True stars impel; they need never campaign. What discovery each Czgowchwz stalwart would make–of such mythic inheritance, of such erotic dimension, of a duration outside the world’s measure–was to be made in dream time. Thus, to continue the tale of Czgowchwz is to surrender to that impulse that dream logic, dream effect, dream narrative, and dream figures play on, to reveal all that there is to reveal in that insistent mode, valence, sequence, and style the Czgowchwz dream saga commands.
– James McCourt describing the fans’ devotion to the opera diva and title character of
his 1971 novel, Mawrdew Czgowchwz (pronounced “Mardu Gorgeous”)
his 1971 novel, Mawrdew Czgowchwz (pronounced “Mardu Gorgeous”)
The band enters first and we offer the customary clap as they begin strumming their instruments. Bernd Heitzler is on bass, Obi Jenne on percussion and Andreas Erchinger on piano and keyboard. Obi Jenne is playing tonight, it seems, in place of Lars Binder, the quartet's resident fourth (reason: unknown). Anyway, a short while later she enters and again we clap, perhaps begrudgingly. With this act alone – coming in last, being waited on, anticipated – her manner is already like that of the divas of old; and with a name like that she is entitled to. Nonetheless, our reluctant applause is justifiable, to a degree – most of us in this hall do not know her, and revealed finally by her entry is the fact that she looks like no diva. She is dressed in a tight-fitting knee-length white cotton dress splashed with black blotches, a loose unbuttoned black cardigan covering her arms. Her accessories are a simple black watch and ring on her right hand and a plain black necklace made out of what looks like polished river stones. Her hair reminds one of Jill Scott’s early but now-abandoned Afro-look of mildly wild dreadlock-looking hair held back with an invisible band. Voluptuous, round-faced and endowed with thick calves covered in shiny skin-tone stockings, tonight Cécile Verny does not come across as the embodiment of a contemporary (or any other era) jazz diva.
My being part of this here moment is a result of one of those decisions that one weighs all day but reserves verdict for the very last minute with only the faintest hope that there shan’t be much to regret; in the end I simply came to see them out of my love for jazz and a chance to see a friend. Other people here perhaps came out of love for Germany or all things French, and some for reasons I cannot guess – all of us unusually united in the hope of a fairly satisfactory evening in the company of a German/French jazz band on its first South African tour. As she enters, I am pleased that my hopes were never particularly high, so all that is at stake is lost time. By the end of the evening, however, we all get more than we could have bargained for. But we don't know that just yet; right now I am just so underwhelmed by this woman on stage, promoted as the versatile vocalist of ballade, chanson, and rhythmic up-tempo numbers; the woman whose voice the programme says “has been one of the most important in European jazz;” yes, no, no – I don't yet see how that can be true. For all the wrong reasons (and I know my reasons are wrong, but still), I am sceptical and feel justified.
See, her look is the perfect picture of dowdy stability, unadventurism, and she seems unbearably tame. Beautiful, no doubt. A lady, definitely. But not really what I imagine a jazz diva ought to look like. In fact, she looks like an older version of my cousin, Sanette – humble, down-to-earth, very everyday. Nowadays a vibrant, loud look or at least a persona that says different, even for jazz musicians, is like a trademark: indispensable. But when I look at her the closest comparisons to divas that come to mind are the prim and proper Barbara Hendricks and Sibongile Khumalo, acceptable of both of them because they are, after all, classical–turned–jazz soloists (and if a classical soprano isn't prim and proper I'm not sure what else they can be). But then perhaps...
... there's also Billie Holiday (when in doubt). But Verny, as she walks around a bit listening to the band strumming their instruments, is the Holiday of early days; the days when the name Lady Day carried no hint of irony or sadness but was full of the fresh colour and the innocence of spring signified by the gardenia in her hair; the days before Billie was Billie – before the cocaine, the prison spells, the mad and wild romances, and the endless late nights filled with booze and cigarettes took their toll and eventually cemented the legendary artist that was to be passed on to us as the quintessential Billie Holiday. Though appealing in her own right, and with a life just as rough and difficult as her last years, musically early-Billie has nothing on later-Billie. And Cécile Verny, at this moment, could pass off as young Billie reincarnated, sweet. As for the other band members assembled around her – they practically vanish. So everybody on stage, in the way they look, is positively staid. As they strum their instruments and she begins to sing I’m already thinking perhaps I shouldn't have...
