The Best Living: Mark Murphy

...continued from front page

Murphy's approach, which has inspired many jazz singers including the currently popular American Kurt Elling, is also in part a consequence of some unusual mental architecture. One aspect of this is simple enough: amnesia. If creativity in improvisation is about being different each time, then a simple way to achieve it is forgetfulness. "You never let them know what to expect, unless of course you are one of those stylists who simply repeat. I can't remember what I did yesterday, I can't repeat anyway. I am a creative singer, I am not a stylist. You see those [stylists] are the guys that make money. They create a style and then the records come rolling out like cookies. I don't do that. I can't do it. First of all, I can't remember what I just sang. A bit of a problem. And I am just not a Tony Bennet or a Johnny Mathis. All their records are exactly the same, just different songs. That is probably why they sell like cookies. With me it is 'Oh my God, what am I going to sing next?' In a way I have always done that."

Simple memory loss does not explain it. For one thing, if Murphy truly forgot what he sang, then how does he know he is not repeating himself? Rather, the stylistic originality is a function of an unusual caste of mind in conjunction with prodigious technique. Murphy has clearly thought deeply about the emotional impact of sounds, and their inter-relationship with rhythmic accents. As we sit in a park in New York, it is evident that the practice has become a habit. As Murphy explores his ideas, unusual silences, thrilling speech cadences and high-pitched glissandos creep in. All exhibiting a deeply internal quality, as if he is in perpetual dialogue with himself.

"It is all motivated from the words that I have written or the songwriter has written. It is motivated by the harmonics; the emotion is there. Of course, the emotion in words is in the vowel system. Before there were languages there was just a bunch of sounds. The vowels or the sounds the mouth makes naturally with the vocal chords are AEIOU. And a few other languages have yuuu, and weird Scandinavian sounds and of course African click sounds and Chinese sounds.

"It is all variegated, but it comes from the cave. There is a beautiful truth to this. I was coaching this girl in Sydney, a Latin girl, and I said for the first eight bars, really exaggerate the vowel sounds, and about six bars in she started to cry because it just opens up the vowel intensity. Then it was a great song so she began combining that in her head with what opens up within the chord system, which is the other part of the emotion, the harmonics. You have got to get the right piano player who can do that. But I am very lucky. In New York because I have one or two or three that really open up the whole thing.

"Bobby McFerrin does not use words. He has said so. He won an award from the award givers, and then he had to go over (to sing) and Herbie Hancock walked up on stage and they began to do "Around Midnight", without words you see. The way Herbie voices chords, Bobby's face got all involved. He wasn't saying a word but he felt such feeling coming from Herbie's chords he almost made the sounds he was making into words, into word meaning. It was the only time he sang with emotion. He is such a facile vocal athlete that he doesn't care for the stories. But he will. Give him 20 years and the stories will come out of him."

The introspection apparent in Murphy's conversation provides a counterpoint to his exquisite showmanship. Indeed, Murphy's dialogue with his art is as intense as the dialectic of surprise and the predictable that characterises his phrasing. Mark Murphy the person is also in dialogue with Mark Murphy the singer. "I don't really think I have taken care of this singer for 50 years and now I want some time for me. A lot of performers don't ever find out who 'me' is, because they have invented a façade that puts on a show."

Living on the aesthetic edge can exact a toll, Murphy acknowledges. "It is very debilitating. It is because when you do open yourself and you are creative: 'I created something new'. There are some jazz players who mostly play the same solo every night. I can't remember what I did. Every night you need two kinds of adrenalin out there, you leave it on the floor."

Perhaps it is his mood - and Murphy is a master of interpreting moods - but he has a less than optimistic view of the current state of jazz music. "Improvisation is a delicate thing. I don't hear -- I hear a little bit of everything now -- I don't hear anyone going anywhere new. To me to make it jazz, you have got to be connected to that drum, or it isn't jazz. The word syncopation. There must be a lot of ways to think of it. I bend over backwards not to say: 'No you can't do it that way'. Stylisation I leave alone. I have to say, the agents have worked it almost to death; pushing it to the brink. Improvisation is so ephemeral and delicate, you just burn people out and you burn out the audiences. The jazz audience can only take so much."

