Tales from the Strip by Micah Barnes

Vegas Breeze: The Horns! 

    Its really exciting when you meet a new musical soul mateIt has long been my dream to work with horns and thanks to Master Arranger Don Breithaupt (and his awesome taste!)- Vegas Breeze now features an all star horn section!

Have a peek at the video about and you'll see Don conducting the horn section through a tune. It was magic to hear his charts unfold with such incredible attention to detail and such deep musicality!

 

 

 Pictured are Don and myself with Jason Logue(Trumpet), John Johnson (Tenor),Vern Dorge (alto) & William Carn (tromboneTalk about your All Star Horn Section!  Cannot wait for you to hear this music!

 

 

 

 

Vegas Breeze: The Ladies! 

 

I have a very special and deep relationship with "The Ladies" who sing with me on the Vegas Breeze album.

I met and vibed with both Miku Graham and Rique Franks long before actually singing with them and envisioned them as the perfect voices& performers to help bring the New York Stories to life in concert. The footage here tells the story! .....

Moving from the "late night jazz club" of New York Stories to the "classic Vegas showroom" meant the sex and sizzle of "girls girls girls" and so  it was essential to me that we cut their vocals for the Vegas Breeze album BUT we were working against busy schedules with Miku about to head off on a long tour.

Rique did up the awesome arrangements in what seemed like a few days (she's incredibly fast) and we cut them really quick too, in a session at Revolution and one at Noble Street Studios. But the results are simply spectacular and I can't wait for you to hear how much they add to the feel and sound of overall album!

Knishes & Grits 

 

 

Of course its all about the food! 

We were looking for a title for the new show that Thom Allison and I are writing and performing that celebrates  the coming together of Black and Jewish cultures musically -and when Thom hit on that title we knew we had our show! 

Two cultures familiar with the pain of discrimination & displacement. Yes. Two cultures whose coming together created Jazz, Musical Theatre and most of the Hit Parade. Yes.

But also two cultures that love to celebrate the good things in life-Family, Laughter, Love, Music ………and Great Food! 

I’m sitting here buried under a pile of historical reference books, with songs from every imaginable place and time- digging in to collaborate with a GREAT team- hoping to take the audience on a ride that is as informative, surprising and entertaining as this music can be! 

Of course now we spend a lot of time answering the culinary question of how to describe what both dishes actually are made of! :) 

May 21st to June 2nd @ Toronto Centre For The Arts!  Direction by Avery Saltzman, Musical Direction Mark Camilleri, produced by Toronto Jewish Theatre  starring Jackie Richardson, Kelly Hollif,  Micah Barnes and Thom Allison. 

Book your tickets early folks!  https://www.secureboxoffice.com/Search?query=knishes+and+grits

The Vegas Showroom Is Forever!  

 

Why have the entertainers that worked the strip during the classic Vegas era held our attention all these years? While working on my new album and creating the new concert evening “Micah Barnes At The Sands” I have been thinking about that question a whole bunch.  

 It feels like the answer lies in what Vegas has represented in our collective memories all these years. 

 It’s certainly fun to imagine Vegas crawling with swingers out for a good time, theres an argument to be made that Vegas was where the American personality and culture found its greatest expression! In fact the romance of that bygone era with its atmosphere of sin and smoke and sex seems like the last time we were classy and lowdown at the same time, especially as we look back through the prism of decades of loosened morality, shorter hem lines and a much more casual approach to night life.  Now “dressing up to get down” is a quaint look back at another era. Back then it was an expression of sophistication! 

 For many decades we looked back at that “Mad Men” moment in the 50’s and early 60’s as last gasp of the old guard before a younger generation toppled the establishment and took over the pop cultural landscape.  The teenage revolution that gave us Elvis, The Beatles and The Supremes seemed to suddenly make Frank Sinatra your father’s music, but in fact there was a time when The Rat Packers were the hip new thing!  

 Frankie, Dean and Sammy encapsulated a fascinating moment of masculine cool and non conformity that expressed a new kind of new swagger that poked fun at the rules of the old establishment. But back when Broadway shows and Hollywood movies still gave us our hit songs the heppest cool cats and chicks of the day like Judy Garland, Lena Horn, Nat King Cole, Peggy Lee, Tony Bennett and  Mel Torme played the Vegas showrooms on a regular basis. 

 It’s been an awesome adventure uncovering some of the lesser known songs from these great entertainers and finding my own way to express that exciting moment in time when the biggest names lit up the big showrooms of Las Vegas!

 

 New Recording Adventure!  



 

Nothing compares to the thrill and creative energy when an artist is taking new music to the recording studio.  