... there's also Billie Holiday (when in doubt). But Verny, as she walks around a bit listening to the band strumming their instruments, is the Holiday of early days; the days when the name Lady Day carried no hint of irony or sadness but was full of the fresh colour and the innocence of spring signified by the gardenia in her hair; the days before Billie was Billie – before the cocaine, the prison spells, the mad and wild romances, and the endless late nights filled with booze and cigarettes took their toll and eventually cemented the legendary artist that was to be passed on to us as the quintessential Billie Holiday. Though appealing in her own right, and with a life just as rough and difficult as her last years, musically early-Billie has nothing on later-Billie. And Cécile Verny, at this moment, could pass off as young Billie reincarnated, sweet. As for the other band members assembled around her – they practically vanish. So everybody on stage, in the way they look, is positively staid. As they strum their instruments and she begins to sing I’m already thinking perhaps I shouldn't have...
The first song, Automne, for which Verny wrote the lyrics, is a recollection of her walk in the forest with her blonde childhood crush that she tried (unsuccessfully) to win over shortly after arrival in Europe from the Ivory Coast. (We learn this history from her narrative once the song is over. The song is in French.) Her voice, mingling with the languid, faint accompaniment, lures us into her den with its breezy French cadences, like an old lady’s lullaby for young love’s labours lost. With this mellow introduction, Verny invites us in – unrushed to please – warms us up by her kindling fire, but does not yet surprise us. When it’s over, we are not disappointed, but we’re not particularly pleased. It is by the end of the second song, Money Ain’t Funny, which she delivers with such gusto, that her unassuming image begins to unravel, slowly.
Composed (or with lyrics written) by a friend of the quartet, Money Ain't Funny charts the personal and political dimensions of money and its loss, including the dangerous irresponsibility of the banking system towards people's money. “Then I got this neighbour… / She got really screwed / when she took all of her savings to a broker who was said would never lose..." That tale, of course, doesn't end well. "Now she’s sleeping on a carton public shelter / and don’t pay no rent…” This is a very serious subject about which she nonetheless sings in a manner so light and upbeat you almost want dance. (I digress. It is hard to turn money into an interesting, let alone sexy, subject for creative treatment. Even in literature. This is why contemporary literature is in a real fix: more than ever, money is a dominant governing force in our lives in ways that are confounding but we are still to come up with an aesthetic that transforms talk of money into beautiful or poetic prose.)
Thematically, Money Ain't Funny and another of the Quartet' song, Too many Frontlines, remind me of Simphiwe Dana’s Thwel' Ubunzima, a song about the difficulties of the black condition in South Africa’s cities, and like these two songs it also never fails to get the body moving. One cannot but be impressed by the daring experimentalism of juxtaposing searing social commentary with dance in such songs. Perhaps to offer us catharsis? I doubt it. More like to let the message sink in unobstructed by the defensive nature of the conscious mind; but to let it all in or in drips and drabs because its catchiness allows us not to pay much heed while it sinks in; and once locked in it slowly begins its work of transforming the listener when the conscious mind finally feels safe to unpack its truths; nest thing you’re humming it first thing in the morning and all day long. “We make music that will make you swing your hips but won't turn off your brain,” Verny says at some point and Money Ain't Funny and Too many Frontlines make that clear – social activism with zest, for sure.
By the time the quartet performs Holy Thursday, a song composed by the pianist and inspired by William Blake's (1757-1827) poem of the same title, our surrender to her presence is complete. In a voice now suddenly sombre, grave and heavy with gloom and free of the mild and easy attitudes of the earlier missives, and backed by Bernd Heitzler's haunting double bass as they contemplate how in a land with so much others can be in such want, there is nothing left for us to doubt. “Is this a holy thing to see in a rich and fruitful land? / Babes reduced to misery / fed of cold and usurious hand.” We may as well be listening to the mature Holiday or Nina Simone rendering Abel Meeropol’s Strange Fruit (sans the growl characteristic of these two masters) or to Nina telling it as it is in Mississippi Goddamn or Holiday imploring in God Bless the Child. Holy Thursday evokes the same responses.
