Opera Stars Singing Jazz: Bad Bad Bad

by Tom Chandler

Okay, everybody. It’s been a long time coming, but we all know that we have to do it. Obviously, there are some among us who disagree, but in the interest of society and the greater good, we have to come to a consensus. Here goes:

Opera singers are never, ever allowed to make jazz albums, ever, ever again.

Deep breath, everyone. Doesn’t that feel better? We’ve all known it, for years. It’s just plain ugly. There is something about classical training for voice, and perhaps for instrumentalists as well, that effectively nullifies their good taste when trying to sing non-classical music. Even show tunes, a genre of singing I have little love for, but less when it’s Placido Domingo.

What brings this all to a head is my experience of hearing a radio show extolling the virtues of Renee Fleming and Fred Hersch’s CD of jazz standards, called Haunted Heart. As a jazz pianist, Hersch is definitely the perfect choice to try to do something with Fleming. He’s very staid, not bluesy, and has classical pretensions of his own. Anyway, the host of the program went out of his way to say how bad most opera singer crossovers are, but not this one. I’m convinced he just said that because she was in the room with him. I stayed tuned, out of morbid curiosity, and yes, it was bad, full of jackhammer vibrato, precise diction and ZERO swing.

Fuck. The thought that goes through my mind when I come across any disaster propagated upon the consumer is: who the hell green lights this stuff? People with corporate money are idiots! Well, not really, because we consumers are stupid enough to buy it. Who’s going to buy Fleming’s Adventure in Harlem? Stupid people that’s who. Yes. If you, dear reader, bought it or are thinking of buying it, you’re a moron, plain and simple.

It’s like feminism, in a way. Every girl who takes her shirt off in the movies is negating the chance of an actual talented actress to get screen time. Every person that buys Renee Fleming is negating the chance of Billie Holiday to get heard. Or even a contemporary singer with some value, like Diana Krall or Cassandra Wilson. You’re doing yourself a disservice by filling your ears with dirt, you’re doing Renee Fleming a disservice by convincing her that she’s actually worth a shit as a jazz singer, you’re doing actual jazz singers a disservice by holding up a false idol over them.

In case you’re wondering, the rule holds true in the reverse:

Jazz musicians (and rock people too) are not allowed to make classical music. Never. STOP IT, IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS HOLY!!!

OK, so Keith Jarrett can play Mozart, and even convince his record label to put it out. But why? Out of all the Mozart concerti out there, does Jarrett really have new light to shine? Maybe I’ll forgive John Zorn, but that’s about it. Not too long ago I got a CD by Ron Thomas and his trio, which is actually a very imaginative jazz disc, but it’s marred by the fact that he titles his pieces things like “Etude” and “Impromptu” and other classical-sounding pompous names.

In fact, I’ll even go on record and say that the MJQ, with Blues on Bach and all that, and performing only in formal attire, is a load of crap. If you’re so jealous of the pretentiousness of classical music, you should have gone to Julliard, John Lewis. If you opera singers really don’t only listen to jazz at home and secretly yearn to smoke and drink while you scat sing, you took the wrong path in life. Nobody in their right mind seriously respects Andre Previn’s jazz playing. Nobody in their right mind seriously respects Paul McCartney’s tone poems. Everyone sat up straight when Michael Bolton put out his opera CD, right?
It’s about knowing the difficult things. I know I can’t paint. So I don’t. You won’t find my art hanging at the local gallery or coffee house. I have painted and I’ve had fun doing it, but I recognize that it’s not my strength and I recognize that some thinks are OK to do as hobbies around the house without inflicting them on the public.

Strangely, Pavarotti and Bocelli are innocents in all of this, because they do what they do the same way regardless of context. Pavarotti lets Sting sing a verse and then he comes in full-on opera style. Bocelli sings pop songs operatically (or like an Italian tenor who relies heavily on the microphone, really) and sings his opera the same way. It’s like the old days of Caruso et al, when opera singers regularly sang pop tunes or Neapolitan folk songs or what have you, but basically it all sounded like opera.
No, the badness comes in when you take the opera voice and try to make it not the opera voice. I think it’s safe to say that Renee Fleming or Jessye Norman or Kiri TeKanawa’s jazz/pop discs were not huge sellers in the way that Ashlee Simpson is a huge seller, so save the money! The profits aren’t large enough to warrant the crap! If we as a people get together and say we’re not going to take it any more, maybe it will actually stop. Maybe the Islamic world won’t hate us so much. Maybe apple pie will taste a little better, and the sun will be that much twinklier on the water.

PS, if Renee Fleming or any of the people mentioned in this article want to write for this paper, we’ll print it. At least writing is a side endeavor where you can’t hear the jackhammer vibrato.