Honest Storytelling, Jazz or Not: An Interview With Curtis Stigers
© 2007, Andrea Canter
“As I get older as a “jazz singer,” I worry less about proving something to the jazz world and much more about telling a story.”
–Curtis Stigers
Catching up with a busy musician like vocalist/saxophonist Curtis Stigers can be challenging. When JazzINK spoke with Stigers, he was just coming off a summer tour of Europe promoting his new release, Real Emotional (Concord) and a brief “break” and performance in his native Boise, Idaho before heading back to Europe for shows in Paris, Denmark and Germany through November.
Making a Living in Europe
Curtis Stigers is popular enough in the U.S., and particularly in Boise where he lives with his wife and daughter. But much of the year, he is on the road, and most often that road runs through Great Britain, Germany and other points on the map of Europe. Recently, Stigers was named the BBC Radio 2 Jazz Artist of the Year.
Stigers notes that he has been popular with European audiences throughout his career, from his earliest days when he was primarily singing and recording pop covers. “I started out in the pop world―my first three albums were pop,” he said in a recent interview. “While I did well―my first went gold in the U.S., in Germany my album went triple platinum, and in England, the same.”
Touring in Europe is much easier on musicians than touring here at home, he notes. “It is easier to tour there. You just get in a van and drive two hours every day and you can be in another city with a great theater to play in. Here everything is so far apart, even on a Midwest tour it is a long drive from Chicago to Detroit, etc. ….Plus jazz is more of a red-headed step child to the music business here versus over there [in Europe].”
Thus an American vocalist, specializing in the American art form of jazz, makes his living far from home. “I love to play in the U.S.,” says Curtis, “but there are fewer opportunities. I am 42 with a wife, child and mortgage, and it seems to work for me over there. More and more territories are opening up…It’s a living and it’s fun to go to all these crazy places, and then come back here and be a dad and husband in Boise, Idaho.”
It’s not just the gigs and the logistics that make European tours attractive. Stigers notes significant differences in the response of audiences to his music at home versus abroad. “The difference is clear from how many jazz musicians make their living overseas in Japan, Europe, Southeast Asia. There is an echelon of jazz artists here who can make a living –Diana [Krall], Wynton [Marsalis], etc., but they still can make more overseas. I first established myself as a pop artist so they [audience] come because of those recordings, and then I play jazz for them and my old songs, and they go home happy. They hear some stuff they did not expect to hear… It is obvious with so many festivals around Europe that people are more open.”
Classification of music is also problematic in the U.S., says Curtis, and it interferes with appreciation of jazz. “The lines between music genres are not in permanent ink…. To Americans, the J word is a dirty word. Everyone has seen so many [musicians] at the wine bar playing music that does not relate to the audience, who gets turned off and then they don’t like jazz. People have been scared off by it and won’t open their ears again to it…But if you see someone who has the fire, be it mainstream or edgy, but they have that thing, you can get blown away by Ornette even if you are not into jazz.” Making Real Emotional “Studio singing and live singing are pretty different for me,” says Curtis. “Usually I only play live with the trio. With a bigger band you have to sing louder and I’d rather sing more quietly. I am more quiet in the studio with headphones on―you can breathe a note and it comes out. A whisper is one of the most effective ways to sing! In clubs you have waitstaff asking if you want your check or dessert; but in theaters you have a captive audience and you can’t make noise or you’ll be thrown out. You do different things with different musicians, certainly. But I have gotten spoiled with these three guys [his trio]. The unit breathes like an animal, like a being. We have a great time on the road, on stage and off…” Stigers was pleased that Fries, Palombi and Hall were available for the recording of Real Emotional. “I’m glad we finally got them on this record, and they came through with flying colors… One of the things that is striking about this record is that Keith [Hall] hardly ever plays with sticks…He plays such great brushes, but he usually plays with sticks so I liked putting him in a different world. Phil [Palombi] never plays swing feel, 4 beats to the bar. He is playing in half time in 2 here. Even on the Mose Allison tune (“Your Mind Is On Vacation”) where everyone takes a solo, he never comes out of the 2 feel….” |
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Among the highlights of Real Emotional are the duet tracks with just Curtis and Larry Goldings. Has Stigers considered a duet recording? “I think about it everyday,” says Curtis. “Playing music in a room with him is one of the great joys in music that I have… We have this strange relationship―we seldom play together, we see each other every year and it is very intense. And we holler at lot and play great music. To just to sit in a room and play duets? Record labels are not attracted to the idea of a piano/vocal record. They will agree that Bill Evans/Tony Bennett is one of the greatest albums, but you can’t do that!”
