Alex Henderson

 ON THE COVER

Bobby McFerrin:

Still Unpredictable

by Alex Henderson

30 years have passed since Elektra Records released Bobby McFerrin’s self-titled debut album. From the beginning of his recording career, it was evident that the Manhattan-born singer was not an easy artist to pin down stylistically. McFerrin demonstrated that he was primarily a jazz vocalist, yet he was far from a purist and also influenced by soul, funk, classical, gospel, African music and the blues. And at 62, McFerrin is no easier to pigeonhole now than he was then. In 2012, a McFerrin concert is still likely to include anything from jazz standards, soul and rock songs to spirituals and European classical compositions.

McFerrin, in fact, is working on a forthcoming album titled SpiritYouAll, which he says will pay tribute to the African-American spiritual tradition but will do so on his own improvisatory terms. “So much of what I’m striving for is the same as it was 30 years ago,” McFerrin explains. “I can look back and see the seeds of things that took years to bear fruit. But there they are, early on.”

Some artists find one style of music and excel by sticking to it but McFerrin’s strength has been his flexibility. Along the way, journalists have wondered, who is the real Bobby McFerrin? Is he the jazz improviser who has performed with the likes of Chick Corea, Dizzy Gillespie, Herbie Hancock, Wynton Marsalis and the Yellowjackets? Is he the Top 40 star who enjoyed a #1 hit with his good-natured pop-reggae single “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” back in 1988? Or is he the classical vocalist who has performed with cellist Yo-Yo Ma? McFerrin is all of those things.

“My world has always been full of music of all kinds,” McFerrin observes. “It’s only natural that the music I hear in my head is inclusive. I’ve met artists who’ve been exposed to lots of different music but who are specialists, who know in their hearts that playing Bach is the true expression of everything they want to say. I understand that; it makes sense to me. But for me, there are no hard lines around genre or style or language or culture. It all comes together. Some people have written that I’m coming up with new languages; I love that idea, but I’m not working towards it consciously. And I don’t try to speak for everyone everywhere. I just try to sing the music I hear in my head.”

McFerrin says that his broad-minded outlook can be traced back to his childhood and exposure to a wide variety of music by his parents Sara Copper (an opera and Broadway vocalist) and the late operatic baritone Robert McFerrin, Sr. (the first African-American vocalist to perform with the Metropolitan Opera).

“Many people know that my parents were incredible singers and I grew up with their practice, their listening, their friends,” McFerrin recalls. “I absorbed a lot. There was a constant background of symphonies and blues and arpeggios and silly made-up songs. I’m sure that had an enormous impact. I remember standing in front of the stereo pretending to conduct the orchestra, hiding under the piano listening to my father teach. But for me, there are a series of thunderbolt moments—times when I heard something and felt changed by it. A Judy Garland song. A spiritual. The Miles Davis electric band. Herbie Hancock’s Mwandishi project. Matthis de Mahler. Mancini. A recording of an African marriage ritual. Keith Jarrett solo. Who knows why something hits you like a ton of bricks? But sometimes, it does - and then, everything is different.”

McFerrin, however, didn’t start out wanting to be a singer. There was a time when he considered himself a pianist more than a vocalist and he was a bit of a late bloomer in making singing his primary focus. “It wasn’t until I was 27 and had been working as a pianist for a dozen or more years that I realized I was actually a singer,” McFerrin remembers. “But by then, I was used to taking responsibility for the harmony and the rhythm. I think that’s given me an interesting perspective. I enjoy exploring all the different functions the voice can serve, communicating melody and harmony and rhythm and emotions and ideas. That’s always been part of what I wanted to do as a singer. It’s easier than it used to be, but it’s the same idea. Part of my inspiration was that the voice is so immediate, so unquestionably personal. I wanted to do what Keith Jarrett was doing and give solo concerts that invited the audience on my own internal journey into the music. I spent years trying to learn how to do what I heard in my head so that I could make that a reality.”

