Jazz Monthly.com Interview with alyssa graham

“Jazz Monthly.com Feature Interview” Alyssa Graham

Smitty: I truly love great singers with unmatched eloquence, inspiration, and ”real deal” appeal. I’m so honored to have such a singer joining me here at JazzMonthly.com for the very first time. She sings with a lot of heart, a lot of soul, and I must tell you her new record will put you in a fantastic mood. It is called Echo and you must hear this great project. Please welcome the incredible and amazing Ms. Alyssa Graham. Alyssa, how are you?

Alyssa Graham (AG): I’m wonderful. What a nice introduction. Thank you so much for all the compliments.

Smitty: Oh, you’re so welcome. It’s great to talk to you and I am just really enjoying this very nice project, Echo, and I must say that when I first started to listen to it, I said, wow, without listening to exactly what you were singing about, I kind of got captivated in your voice itself and then I started to really listen with a little more depth, you know?

AG: Right, right, exactly. Well, I’m glad that my voice is the first thing that captivates you. That’s good news.

Smitty: Absolutely. Now, you are such a natural singer. Were you just singing with a bubble bath in the beginning or how did you discover your voice?

AG: I’m not sure I had the bubbles in there, but definitely just singing. Growing up I listened to a lot of music. My parents are very musically inclined as far as being appreciators. They’re not musicians but they exposed me at a young age to all the jazz greats, the rock greats, the folk greats, and I think that I was just thankfully given the gift of a nice tone in my voice and I just went with it as far as I could and I’m still being challenged every day to get better and better, but I think that some people just have certain things and I was given this and I want to use it as best as I can.

Smitty: Oh, that’s very cool and that’s always a beautiful thing. And your dad took you to see some really nice concerts as a child. That really must have been incredibly inspiring.

AG: My dad was a great influence. He always has loved music. He’s the guy that would get up in the piano bars and sing even though he couldn’t. He just had such a joy for music. And he took me to some amazing concerts when I was a kid, including Ella Fitzgerald a couple of years before she died, which was really one of the pinnacle moments in my love for music, and it really inspired me to want to be the best singer that I could be. He also used to play music all the time in the house. He would play everything from Jobim to A Chorus Line, from Frank Sinatra to the Beatles to Joan Baez, and I think that having a family that had such an appreciation for great and diverse music was a huge influence and a huge gift.

Smitty: Yes indeed. Was there music in the schools when you were in elementary and middle school?

AG: Yeah, there was. We had a fantastic jazz band in my high school. Unfortunately, I believe right after I left school, as many schools do, it was the first thing to be cut and it’s really unfortunate because it was one of the finest programs, I think, on the East Coast when I was growing up and it was a shame, but I didn’t really have any formal vocal training until I went to Ithaca College, which as lot of people know started as a conservatory, and they had a phenomenal music program there and that’s when I really started to study music, but before that I just sang around the house and my parents got me a guitar when I was very young and I started playing the guitar and writing my own songs and sort of nesting into my own world.

Smitty: Yeah. When you first entered Ithaca College, did you reflect back on some of those wonderful concerts that your dad took you to and did you gravitate to that music?

AG: My father was very into the folk movement. My parents, both of them, they were sort of ex-hippies. His musical taste was really diverse but sort of centered around Joan Baez and Bob Dylan and the whole Woodstock brigade, so when I got to music school it was sort of right after I had been exposed to Ella Fitzgerald and my dad had played me my first Billie Holiday record, and I really wanted to explore that and since there was such a fantastic jazz program at Ithaca, that’s when I started listening to Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus, and I love every kind of music. I don’t see myself as just part of the jazz world. I see myself as being influenced by so many amazing musicians, both guitarists and horn players, and Ithaca College definitely exposed me to much more than I had been growing up with even.

Smitty: Yeah. Were you alone in your thirst for this great music or did you have friends that were with you? How did that work? Because sometimes when you have a partner in crime, it’s always a cool thing.

