The Heartfelt Howl, The Whisper of Love
Notes on Musings of a Telescopic Tree by Mark Kirby
Nerissa Campbell is a young singer who is indicative of our time, a time when categories are ignored and walls between types of music have been torn down – or at least severely damaged. This is a reaction to the new freedom that has come from the downturn of the record industry and the dominance of marketing and public relations. The rise of the internet, home recording, do-it-yourself CD production, and social networking sites such as Myspace and Facebook, allows musicians to reach the listeners directly, cataloging be damned.
What we tend to forget today is that in more innocent times there was more room to move within musical genres. The original American music, the wellspring which has fed nearly all of the world’s popular music, combined the instruments and traditional music from Ireland, England and France, with the musical approaches, styles and sounds of the nation’s African slaves. We’re talking blues, country, and most importantly, jazz. Despite mainstream jazz’s historical revisionism, sense of orthodoxy and pretense of purity, jazz has always evolved and produced different branches and absorbed various influences. When challenged by critics and purists for playing with and including the music of Cuban musicians in the 1940's jazz pioneer Charlie Parker responded: “It’s all music, man.”
For Nerissa Campbell it’s all music, yet she also has a consistent sound and essence. Still, her music would have a record label’s marketing department scratching their heads. How would you categorize a singer whose songs include elements of pop, jazz, rhumba and blues dipped in a smoky beer batter of late night living?
A person’s musical voice is the result of her journey and Ms. Campbell’s starts with her upbringing in Western Australia. “I always loved music,” she says. “The trumpet was my main instrument all through primary and high school. I was not allowed to play jazz at all! I had a great and inspiring teacher when I was younger who took our class to the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. That's when I decided to be a musician when I grew up! It took a while to shake the classical music off, which is why I switched to voice.”
First and foremost, one would have to consider Ms. Campbell a song writer. There is a sincere, raw and open emotional quality to her songs. “In my song writing I like to conjure up more imagery than tell a specific story,” she states. “I like to be simple in my song writing, and have the songs be quite open when played, so that the band can be a part of the overall vibe of the song.” The subjects of the songs include memories of travel and identity (Glasgow), loss through departure, betrayal or death (Song for Maggie), missing people and being missed (Of Yesterdays), and, of course, love.
Secondly, she is a true singer. Her voice shifts in mood and expressiveness depending on the song, becoming rough and syrupy like Grace Slick by way of Billie Holiday, plaintive like Cat Power, or smooth and sexy like Cassandra Wilson.
The CD, Musings of a Telescopic Tree, has the kind of flow often found on vinyl albums in the sixties and seventies, rarely found today in the iPod Shuffle era. There is an ebb and flow that unifies the entire recording. The cinematic quality of the record also comes from the musical atmosphere provided by the band, consisting of guitarist Ed MacEachen, pianist Dave Cieri, the rhythm section of Joe Fitzgerald on bass and Marcello Pellitteri on drums and Mat Jodrell on trumpet. Throughout the record they leave enough room for the singer, while adding dynamic solos and the vibrant interactions of rhythm and melody that are a part jazz improvisation.
The opening cut “Stranger Lurking” is a slow, shuffling rhythm and blues number that has dark subject matter. Is the stranger a real intruder, in the mind, or a lover who is drunk and enraged? This lyrical imagery is paired with simple music consisting of sparse drums, a classic blues bass riff, and smatterings of guitar and piano. Ms. Campbell delivers the song with the laid back assurance and attitude of a young Peggy Lee. “Pretty,” a dark, folk-influenced psychedelic pop song, is just as foreboding, but also melancholy. MacEachen’s guitar and Steve Lewis' lap steel both ring out with an eerie, desolate spaciousness.
Where “Stranger Lurking” describes isolation and fear in one’s own home and “Pretty” is about someone who is beautiful and should have it all, but doesn’t have one certain thing, “Bars” celebrates drinking to forget. This bluesy ode to everyday boozing is a bookend to Bertolt Brecht’s “Alabama Song” but instead of a celebration, this cut lurches along as though at the end of a pub crawl. The band matches Campbell’s Mae West delivery with the sound of an old-time jug band riding along in the back of a rusty pickup truck.
The energy kicks up a notch with “Ain’t it Peculiar,” which finds the woman in “Bars” deciding to get off the bar stool and leave the pain behind. The music is more up tempo than the previous cuts, yet still maintains an easy, swingin’ film noir feeling that evokes smokey bars and mystery dames. The band stretches its legs, too, having been sparse and tightly controlled to this point.
Some of the songs on this record find Ms. Campbell in even deeper introspective realms. “Song for Maggie” and “Of Yesterday”are fine examples of delicate and reflective folk-pop songs. The sparse accompaniment and ultra simplicity of melody and chords serves the songs well and also adds to the ebb and flow of the album.
And yet, despite her protestations to the contrary, and the variety of styles she draws from, Ms. Campbell is in many ways a jazz singer. “I was trying to get away from the 'jazz singer' vibe with this album. When people hear ‘jazz singer’, they think of someone who sings standards or a girl wearing a sequined gown in red lipstick being smokey and dark and sexy.” Jazz and the gown are certainly a part of her past and her period of paying dues to the music and learning. “My first band was a jazz quartet called Swayed. We had a residency at a cigar lounge, which was definitely mafia owned. We were there for a year and we played all jazz standards, but very sassy and upbeat. There was a strip club upstairs and these drunk guys would come down and suddenly be face to face with me in a slinky dress. They wanted me to take it off, too.”
The cigar bar experience and her time playing the clubs and bars of the New York music scene has given her the seasoning that is heard throughout the CD. It is especially evident on the album’s finale.
“Glasgow” is at once wistful and melancholy, like she is singing a Nick Cave song in the style of Billie Holiday. The band is playing in a jazz style that is both ambient yet always moving. Pellitteri plays his drums with subtly and an elastic way of playing the beat. Bassist Fitzgerald lopes along a side, over and on the beat adding both bottom and air. The blues is here, too, but like Miles Davis’s trumpet, it plays hide and seek with space and sound, creating a depth of feeling beyond the obvious.
Nerissa Campbell has done what I wish more musical artists, especially singers, would do. She has developed a unique and deeply personal writing and performing voice. Though drawing from different styles, the music is a fine blend, like a well-cooked gumbo. Perhaps as the maestro said, “it’s all music, man,” and in a post-everything culture without walls, one’s music is about what one takes in and creates, fidelities be damned.