McFerrin was also a late bloomer to recording; he was 32 when his debut album came out. But McFerrin has kept busy since then, hurling himself into a variety of musical situations. McFerrin’s groundbreaking second album, The Voice (Elektra, 1984), marked the first time that a jazz singer recorded an entire album unaccompanied (without any overdubbing at all).

Early McFerrin albums like Spontaneous Inventions (Blue Note, 1986) underscored his ability to use his voice to emulate different musical instruments in an improvisatory way. But while those early albums established his jazz credentials, they also demonstrated that funk, soul, the blues and African pop were a part of his musical vocabulary. McFerrin’s musical heritage included Jon Hendricks, King Pleasure, Eddie Jefferson and Babs Gonzales, but also, James Brown, Earth, Wind & Fire and The Beatles.

Asked to reflect on some of his fondest musical memories, McFerrin replies: “Oh, my goodness. There are too many to choose from. It’s hard to talk about the deepest musical ones, hard to put into words. There have been some crazy star-struck moments: the time—before we ever played together—when Chick Corea slapped my shoulder backstage and said ‘nice tune’ then walked onstage himself while I tried to keep myself from jumping up and down yelling ‘Chick Corea liked my tune!’ The time I won my first Grammy and had to accept it standing in front of Miles in a sequined keyboard suit. Yo-Yo Ma congratulating me after my conducting debut at the San Francisco Symphony on my 40th birthday.”

In 2012, the veteran singer plans to look back on his long career with My Audio Biography, a three-night appearance inaugurating Jazz at Lincoln Center’s 25th Anniversary Celebration with trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. My Audio Biography is not being billed strictly as a jazz concert, but as an event that also acknowledges other parts of McFerrin’s artistry, including gospel, soul, European classical and the blues.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about what shaped my point of view,” McFerrin explains. “That’s why I’m so excited about this My Audio Biography program coming up with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Some things I heard early on just hit me like a ton of bricks, changed me on a molecular level. Those early influences made me who I am and all the evolution in the world hasn’t altered my DNA.”

McFerrin says of My Audio Biography: “I listed a bunch of the pieces I loved most and felt most deeply influenced by and the arrangers in the band picked their favorites. So we’ll reinterpret those pieces together and take the audience on a journey through my formative years. Not so much nostalgia as reclamation; the reasons I love those pieces are alive and well.”

These days, McFerrin says, he finds himself giving a lot of thought to things that shaped him musically over the years. But if one asks McFerrin to evaluate contemporary artists, he responds that he would rather leave music criticism to professional music critics. “There are so many wonderful vocalists and artists carrying traditions forward, making new sounds, finding their way toward the future—my incredibly talented kids among them,” McFerrin asserts. “I trust them to get there. And of course, sometimes random things find their way into my consciousness: my daughter loved Avril Lavigne’s first record and I heard it so much that I learned to love it too. But please don’t ask me to evaluate them or make critical pronouncements. I’m in a very introspective, reflective phase. I’m listening to the things I loved 30 or 40 or 50 years ago—when I was a child—thinking about why I loved them so much and how they changed me. There are so many gifted people in the world, old and young, from so many points of reference. Whatever I hear influences me - and then, my job is to keep finding my own way forward no matter how old I am.” McFerrin concludes: “All of life is improvisation. It’s not just beneficial, it’s necessary. I always tell people I graduated from MSU: Making Stuff Up.”•

For more information, visit bobbymcferrin.com. McFerrin is at Rose Hall Sep. 13th-15th with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. See Calendar.

Recommended Listening:

• Bobby McFerrin — Bobby McFerrin (Elektra, 1982)

• Bobby McFerrin — The Voice (Elektra/Musician, 1984)

• Bobby McFerrin — Spontaneous Inventions (Blue Note, 1986)

• Bobby McFerrin — Simple Pleasures (EMI-Manhattan, 1988)

• Bobby McFerrin/Chick Corea — Play (Blue Note, 1990)

• Bobby McFerrin — Circlesongs (Sony, 1996)