AG: Yes, well, that’s a great question and I certainly had a partner in crime. The love of my life, Doug Graham, and I, we actually grew up together in New Jersey together and started sort of exploring the world of jazz together. When we moved up to Ithaca, we started a band up there that was a six-piece ensemble and we did a lot of original music and sort of spread our wings as much as we could. We played all over the country with this band that we had and it was very eclectic and we explored everything that we could. I mean, probably to a fault we would try to do all different kinds of time signatures and everything. We went wherever we could and that was great because it really let us grow as musicians, and there were four other members in the band. It was just one of those shared experiences that I’ll never forget and that really helped to shape who I am as a musician, so I was really fortunate to be able to work with friends and lovers and just explore music.

Smitty: Yeah. Were you living a dream at that time?

AG: I’m living the dream now, Smitty. (Both laugh.) I’m always living the dream. But I think that any time you’re doing what you love, you should feel very, very fortunate, and I think that growing up with my family was, I mean, it wasn’t perfect, but I had a wonderful family and that was a dream and going to university and studying music and being fortunate enough to play with phenomenal musicians either when I was in college or now as an adult, I think that I am extremely lucky and I feel like I’m always living the dream. I always want to live the dream, and as long as I’m playing music and growing as a musician, I believe I will be doing that.

Smitty: Yes, absolutely. I love that. You really have developed a serious love for the Brazilian sound, haven’t you?

AG: I have, I have. When I went to music school at New England Conservatory in Boston, that’s when I first sort of started listening to some of the Brazilian greats, you know, Joãn Gilberto and Elis Regina, Tom Jobim. And then I had such a thirst for it that I had to go down and see for myself, and one of the brilliant songwriters on our album, Bryan McCann, is a professor in Brazilian history and he actually wrote a book called Hello, Hello, Brazil, which is on the history of Samba and Bossa Nova. And so Doug and I went down to Brazil and spent a bunch of time in Rio and a bunch of time in Bahia with him as our guide to the cities and to the world of music down there and I came back a changed person. And for some reason people have—all kinds of music seeps into my soul, but Brazilian music, it just captures me and captivates me and inspires me and it’s just, I don’t know, something about it that is more special than any other kind of music that I’ve been exposed to.

Smitty: Yeah, well, I think that Brazilian music has that effect on a lot of people, including myself.

AG: I hope so, I hope so. Sometimes I feel like it’s underappreciated.

Smitty: Oh, oh man, I have not been down there but I hear that if you get that experience it’s something you’ll never forget.

AG: It really is. I mean, the world of music down there is everywhere. It’s so much a part of daily life down there. It makes me sad that we don’t push music as much in the States as they do in Brazil. It’s just part of family life and street life and beach life and club life, and it’s sad and chaotic and fun and exciting and mournful, and it’s just everywhere. It’s in the streets, in the clubs, everywhere you go, and when we were down there, we saw brilliant music five times a day in the streets, in the clubs, in Bahia, in Rio, and you just get this sense that music is such an important part of their heritage and their culture that I sort of wish I grew up with that a little bit.

Smitty: Yeah, yeah, it’s a beautiful thing, it really is. Yeah, and speaking of beautiful things, this record is just fantastic. Talk a little bit about the word “echo” and why that is the title. I’m sure it’s special for you.

AG: It is. Originally the title came from, I mean, the third echo comes from a Greek/Roman myth about a beautiful nymph who is forever in the forest calling out for the love of her life, who is Narcissus, who is this young boy who’s in love with his own reflection and he ends up turning into the Narcissus flower, and she’s forever in the forest calling after him and the echo just rings throughout the forest. So I think that it started from there and Bryan McCann wrote this song called—he wrote the lyrics to this song called “Echo” coupled with the music by Jon Cowherd, who was also the producer of the project.

The song really talks about how no matter what transpires in a loving relationship, whether it’s successful or whether it’s a failure, that feeling that you have will always linger on, and some of the lyrics are “When love ends, sometimes the notes linger on. When love dies, sometimes the echo lives on.” And I just think it’s so poetic and so true to what most of us experience in loving relationships and it sort of has dual meaning in music as well because obviously we want this record to echo through people’s heads and for people to remember it, and hopefully they will.

Smitty: Absolutely. And I’ve never thought of Doug as a Narcissus, okay? (Both laugh.)

AG: No, he is not, and that part’s a little bit of a stretch obviously because we have a very successful romance and he’s the most giving, loving person I know, but I think the beauty of somebody continually calling out after her loved one and, yeah, I think it’s just very poetic.

