sing jazz

I tried a couple of standards at karaoke just to see how I’d feel doing it. It was fun, but I don’t just want to sing… I want to SING! So now I’d really like to find somewhere beautiful to sing and sing like I mean it to feel accomplished! I really want to find the perfect song so I can feel like a real singer, even if it’s only for a night.

In Harlem. Sounds so romantic. She used to try to get us kids to sing but I never really felt confidant. I sang to my husband at our wedding and that was the first time I sang in public. I fantasize about moonlighting in some lounge singing standards. I’ve always loved music much older than myself.
But I’ve never had formal singing lessons. I’ve been told I have a nice smooth voice, but I would really like to see how much it could grow.

I don’t have any “real” singing experience, but I have a lot of music experience. I’m told by my husband that I have good tone and pitch. I mostly need to work on some style and my range. I’m too cheap to take lessons, but I’m self motivated. My husband plays the piano for me and I sing.

I don’t know how good I’ll get, but it’s fun!

I’m a bit of a hipster (of the 2000s variety, as much as I’d like to be of the 1940s variety), I’ll admit. I’ll admit! I shall reclaim the term!
I’ve got the chunky glasses, the cowlicked haircut, the obscure record collection, the cheap clothes, the pretentious attitude, all the good stuff. And the zoot suit.

However, I think that when it comes down to it, I really love jazz. I could quote Bill Cosby by way of Dr. Dre and say that jazz is like Jell-O pudding, no, actually it’s more like Kodak film, no, actually it’s more like the New Coke, it’ll be around forever. (hehehe)
Or I could just say that I actually really love jazz. I particularly like swing and some of the older Vaudeville. As much as I love Billie Holiday and all those gorgeous blues songstresses, I don’t think that I could pull off the cool.
But I don’t think I really want to be “cool”. I’m rather more of the “RAAAARRGHH!!” type, and I think that there needs to be more music like that, particularly jazz music. As I said, I’m really into swing and Vaudeville,

I have no idea where to start with this, or exactly what it’d look like. I have had absolutely no formal vocal training (and I don’t know if you could count my friends in choirs constantly telling me that I’m “way off pitch” whenever I sing, which is rarely in public), and if I actually sang in public, what would count as jazz? One of the old moldy standards? A jazzed-up cover of a completely not jazz song? A song I wrote myself? How many people? Where would I get a venue?
What kinda freaks would be willing to engage in a project designed to “ADVANCE THE JAZZ THROUGHOUT THE AGES!!!” run by a slightly crazy-eyed high school chick who listens to too much Sun Ra and reads too much Allen Ginsberg and William Gibson? Which means that I will be singing about cyborgs.

But man. These kids don’t know what the jazz is all about!

...and it was hilarious. Well received. Even the piano player got into the act by dropping his sheet music all over the floor in mid song.

I can still hear John Lennon laughing. Hmmm, maybe I should get professional help for this.

I get to do a solo on Saturday. In front of people. Real people. No one important – just the in-laws (all of them!) and the church peoples…

Panic!
Breathe deep…

“When I’m sixty-four” by Lennon/McCartney

No, it’s not jazz but beggars can’t be chosers.

OK, I had to write that five times before I got the ‘n’s and ‘g’s in the write order.

...in September. First thing I need to know is how to warm up properly. La la la….

I studied it, I perform it, I teach it. Best decision I ever made, changed my life.

well, after doing musical theatre for so long but having my heart somewhere else, i guess it’s time to just start singing what i want to be singing, right?

I sing with my school’s jazz band. Fun.