Mary J. Blige & Jazz
batmon
27,574 Posts
Folks were talmbout her as a "jazzy" vocalist BITD.
I was wondering if she could get out of her comfort zone which at this point is her keeping up w/ the joneses, harvesting Dianne Reeves, and recruiting whomever is hot at the moment. Cool.
Could Mary either do some Jazz project thats low radar ala Chaka Khan or do a full out Jazz album under her brand and not isolate Regina/Shaniqua and them?
Could/Would she get some Esmarelda Spalding new cats, mix shit w/ vets, or do some easy listening Queen Latifah/Billie Holiday shit?
Is she limited vocally? Does her Hip Hop foundation give her the improvisational instinct to rock w/ of some Jazz players?
Would she need coaching/? Would she allow it to enhance whatever skill she has?
Is it too late? Missing the boat on the fake Billie Holiday comparisons?
I was wondering if she could get out of her comfort zone which at this point is her keeping up w/ the joneses, harvesting Dianne Reeves, and recruiting whomever is hot at the moment. Cool.
Could Mary either do some Jazz project thats low radar ala Chaka Khan or do a full out Jazz album under her brand and not isolate Regina/Shaniqua and them?
Could/Would she get some Esmarelda Spalding new cats, mix shit w/ vets, or do some easy listening Queen Latifah/Billie Holiday shit?
Is she limited vocally? Does her Hip Hop foundation give her the improvisational instinct to rock w/ of some Jazz players?
Would she need coaching/? Would she allow it to enhance whatever skill she has?
Is it too late? Missing the boat on the fake Billie Holiday comparisons?
Comments
I've been saying for years that she should make a rock album. She leaned that way on her last album with the Zeppelin covers, although it was less than successful, to put it politely. Plus she sonned U2 on their own shit a few albums before that. I'm not talking about modern Coldplay-type rock, or disaster-movie-soundtrack shit like Muse. She should think Aretha doing Elton John's Border Song, or the Isleys covering James Taylor, and try to do a modern version of that. Imagine her on Jeff Buckley's Everybody Here Wants You. She'd destroy that shit.
Badu, IIRC.
I think her vocal range is actually better than what her recorded work would suggest. I will go as far as to say that rough edge to her voice is put on because folks like it. On some of the Diddy-produced stuff, you can catch her phrasing the odd thing without it. It's kind of like her "Special Move" became her whole style. It seems career-wise that she's happy to sit back on the dough she made when she had her 15 minutes, and bless more contemporary artists with a verse, should the record company decide it would add gravitas.
Does the door for "Black Female Artist With Long High-Profile Career" even exist any more? Whitney is gone, Badu and Mariah seem the only ones with a foot in R&B that can still shift units. Aretha is still going, but she's not having hits, is she? Ladies now seem to have a very short lifespan on this track. Brandy, Ashanti, Amerie, Faith Evans... so much tumbleweed.
Aretha is the exception not the rule. Today she is royalty, but rarely records or tours. (Best I know.)
There are exceptions, a few from the 60s; Labelle, Ross, Turner, had long careers.
70s, 80s, 90s? None I can think of.
Things might be even worse on the rock side.
(I did hear there is going to be a Fleetwood Mac reunion [Christine & Stevie] but a reunion once every ten years is not a career.)
Doesn't Blige have a more gospely voice than jazzy? Has she done a Christmas album yet? Always a good career move.