My band, Micheal Shand, Russ Boswell and Al Cross and I have been developing arrangements for a new batch of songs which we will be testing with live audiences throughout the recording process. Thats what worked so well for me while writing, arranging and recording “New York Stories” and I wanted to follow the same approach with this new batch of tunes. The major difference is that whereas New York Stories was made up of original songs paying tribute to romance and The Big Apple, this new batch is mostly comprised of cover tunes. 

Touring across Canada with NY Stories I’ve had a chance to “road test” a whole lot of the new material. However last spring when I was still struggling to figure out the “spine” of the new recording I had a revelatory moment while thinking about the “stories” these new songs seemed to be telling.  More about that later down the road but suffice to say once the new album had landed in a focused direction making decisions about which songs to try and include started to become easier and thats when I knew it was time to begin the process of readying the music for the studio.  Starting over the summer the band and I got together for arrangement sessions and this fall we’ve begun cutting tracks “live of the floor” at Union Sound Company downtown Toronto. 

We’re also doing a series of Ontario shows to put this new music on it’s feet in front of the public. Check the website for dates and venues!  Its the audiences  who told me which songs belonged on New York Stories and this time around it’s no different! 


 

New York City Jazz: Lullaby Of Birdland 

 


 

Birdland is a famous jazz club in New York City located at 1678 Broadway at 44th Street. Owner Morris Levy rnamed the club Birdland in honor of Charlie “Bird” Parker and it is that club after which this classic Jazz standard of the Bebop era was named.  The legendary venue continues to book the top Jazz acts today, and with it's lushly appointed booths and classic look serves as throw back to a time when nightclubs were  where you found the sophisticated elite of society.

 Jazz Pianist George Shearing, composer of “Lullaby of Birdland,” first played the venue in 1949 the year that it opened.  In 1952 Levy decided to have station WJZ in New York broadcast a disc jockey program from there, and he asked Shearing to record a theme song for the show.  For weeks Shearing tried to come up with something but to no avail. Suddenly one night in the middle of dinner he jumped up, went to the piano and wrote the whole thing in about ten minutes. The pianist explains, “Actually quite a lot of my compositions have come this way--very slow going for a week or so, and the finished piece comes together very rapidly, but as I say to those who criticize this method of working, it’s not that I dash something off in ten minutes, it’s ten minutes plus umpteen years in the business.”

Somewhat later George David Weiss added lyrics to the tune, and Sarah Vaughan recorded it in December, 1954, for Mercury with trumpeter Clifford Brown. It was one of her biggest hits and became a standard in her repertoire. Being one of the first Jazz standards I attempted to learn as a young teenager, Ive always appreciated both the songs Bebop style melody which manages to nicely pay tribute to Charlie Parkers inventive playing style and to the simple poetry of the lyric, which is both imminently singable and emotionally engaging.

 I'm including Sarah Vaughan and Clifford Brown's classic version of "Lullaby Of Birdland" here for those who haven't heard it!

            

New York City Jazz: "Stompin' At The Savoy"  

 

 The title of the beloved swing standard “Stompin’ at the Savoy” refers to the Savoy Ballroom in the Harlem originally taking up the entire block on Lennox between West 140th and 141st Streets where the Savoy Apt. complex now stand. Incredibly that was our NYC address during the writing of "New York Stories" something I didn't realize until running for the milk one morning and spotting the plaque in front of the apartment complex!  Now maybe thats why the swing music kept infiltrating my dreams at night leading to the writing of so many "old school" style tunes on New York Stories!

The plaque reads: "Here once stood the legendary Savoy Ballroom, a hothouse for the development of jazz in the Swing era. Visually dazzling and spacious, the Savoy nightly featured the finest jazz bands in the nation, and its house bands included such famous orchestras as those of Fess Williams, Chick Webb, and Teddy Hill. The great jazz dancers who appeared on its block-long floor ranged from professionals like Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers to everyday Harlemites. During a time of racial segregation and strife, the Savoy was one of the most culturally and racially integrated of institutions, and its fame was international. It was the heartbeat of Harlem’s community and a testament to the indomitable spirit and creative impulse of African-Americans. It was a catalyst for innovation where dancers and musicians blended influences to forge new, wide-spread, and long-lasting traditions in music and dance. Whether they attended or not, all Americans knew the meaning of ”Stompin’ at the Savoy.” 

 The song itself  features a melody written by Chick Webb's saxaphonist Edgar Sampson and a lyric by Andy Razof (best known for his collaborations on Honeysuckle Rose and Ain't Misbehavin' with Fats Waller). "Stompin At The Savoy" was introduced to the public by Chick Webb's band featuring vocalist Ella Fitzgerald who gave the song it's first fame.

Here is my favourite version of the song recorded many years later in a  duet version by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald! 

