When it comes to fantastic weather, few locales on the planet beat Northern California in October. Although the leaves are beginning to change, there is a hint of Indian summer in the air as well as a certain, indefinable serenity. Makes you want to get outside and enjoying its fleeting charms at just about any cost.
SFJAZZ offers you a ready excuse to do just that with its free outdoor concerts. The one set for noonWednesday at Levi’s Plaza, 1225 Battery, particularly caught our attention.
That’s because the headliner will be Lisa Engelken. The vocalist released her latest album, “Caravan,” earlier this year and will no doubt be featuring selections from its during her 90-minute performance. She will be joined by her band – Joel Behrman (trumpet), Grant Levin (piano), Sam Bevan (bass) and Matt Swindells (drums).
For a bit more on Engelken, take a look at the Q&A below.
Question:Your credits include musical theater and fronting rock bands. How, specifically, do you believe those experiences influence your jazz vocals?
Engelken: I’m also classically trained in voice and piano. I grew up in Kansas listening to my father’s old-style country radio station every morning, noonand night. I have 12 older brothers and sisters who all played music, bought music, all left the farm for universities in the U.S.and abroad and these siblings left their music collections behind. This allowed me from a very young age access (that other kids my age didn’t have) to several decades of all types of music: Pop, flamenco, rock, metal, old blues, classical, show. Plus, my own travels across the country and living in Italy have also greatly influenced me.
Theatrical training to really identify subtext and theme through line and conflict are keys to my interpretation and technical approach. Coupled with theater training, my vocal training works in tandem. I was blessed to have had a brilliant voice teacher who saw that I was never going to dedicate my life to opera and instead of dropping me, which she would’ve normally done, for some reason she decided to teach me instead how to sing rock without blowing my voice out.
Question: We’re seeing more and more pop-rock tunes being adapted to jazz. What did you hear in "White Wedding" that led you to include the Billy Idol hit on “Caravan”?
Engelken: Well, I’ve always loved the tune … and I’ve always loved Billy Idol. I’ve always considered him vocally as a crooner masquerading in punk attire.
I actually performed this tune 10 years ago when I first moved to San Francisco. Did it with guitar, bass, drums and I played accordion. It was pretty much the same arrangement; I just arranged it with different instruments this time and “jazzed up” the chords. The opening line of the tune is “Hey little sister, what have you done?” and that pretty much got me from day one, as I’d heard that line all my life.
Question: You came to the Bay Area in 1999 from the East Coast. How different was the jazz scene here by comparison? How has the Bay Area scene changed over the past decade?
Engelken: I’m probably not the best authority on what the “jazz scene” is on either coast. I do find the East Coast jazz very exciting for its aggressiveness and multi-genre mix-up. I think that people back East are experimenting, playing and composing with these various influences and high technical prowess in their tool bags. Also, it seems the jazz audience and venues will allow and even demand something new and original – that may include the jazz being louder, noisier, angrier and edgier.
I think you’ll agree that the Bay Area has a hell of a great collection of musicians. I had the honor of working with a crew of them on this project and will hopefully continue to have that honor. There a lot of great players, singers, here now – and there’s a strong tradition here in San Francisco.
The main thing that for me has changed is that the number of venues that present jazz has plummeted; they’ve closed shop. What a lovely thing it would be to have more music venues with the mission of providing a living wage for (all) musicians. Is that too much to ask? Oh, if the average listener really knew what was behind a jazz performance and especially a record (in terms of creative energy, training, sheer time practicing, writing, listening), they’d really realize just how morally wrong it is to not to pay musicians to play, or to not to purchase the music that they listen to. Augh! I better stop there!
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