Jazz

Kansas City seduced my virgin ears with the sound of jazz. I was not aware yet how gigantic the music world of Kansas City was right outside of church walls. I was not surprised when soon I naturally felt the urge to sing jazz.

Kansas City intoxicated my soul with fantastic chords and sultry voices. But the groove was not coming to me, until my jazz professor, Rich Hill, jumped out of his chair one day, throwing his arms up into the air and yelling, “It will never w-o-o-o-rk!!!” Of course, it wouldn’t work - he removed the sheet music from under my nose. Classicaly trained, how do I know what to play without it? Rich would sigh and go back to the board with a piece of chalk to teach me a circle of fifth or go back to the piano to encourage me to play with him. That was the scariest part to jump into the unfamiliar tune and be expected to come up with chord inversions without thinking.

I couldn’t get it, until I compared Jazz to a jumping rope game

with multiple participants: one or two girls jump over a rope swung by two other girls or boys. Sometimes, it could be even more than one rope. You have to really know what you are doing before jumping right into the midst of things. Otherwise, you break the rhythm of the rope, and the game has to start all over. There are many different tricks and multiple combinations of them that girls use, and they are all very sophisticated; they just seem simple. That was when I finally jumped from my chair: “ZARABOTALO!!!!” – “IT WORKS!!!” I realized that before jumping in the middle, I should learn my steps first and make them be so natural that nobody, including me, can see the hard work.  Then, the music begins.

Either out of fear or simply because I was ready, something sparked in my head after this, and I began hearing other musicians not as a passive listener, but as a musician. Then, Everette DeVan–the legend of Kansas City jazz–polished and ironed my vocals to guide me away from the classical music habits. Off-beat was the hardest skill for me. And then, it was my husband, who completed the schooling with a simple formula:

“When you dance, you have the groove. It is in your hips. All you need to do is to take it out of your hips and move it up into your throat. You have it, girl! You just need to learn to use what you have.”