Even though the German publication ZEIT said of Verny, “At last a singer who doesn't copy either Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday,” we nevertheless have to force a way of making such comparisons simply on the level of sheer skill (since not in voice quality or style). Yes, Verny's voice is a smooth, refined and trained voice. But whereas such voices usually sound clinical, Verny's is full of passionate expression alongside skillful rendition: this is the same combination that is never missing from vocal jazz masters. In mastery of technique, Verny possesses in equal measure all the skill set perfected by these jazz legends as clearly demonstrated now by her delivery of Holy Thursday. Haunting, disturbing, moving and unrelenting in its misery, but controlled so as not to be melodramatic – this is vocal genius at work and at last we’re certain we’re in the rarefied company of a highly perfected musician. The band members are as formidable an entourage as their leading lady, and together they are doing something outstanding. Someone, anyone, please – throw the wreaths on stage already!
Before the next song. Verny tells us that the pianist and keyboard player Andreas Erchinger was again involved in its composotion. "Andreas writes a lot of songs because he doesn't have a TV at home so he's got to keep busy." We laugh. Andreas probably smiles - he almost has his back to us so we can't be too sure. And The Bitter and the Sweet is sublime. “I’m walking down memory lane. / This time I’m gonna take the blame. / Taking the bitter with the sweet / again to get back on my feet…” It has the same rhythm and melody to it as E. Moilwa and Sibongile Khumalo's Thando's Groove but slower and with lyrics. “Those falling leaves on the side walk, whispering softly, under the soles of my shoes…” When it is over, I hear simultaneous exclamations of 'Whoo!' in various parts of the hall, two emanating from the stranger on my right and from me.
The song, she told us before singing it, had won an award for composition in Germany and it was one of their most popular, “... so we keep singing it and singing it and singing it.” It's no wonder why. Tonight it is perfection live. For it Obi Jenne temporarily abandons his percussion work with the drums for Udu, a vase-like instrument made of burnt clay, and he beats it softly to produce a weak drum-like sound that is the basis of the rhythm of the song from its start to its end. It provides an on-going, steady tempo that together with Erchinger's gently caressed piano slowly develops and brings to life the images formed by Verny's unstressed lyrics. “The leaves are falling down....” When it is over, as if to confront accusers, she makes us all laugh by saying, “I also sing love songs. I'm not all [fist in the air] radical.” At this point, of course, we're patty in her hands; we’re really pathetic. There is no wrong she can commit. There is no wrong we won't be willing to overlook, forgive or conceal. The audiences that saw them before us knew this – all the CDs they brought with them were sold out between Johannesburg and Maseru. We have no other way, therefore, to show our love other than being a scaled version of groupies.
Nothing
could have prepared any of us for this. The few bits of information available
on the web does not convey the profound experience that these musicians offer
in the flesh. Bernd Heitzler solos are magnificent and Andreas Erchinger's
keys are are sure but unintrusive, correct without sounding over-rehearsed. I
think this is what makes them what they are - there is a build-up of experience
between them that manages to remain fresh, like it's been created yesterday.
They work with the smallest units of everything (instrumentation, sound,
lyrics, rhythm, etc) to produce the widest and richest range
of sounds and music and emotional expression possible. They bring well-known
features of jazz into their music, reconfigure them, to create an unmistakably
contemporary and unique but instantly grabbing sound. Their Youtube clips
are not seductive enough. These musicians are the kind who yield their bounty
at the moment that really matters – in the presence of an audience; true
musicians of the highest calibre. For instance, the available video of The Bitter and the Sweet, though
lovely, is a bit old and Verny is a bit young and as such her voice (and
confidence in it) had not yet reached the level of maturity – and manipulation
– it now boasts of.
