s Fire Shut Up in My Bones. But he doesn’t hold out much hope for change.

“There’s no reason for me to put faith in that. You know, I tend to be candid and so I’ll be candid here. It’s been my experience that they designate a Negro for the year. And what I mean by that is and so that you can then transfer into a decade, into a century. Then the blackness might only be the people on stage, but it’s George Gershwin that’s written it. You know what I’m saying? Now that all of that has advanced to a great extent. But this idea of will the door get open? It’s been my observation, my experience, that door get’s cracked open for somebody to get in. Then it is just quietly, if not outright, closed again until the next set of sociological circumstances insist that there’s a change.”

Burrs continues writing and composing and fighting for what’s right. His latest project is a perfect example. I Can’t Breathe had its world premiere at Marble City Opera in Knoxville, Tennessee in February of this year. The opera features a libretto by Brandon J. Gibson. It is a co-production with Opera Columbus, Cleveland Opera Theatre, and Pacific Opera Project. The latter company presents three performances this weekend at the El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood.

Speaking via Zoom last week with Burrs relayed how the opera came to be.

“Katherine Frady and Brandon Gibson with Marble City Opera were very concerned with what they were experiencing through this period of of police brutality and the deaths of African-Americans, particularly with George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and a few others. Katherine was asking, ‘What can what can we do about this? We can’t just sit here. And the only thing I have control over is the access to my opera company.’ They were trying to determine if there was a work that already existed that could address it. They could not find something that they’d be satisfied with. Katherine came up with the brilliant idea. ‘Brandon, could you write an opera about this?’ Brandon said, ‘Well, yes.’ He’s a writer, but he’d never written a libretto.

“Then it was time to find a composer. One of their board members was very familiar with my work as a composer. She suggested that maybe they should consider reaching out to me. And of course, I said yes.”

I Can’t Breathe depicts the lives of six characters; each of whom is given a generic name like the mother, the athlete, the thug, the scholar, the father and the lover. Each also experiences circumstances that will be familiar to anyone who has paid attention to well-known incidents of police violence against Black people. Burrs says there was absolutely a reason for this structure in the opera.

“There’s an effort that’s always made in society to lump us as African-Americans into just one category. And the way [Brandon] was doing it by putting this heading is there’s going to be so much depth to each of the characters that he wanted to make sure people understood how our everyday lives play themselves out each day.”

Musically that allowed Burrs to create themes for each of the six characters who appears on stage in solo scenes before the final sequence in I Can’t Breathe.

“At its bare minimum the opera can be presented with only one person per scene, which is even more challenging in its own right. So I wanted to make sure that the audience was not going to get lulled into thinking they would know what’s going to happen next because the same themes would carry through for all six scenes, it might even shut them down. I brought all the motifs together for the finale because each of the characters did not interact ever prior but, in effect, in the last section of the opera they get to know each other.”

Artists like H.E.R., Dax and Terence Blanchard have all responded to the concept of being unable to breathe since these incidents started getting national attention. Janelle Monae had the song Say Her Name. Burrs feels there is a place for I Can’t Breathe to offer something different in the way it addresses similar themes and issues.

“We want people to be able to be reflective of what they’re experiencing and to be open to having their perspectives expanded in a way that allows for a better community, a better society – a more humanistic, caring society. Sometimes, too, if you’re white, you’re looking at certain things and you don’t even know that you’re looking at something that is absolutely detrimental to anyone other than you. And that’s fine because you get to benefit from that. But if this helps to open your eyes to what is more just, what is more equal, then that is one of the things to take away from this experience.

“For the experience down the line? You hope that people will sit and say, ‘Oh my God, I couldn’t believe that the world was like that.’ That hasn’t happened in our 400 years or whatever years of history of America for the moment, because we’re seeing things that are so reminiscent of the period of slavery and frankly, that are utilized right to this moment. The opera, VANQUI, represents that. So here we are today from VANQUI about slavery and abolitionists to I Can’t Breathe and the same issues are at hand is troubling. So down the road as history goes on, we hope that people will sit and say, ‘I can’t believe society ever worked like that. But I’m glad this piece is here to remind us of what what life was like and what we should never aspire to because it will be so detrimental.’ Or they’ll sit there and say, ‘Oh my God, nothing has changed and what can I do to help make this change?’ That’s what I’d like to see happen with the experience of I Can’t Breathe.”

To see the full interview with Leslie Burrs, please go here.

Main photo: Jayme Alilaw in the world premiere production of I Can’t Breathe (Photo by Kyle Hislip/Courtesy Marble City Opera)

The post Leslie Burrs Gives Voice to “I Can’t Breathe” appeared first on Cultural Attaché.