{"id":16290,"date":"2024-06-20T11:24:53","date_gmt":"2024-06-20T16:24:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=16290"},"modified":"2024-06-20T11:25:32","modified_gmt":"2024-06-20T16:25:32","slug":"vocalist-faye-victor-accepts-the-ingenious-challenge-of-singing-pianist-composer-herbie-nichols","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=16290","title":{"rendered":"Vocalist Faye Victor accepts the ingenious challenge of singing pianist-composer Herbie Nichols"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Fb-Button\"\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>
<\/fb:like><\/div>
<\/div><\/div>

\"\"<\/p>\n

This ambitious concept grabbed me: a jazz singer adapting tunes of iconoclast bop-era pianist-composer Herbie Nichols. He\u2019s a fascinating, under-sung, short-lived jazz hero (dead at 44). But I never thought of him as vocalist material. 1 Well, leave that to Victor, who knew her idea demanded a leap, imaginatively and technically, a leap as serious — and playful — as Nichols was. 2.<\/p>\n

So, failing to find the block of listening space I felt the two-album set deserved, I finally put it on while I was doing something else at the computer. Almost instantly Victor, and her concept band Herbie Nichols Sings, began insinuating themselves into my consciousness. There was something almost intoxicating to hear her lovely voice wrap itself around the asymmetric intervals of Nichols\u2019 \u201cDouble Exposure\u201d which, with lyrics, she\u2019d re-dubbed \u201cLife is Funny that Way.\u201d More, she\u2019d swallowed the tune whole and made it her(bie) Herbie.<\/p>\n

Then she scats the second chorus of \u201cLife,\u201d totally embracing its pure musical powers, just as she purely scats throughout \u201cShuffle Montgomery,\u201d the one tune she doesn\u2019t rename. By then you know how brilliantly she\u2019s inhabited Herbie\u2019s \u201cThird World\u201d of Calder-esque, mobile-like sound constructions deeply dipped in the blues. She succeeds because she, like a major influence Betty Carter, is always right with <\/em>her fellow musicians, never merely \u201caccompanied by.\u201d Yet Victor, for the average listener, is more listenable than Carter, for having a pearlescent voice. On \u201cThe Culprit is You\u201d and \u201cSinners, All of Us!\u201d she pursues themes of honesty. \u201cCulprit\u201d embraces the courage to be yourself, not what you think others think you should be. \u201cSinners\u201d calls out those too hip<\/em> to think they\u2019re not guilty of snobbery. Victor\u2019s wisdom radiates in unsurpassed beauty and strangeness, and conviction, demonstrating the value of her philosophy better than mere words could ever.<\/p>\n

On disc 2, \u201cTonight\u201d is about a \u201cHouse Party Starting,\u201d a swaggering minor-key affair with Michael Attias\u2019s baritone sax lending sly gravitas, and pianist Anthony Coleman painting slashing lines while swinging hard. Then, an oozingly mordant take on \u201cLady Sings the Blues,\u201d first recorded by Billie Holiday, and “Descent into Madness\u201d is exactly that. But it ends in two offbeat, upbeat Herbie tunes.<\/p>\n

Here’s a concert video of the quintet that recorded the album:<\/p>\n