Two clips that come the closest to conveying what they can deliver are Part 1 and Part 2 of a recorded performance they did in Lithuania at the Klaipeda Jazz Festival in 2008 available on YouTube. Even though the clips are edited in a manner that is a bit irritating, they are nonetheless the clearest demonstration of their skill.
The official video for the song Love is..., a song they do not perform for us on this night (but from they extracted tonight’s programme title), is another Youtube clip that entices:
Tonight's sweet melody of The Bitter and the Sweet is replaced by the unpredictable rage of the next song, Poison Tree. Like the other songs, its emotional tenor moves unbelievably from lyric (“I was angry with my friend...”) to scat, and this time also to silence, in the process elevating and discarding various emotions in such quick succession that it seems like a protracted series of illusions to think that we saw her (just now!) experiencing and completely embodying these various states of being. Now playful, now sorrowful, then violently angry, only to end up laughing – all in one movement, through lyric, sound and silence. As she sings her way through this very challenging song, in rising and falling tones, whispering, scatting, effortlessly sliding from lyric to sound, sound to lyric to silence and back again, the depth and the range of her voice proves spectacular.
Scatting is particularly well used in this song, although it is employed amazingly everywhere too. Easily one of the most abused vocal techniques as a shorthand for sounding 'jazzy', in the hands of the less-gifted scatting ends up just being noise pieces strung together. But with this lady, scats tell a story of their own; they continue a narrative, convey feelings, become instruments; scatting is multi-functional and recognizably so - never decorative or used as a 'space filler' to while away the time or sound impress. There is already too much praise here but I may as well throw it out there: she is one of the most versatile scatters I have ever heard, and I mean ever. In Poison Tree, this perfected ability proves to be an astounding assert in terms of what it can achieve, and the band knows just what to do in this exploration of a vertiginous path in friendship and betrayal.
In between songs she has kept us entertained with narratives that are detailed enough to give the impression of familiar intimacy, but brief enough not to bore or lead us to believe we know her. Before Song for the Loved Ones (another composition from the TV-less Erchinger with lyrics by Verny, penned for her two children when they were still kids but who are now 15 and 13) is a quiet masterpiece on the unbearable simplicity of longing. The lyrics are about the quotidian and the instrumentation (with Heitzler now on an electric guitar) is very slow and sparse but the song succeeds precisely because of these elements to convey a devastating longing of the mother for her children or, as she encouraged us to do, for the loved but absent one/s, whoever they may be for us.
How are you?
Where are you?
Who you talking to?
Do you miss me?
That’s the entire song, but you would not believe it. Together, the quartet is classic jazz material, adorned with all the traditional jazz foibles – scatting (as already mentioned), long instrumental solos, varied tempos, the diva wandering on stage, whispering into each other's ears, jabbing and cheering each other on, breaking out in spontaneous laughter at some (seemingly) surprising twist in rendition, and demonstrating an established and genuine rapport between each other that can only exist amongst friends; it's almost like we've accidentally bumped into a rehearsal in progress and we're eavesdropping on people who are having fun and total disregard for our presence. These guys know what they're about – there's no need for spectacle or fanfare in doing what they do.
Their closing number – interrupted by Verny’s numerous but necessary (and very gracious) thank yous to the sponsors, the organisers, the lightening guy, the audience, and of course the band – is a song based on another of Blake's creations, this time a poem from a letter he wrote on August 16, 1803 to his friend Thomas Butts. Verny admits that they are very inspired by Blake. He often felt misunderstood, and as artists they identify with that feeling and with him very well.
In the letter, Blake describes the circumstances which led to his trial for high treason. “Give me your advice in my perilous adventure,” Blake began the letter, and continued to say “burn what I have peevishly written about my friend. I have been very much degraded and injuriously treated; but, if it all arise from my own fault, I ought to blame myself.” The song, To Thomas Butts, unlike the earlier song Holy Thursday, remains very faithful to Blake's original:
In the letter, Blake describes the circumstances which led to his trial for high treason. “Give me your advice in my perilous adventure,” Blake began the letter, and continued to say “burn what I have peevishly written about my friend. I have been very much degraded and injuriously treated; but, if it all arise from my own fault, I ought to blame myself.” The song, To Thomas Butts, unlike the earlier song Holy Thursday, remains very faithful to Blake's original:
O! Why was I born with a different face?
