数年前シーラ・ジョーダンとの共演でいいなあ思いわたしのオリジナルを歌って欲しいと思っているシンガーがシカゴにいます。Paul Marinaro、シカゴを中心に活動する彼の新しいユニークなプロジェクトの立ち上げを聴きに2月にシカゴに行き取材しました。
2月のシカゴなんて世界中で一番行きたくないところだとシカゴ生まれのTony Saggsさんが言ってましたが。
今月号のJazz Japan 読んでいただけると嬉しいです。
Jazz Japan vol152,2023
Seeking out Chicago’s Greatest Singer～Paul Marinaro
Junko Umihara MD,PhD,jazz singer
シカゴ取材をJazz Japan 誌に寄稿しました。
There is a male vocalist who has been on my radar for several years. He is almost unknown in Japan, but when I heard him perform live with Sheila Jordan on YouTube, I was overwhelmed by his charm. The feelings behind the lyrics are straightforward and captivate the listener. After listening to the song over and over again, I began to think that I would like Paul to sing my original” Then and Now”.
Paul Marinaro is a Chicago-based artist. When I heard that his album “Not Quite Yet” was released late last year, followed by a CD with the Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra called “The David Bowie Project” earlier this year, I decided that I wanted to hear him for real and sent him an e-mail directly asking about his live schedule. I emailed him directly to ask about his live schedule.
He kindly gave me his schedule and added that he would be performing with the Jazz Orchestra on February 10, which was a special concert. I went to Chicago to listen to the concert.
A brief background on Paul Marinaro: He made his high-profile debut in 2013 with the album Without a Song, which he dedicated to his father, who had dreams of becoming a professional singer. InChicago” was released in 2015. However, his career was interrupted by illness. What do these two albums tell us after the illness and the pandemic? As someone who released a double album during the pandemic, I feel some sympathy for this project.
Now, on February 10, The Bowie project tbegan at the Studio 5 Arts Center in Evanston, a half-hour drive from Chicago in the neighboring town of Evanston. I felt that David Bowie’s fans joined Paul’s fans.
From the first note at 7:45 p.m., the entire venue was enveloped in a strange sense of unity. I know very little of David Bowie’s music, but the lyrics that Paul sang hit me straight in the heart and spoke to the depths of my soul. Where are we going? ‘ “Take heart in the here and now.” “Don’t believe in yourself too much. Stop believing in yourself too much and you will be liberated.”
Some of the words in the lyrics stuck with me as I experienced the pandemic. What does he mean by “Don’t believe in yourself too much”?
He doesn’t sing in a pushy, insistent way. But each word is persuasive. And I felt that this is because he has the ability to express and convey the emotions that lie behind the words, beyond mere technique.
The live performance proceeded with Paul and the band members talking about how this project came about and the arrangements. Some people say that this kind of music is not jazz. We are not copying Bowie.
The concert ended around 11:00 p.m. with a short intermission and the audience standing and applauding. I was lucky enough to bump into Paul during the intermission and asked him again if I could interview him the next day. I had sent him an e-mail the day I left Tokyo to request an interview.
At 1 p.m. the day after the concert, I talked with Paul at a cafe in the Four Season Hotel in Chicago. I said, “Thank you very much for the lyrics, the day after the concert. He laughed and showed me a picture he had taken of the sunrise, saying, “I usually get up at sunrise in the morning, but today I overslept. On his phone, there was a picture of the morning light shining on the snowy road.
Paul gave me an LP of “Without a song”; the first song on SideA is Intro with Jpseph Marinaro. His father, who dreamed of becoming a singer but never achieved it, used to sing at home. Paul found the tape and worked with an engineer to remove the noise and record Paul’s vocals over his father’s singing.
We re-recorded it without all the clattering noises and stuff,” he said. I played it on stage at a showcase concert. My father was moved to tears and the audience gave me a standing ovation.”
He had a large family and felt a strong connection with his family. His father died in 2015, and in 2017, after a period of stress, he was rushed to the emergency room with intense abdominal and back pain that rendered him immobile.
He was in a life-threatening condition as diverticulitis of the colon spread to the peritoneum and he developed sepsis from peritonitis. After emergency surgery, he underwent several surgeries and was unable to sing for a year and a half. His fellow musicians and Sheila Jordan set up a fund to support him, and shortly after he finally returned to work, a pandemic broke out.
These two CDs are the result of that experience.
The pandemic has left the United States in a state of unprecedented division and disconnection. Bowie’s project was an expression of the emotions I felt from Bowie’s lyrics in that context.” He says. That’s what it means to not be a copy. Bowie’s lyrics are connected to us in the present moment, causing another emotion. I wonder what will happen next, but they are now planning the next CD with John Clayton on bass and Alan Broadbent on piano.
I think it is a challenging effort to add a new philosophical aspect to jazz.
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