Murphy recounts a story about a gig in Washington DC, performed in the pouring rain.
"There are always jazz stalwarts. There was one guy left in a top and hat, he was all done up with water proof skins and he still had his microphone out, with a shield. Finally, even he left."

And that may be what is happening to jazz. But in the meantime, we have Murphy, a peerlessly musical singer, who cross-bred his musical roots with the African-American and Latin-American, creating a unique form of prosody, a prosody that is to rap what the Mona Lisa is to a finger painting.

"I came out of a musical family. My father and mother met in a Methodist church. My aunt was a jazz pianist in upstate New York. She used to play that organ in that Methodist church, until the minister burned the place down for the insurance money. That is how deep the music went.

"There were two grand pianos in the living room they would give little music … all these old ladies would gather in the living room and ooh and ah, and it was cute. And my father was just under fantastic, a wonderful singer. Natural. The voices were always there. We were just naturally singers and musicians. I was always shy and hiding behind my mother's skirts and I wouldn't sing."

At 15, Murphy experienced the sensation of making an audience laugh, and he never looked back. He went to New York in 1954 and within three years he had a contract with Decca records. "It was just in time. My father popped off in 1957. The record came out about six months before. He was so pleased. I sometimes wonder: 'Did my record kill him?' You know, because he was so happy. He was such a frustrated singer."

Murphy has a wealth of influences, but the one he especially singles out is Peggy Lee. "I learned so much from Peggy Lee about how to arrange a song to get the maximum attention from the audience. Where you give them a lot and where you withdraw it and you keep their attention by always never letting them know what they are going to get. It is very fascinating. It is different layers of rhythm. Different layers, and different layers of dynamics."

David James is an eccentric millionaire who writes for BRW as a hobby. He gets a kick out of fully financing albums and tours for young artists with big egos - if you are interested, call him on...now what was that number again?...just a minute, it will come to me...

Home

More booty lies over the ocean

...continued from front page

New twist in dance scene
We hear that the latest twist in the dance scene is for pseudo DJ's to turn up with computers and play CD's using the audio facility. The appearance is a combination of instant electro and digital DJ'ing while the reality seems to be a rehash of the 70's "just play the record" non-creative DJ model.

Ring tones anyone?
Now that mobile phones can play more complicated wave files there's a new & growing market for commercial recordings. There's a whisper that a new wrinkle is being tried… "Get your personally composed full band ringtone". The idea is that these will sell as a status symbol. Any composers out there with a bit of marketing savvy?

No no-no to mono!
Local audio boffin Graeme Huon, who was involved in the development of the 5.2 audio system, has got a new toy according to our sources A new sound system, including new mics, desk and speakers, that produces the best sound yet and could revolutionise the PA.
The whisper is that the three-dimensional definition is spot on, but the system runs in mono! Don't rush out to buy one; its not for sale yet, but word has it that GH is preparing a paper on his development, to be delivered in Germany soon.

Sparse hits empty pits
Mutterings from the musical theatre area indicate that not much is up. The Full Monty closed after a disappointing season and The Producers is the only thing on the horizon. Word is that this one should do well, the band was booked back in October last year, could this early booking indicate that something else is in the wind?

Now is the Hora
While doom and gloom seem to be coming from most areas we hear that the Jewish scene is going well, still quite a lot of good paying gigs many with sizable bands, could be an indication of how much music is valued in this Melbourne community. At least one prominent Melbourne muso was heard to give this answer to the perennial "where are you gigging?" question: "I've gone back to my Jewish gig".

Manchester unties
Jazz joint Manchester Lane has had a change in management; no word yet on whether they're going to pay any better than the last lot. Many musos have commented that former owners, the "socially concerned and honest" Body Shop, had a poor record of paying musicians.

Intelligence is gathered by Major-General Richard Dunbier, RN, QC, VC, FRS (not his real name).

Home