Curtis continues, “You Inspire Me was me doing modern standards, and this was dipping into the idea of doing duets with Larry. The trick is to do not just do piano and vocal. I like the idea of accordion and vocals, it takes him [Larry] out of his comfort zone and me out of mine …. I like my music slightly twisted!”
Jazz or Pop?
Always difficult to classify, Curtis Stigers has always mixed pop covers with songs that might be more easily described as jazz tunes. On Real Emotional, he presents a wide range of pop and blues material, from Randy Newman to Paul Simon to Mose Allison and Emmylou Harris.
“I’m a strange case as a jazz artist,” admits Curtis. “My joke has been that I am going to alienate everybody now. I just don’t think about the market, I don’t know what people are going to buy. I don’t think doing a Paul Simon song with piano and organ is going to get me play on the radio next to Kid Rock! I’m trying to find a place that is completely comfortable for me as an artist, and not worrying about whether it is jazz or not… [Larry and I] went in [to the studio] just by ourselves, doing duets and finding our way to where we wanted to end up musically….. and it felt great to release any notion regarding jazz versus pop.”
“If I had a song that sounded like jazz, I wanted to mess it up a little and have Larry play accordion—it sounds more like Dean Martin on LSD, just playing with different genres and idioms. What if we did this and combine this with that? I feel like this album sounds more like me than all my other albums. On the last two [You Inspire Me; I Think It’s Going to Rain Today] I dove in to find modern songs and make them into jazz tunes, with whacky combinations like adding slide guitar. That made it weird, but the sound depended entirely on the players in the room over those three days, so it was still a jazz record because we were playing it live. On this one, I wanted to allow for some overdubbing, borrow some techniques from pop records and still make a jazz record with all great jazz musicians—the first time my trio has played on my record—and not worry about what the ‘Jazz Police’ were going to say. But I wanted to make sure it was a record that I love, especially things that sound unfinished, like ‘I Need You.’ I love records that don’t try to put that last bit of gloss on it--adding strings to get more play on the radio. Or more slick for the jazz radio guys. I wanted to leave it with some cracks in the canvass, and this my favorite part of the record.”
At a Crossroads (Again)
What’s next for Curtis Stigers? “I am at a cross roads, but I always am when I go into the studio. I have done so many different kinds of records…. I doubt I will make a big band recording, and I won’t make my opera debut! It would be great to make a duets record or a live recording—I have not done either. Record companies hate that, they know jazz is best live but…I would love to do a DVD and live record. I love playing live shows. If I could figure out a way to get that live energy onto a disk…”
“I really like the process that Larry and I went through to make something different. I liked experimenting, seeing what we could come up with, banging on things. I’m reading this great book, a collection of interviews with Tom Waits, and he talks about going to junk yards to find drums to bang on in the studio. Maybe there’s a way to deconstruct my music more. In England, my agent wants me to do something orchestral. Fans want me to do an album of standards.”
Curtis also hopes to devote more time to songwriting. “One thing I would like to do is to write more. I’m trying to carve out time every day when I write. It’s hard being a dad, but as Ruby gets older, I am able to write more. It’s the part of me that I have neglected a touch, and it is hardest for me. I fall out of bed singing every day, but writing is like going to the office.”
But storytelling is part of his nature. “As I get older as a ‘jazz singer’(in quotes), I worry less about proving something to the jazz world and much more about telling a story. That is my first and foremost goal, to tell a story and be honest with a great lyric, be it mine or someone else’s.”
For more information about Curtis Stigers, tour dates and music samples, visit www.curtisstigers.com. On JazzINK, see the joint “Doubletime” review of Real Emotional - click here. Thanks to Curtis Stigers for fitting this interview into his busy schedule!