Sunday, December 03, 2006

Rhiannon

Rhiannon is The Bomb. She is a jazz singer /improvisational queen from the Bay Area who has worked regularly with Bobby McFerrin for years. Her Spring performance at The Skirball Center blew me away and her recent show @ The Vic amazed me. She has ideas, voicings, voices, scatting, world rhythms and textures up the wazoo ... and she creates a Flow from the beginning to the end of her performance that is so rich, so in the moment, surprising, funny, wild, spacious, lightly structured, free, and harmonious. Her shows are like rivers where everything is woven in ... a passing idea, a story, some Tuvan throat singing ... all accompanied by the constant telepathetic musical dialogue between her and her brilliant musicians.

I took her workshop yesterday on vocal improvisation and after eight hours of exercises, Zen koans, letting loose, creating creating creating (and singing with singers for a change!), I came home high as a kite! For me, she represents a small door into a whole new expansive world.