Why was I not born like the rest of my race?
When I look, each one starts, when I speak, I offend;
Then I'm silent and passive, and lose every friend.
Blake's next stanza –
Then my verse I dishonour, my pictures despise,
My person degrade, and my temper chastise;
And the pen is my terror, the pencil my shame;
All my talents I bury, and dead is my fame
– continues the songs after the interruption and the last lines of the poem are turned into the chorus of the song:
I am either too low, or too highly priz'd;
When elate I'm envied; when meek I'm despis'd
and what a song it is. It is very upbeat, as if for a marching ensemble or written over a tune borrowed from an African-American spiritual (Blake, with his Swedenborgian inclination of a world of waking visions and very unconventional spirituality – with all what that entailed – might or might not approve). When the song is over we all know church is out! Obi Jenne, after a whole night of waiting, finally gives us his solo, sweating and eyes closed perhaps because of the glare of light shined onto his face. He drums us out, while Cécile Verny blows us kisses, thanks us and waves us goodnight.
The organisers present her with a bunch of deep-orange roses, from which she picks one rose at a time and presents to Heitzler, Jenne and Erchinger. They take a bow, and another, before she disappears through the back door followed by her band. The clapping does not stop, and soon she re-emerges (this time to a surer applause), bows again and confers with the band to sing another tune. With the same pace as the opening number and like it the only other song in French, it is about a woman about to fall sleep before realising she has left the light on but hopes that her lover will realise this and come and switch it off for her. She imagines how this scene will play out: how he’ll come in and tuck her in, perhaps kiss her gently and tip-toe around the room so as to not wake her up. It is the perfect ending to a perfect evening, and when it is over the audience murmurs sounds of deep satisfaction.
With the evening done, we slowly file outside the hall and mill around in the cold hoping to get a glimpse of the voice, like the Czgowchwz devotees in McCourt’s novel waiting outside the Metropolitan Opera House for their star to emerge and shower her in praise. This is what we are reduced to, huddling outside on a chilly week night waiting for her to emerge. But with no sign of her, slowly the crowd outside dissipates, until five, two and then no one is left. Where is she? What is she doing? With whom is she debriefing the evening’s proceedings? The imagination runs away... Is she smoking, drinking, and already thinking of tomorrow’s schedule to the airport and their flight home? We leave her and her band behind, physically but not in memory; wondering but satisfied, leaving behind the same mystery we had come to see barely understood. Her bravura performance was all she gave us and nothing more. And that was a gift satisfying much.
At some point during the many interruptions of To Thomas Butts Verny had asked that we visit their homepage (www.cvq.de) and leave comments about tonight, so they can go home and be believed when they say they were in South Africa, in Cape Town, performing at Hiddingh Hall. “We need proof that we were here!” We laughed (remember, at that point we were laughing at everything she said to us). Anyway, this here above is my testimony: they were here, dazzled and roused us. This here, too, is my thank you, my expression of how very much I loved them for showing us the art of jazz blooming continuously to life.
Bernd Heitzler, Obi Jenne, Cécile Verny Andreas Erchinger
at Hiddingh Hall, Wednesday 29 August 2012
Only two of the ten albums by the Cécile Verny Quartet are available in South Africa: Keep Some Secrets Within (2010) for R259 and Amourose (2008) for R229. Cécile Verny's critically acclaimed solo album, European Songbook (2005) is also available for R229. All 3 CDs can be found at Look and Listen.
Photo credits: main picture © Waldo H. Muller. Other pictures of the quartet at Hiddingh by Ashley Walters © GIPCA. Picture of Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and Barney Bigard is a still from Arthur Lubin's New Orleans (1947).
Photo credits: main picture © Waldo H. Muller. Other pictures of the quartet at Hiddingh by Ashley Walters © GIPCA. Picture of Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and Barney Bigard is a still from Arthur Lubin's New Orleans (1947).