 

What I Learned from A Capella By Former Nylon Micah Barnes  

 

I was singing with my band in Canada when The Nylons came calling and I was suddenly in a three week boot camp on my way to becoming an a cappella singer!  

Having sung lead vocal all my career I was not used to holding a harmony note and blending with other singers, let alone doing so without an instrument in site!  On top of that I also needed to pull off choreography at the same time. As I entered that extremely steep learning curve I made the crucial decision to stay relaxed about getting it all perfect and to just do the best job I possibly could in the moment. The other Nylons were tremendously patient and supportive which helped a great deal and put me at ease. By the time I was singing my first concert with the guys, ( like a deer in the headlights remembering my parts just in time to sing them), I had been indoctrinated into that rare special breed of performer, the a cappella singer! 

A cappella singing asks for a strong inner sense of rhythm, a sturdy sense of pitch and a desire to create music in close harmony with others. Not just musical harmony but a kind of spiritual harmony which a cappella singing needs.  

What I learned from my years touring and recording with The Nylons was how to stay relaxed while working in a disciplined and precise art form, how to trust my instincts as we made the hundreds of decisions that affected our career, and how to take care of my Mind, Body and Spirit while in the middle of a gruelling tour schedule. But perhaps the most important thing I got to learn was how to be part of a tight brotherhood of shared musicality and to share that harmonic communication with an audience of deeply committed fans night after night.  I am so deeply thankful that the universe lead me to become a member of The Nylons!

Crowd Sourcing The Songs! 


Audiences tell you what they like. You just have to listen. 
Many years ago while living and making music in LA a friend took me to a Frank Black concert at the Troubador a legendary venue on the Sunset Strip and I learned a really valuable lesson. Frank Black (the founder and frontman of the hugely influential band The Pixies), tours new material for a year before stepping into the studio to record.  Working out the kinks in front of his die hard fans allowed him to hit the studio ready to record material that had been already lived in and worked out in front of audiences instead of second guessing brand new arrangements.   

Thats how I approached the making of New York Stories, testing each "chapter" of the story in front of live audiences at the Jazz Bistro in Toronto and at venues across the country before cutting songs live off the floor with the trio. The audiences tell you what they like if you are listening and so of course I was able to shape and reshape the album long before stepping into the studio! It worked so well that I'm planning the same approach on the next recording! 

Performing  the"New York Stories" material across the country I have been working cover songs into the set to help communicate the vast musical history of New York from Uptown Jazz and Broadway to Back Alley Blues and Doo Wop. The songs that have gotten the most response have stayed on the set list and Ive brought those tunes home to my trio in Toronto for us to work out the arrangements in advance of upcoming shows where we will test out the tunes some more! 
 Songs by Tom Waits, Stephen Sondheim, Cole Porter, Mose Allison and Laura Nyro are all getting their moment to "audition". It's surprising what material is getting the most response, the little known Marvin Gaye tune "The Bells", an old Harold Arlen tune covered by Sammy Davis Jr  from the show "St Louis Woman" called "AnyPlace I Hang My Hat Is Home" and of course "A Sunday Kind Of Love", (an old pop standard that became a Doo Wop hit before Etta James shaped it into an R&B classic)  

The music will be Crowd Sourced in that we're taking our cues from the audiences favourites,  
so come out and make your choices heard!  
The musicians are listening! :)

Words Have Power-Leonard Cohen  

 Here in Canada Mister Cohen was more than just a singer-songwriter.  North of the border Leonard has been and will remain a deeply respected "man of letters" who managed to became a world renowned songwriter without ever having written a"hit" or gone after a mainstream pop career from the sheer depth of his work.  We have watched him develop from his early days as a "bad boy" poet into an international artist of huge influence and one of Canada's most important cultural voices.  
Indeed his influence here is too large to measure. Generation after generation of Canadian songwriters have had to contend with the majesty and grace of Leonard's language.  The integrity and authenticity of his artistic voice has inspired us to be true to ourselves in a way that feels truly Canadian in spirit. And as spiritual seekers we have been inspired to keep growing and to dive deeper into what makes life truly mysterious and magical.



Leonard might have been trying to seduce us with sorrow some of the time, but he also sought to make us laugh at life, to fill us with wonder and to hear our own folly and hubris as human beings

 Perhaps his greatest accomplishment was Leonard's living of a deeply committed artistic life right up until the day he died at 82, releasing his latest critically acclaimed music just months before his passing.

It took him a lifetime for him to create the legend of Leonard Cohen.  

As his grateful children we will never forget what he taught us. 

Even if it will take our whole lifetime to understand it.

With Gratitude.
Micah Barnes
Toronto 2016

Friday Live @ Five

Join Micah each week as he shares insightful tidbits and sound bites to help you with your professional directions.