Smitty: Yeah, well, the entire record has that intimate overtone. It has a very relaxed feeling throughout the record that when I said I was in a mood, it does put you in that kind of a mood that you really think about those things that you care for a great deal.

AG: Mm.

Smitty: And the lyrics really support that throughout this record.

AG: Well, that is in great tribute to Brian McCann and Doug Graham, who are just beautiful lyricists, and I think that sometimes people spend a lot of time trying to make lyrics clever or smart or dramatic, but I think that both of them are very much able to capture the simplicity and sincerity, and I think it’s really difficult to write love songs—true, honest love songs—but I think both of them in their lyrical presentation were able to do that and that’s not an easy thing to do.

Smitty: Yeah, why do you think it’s so difficult? Do you think that it’s because true love is getting to be a rarity or is it just something that we don’t express openly that well as a whole as a generation?

AG: Oh my Gosh, I think there are so many reasons. I think one is that people are very scared to be that vulnerable.

Smitty: Yeah.

AG: I think that people are terrified of saying something that might come across as sappy or cheesy or, you know, people are scared of being judged and it’s really difficult to open up your soul and write it down on a piece of paper and have somebody sing it to the world and be judged for it. Also, I think that they’ve been able to capture this real honesty in writing a love song. That is rare because putting yourself out there and being vulnerable is not something most people want to do. When you say things so directly and so literally in a love song, that’s exactly what comes through and is out there for people to judge.

Smitty: I agree.

AG: And to your other point, I think that true love is very rare these days. I am very, very fortunate to have such a great partner and we’ve been together since we were kids and we couldn’t have a more unique or special relationship and we’re fortunate that we get to play music together, but I think that a country where the divorce rate is over 50% and people don’t always find that and so it’s not that easy to write about successful love stories.

Smitty: Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree.

AG: Hmm.

Smitty: You have really captured the whole theme of true love with this record and I must say that “Echo” is a great song, a fantastic track. One of my favorites is “Butterflies.”

AG: Mine too.

Smitty: Yeah, that’s me, I guess I should say. When we listen to music, we try to identify ourselves with the music sometimes when we really analyze it and think about it, and so I kind of associated the song with me. I guess that’s why I like it so much. (Laughs.)

AG: Oh, that’s such a compliment. Jon Cowherd did a beautiful job writing the music on that and he did a wonderful job on the entire record, and I think “Butterflies” is actually—I think I’ve said this before, but “Butterflies” is probably my favorite track on the record if I had to pick one because it’s so romantic and it’s so delicious and it’s a very true story lyrically that Doug wrote for me in the middle of the night in a grand romantic gesture, and Jon Cowherd was able to really capture that sentiment when he wrote the music for it, and I feel the same way you do. I can really, really relate to that song.

Smitty: Yeah, it’s really beautiful. And there’s one song in particular I want to ask you about because I thought it’s such a great story attached to this great song “Involved Again.” Talk about the history of that song because I think it’s very special and it’s not something that happens every day at all.

AG: It is not something that happens every day at all and Jack Reardon was so generous to offer me this song. He had received a copy of my 2005 release and contacted me and asked me if I would be interested in recording this song that had never been recorded before. When he told me the story about it, of course I jumped at the opportunity not even having heard it yet, but I met with him and he told me the story, which is that he was—I think Jack is in his eighties now and he’s just a lovely, lovely man and a brilliant composer, and he had been an up and coming songwriter in the fifties, was invited to the recording sessions of Lady in Satin. I think Ray Ellis was the orchestrator on that. And he came to New York and had written this amazingly tragic, captivating love song for the great Billie Holiday and so when he was invited to this session, he brought the song and got to meet Ms. Holiday and she invited him back to her apartment, went over the song with him a few times, fell in love with the song. I mean, it’s just when you listen to the lyrics, it is possibly a perfect song for a woman like Billie Holiday to sing. It’s just so tragic and I just can see her. I wish I got to hear her sing it.

Smitty: Yes.

AG: Because the lyrics are just so great for her, and obviously he wrote it for her so he knew that would be the case, and she told him that she wanted to record it on her next project and, of course, she passed away very soon after Lady in Satin, and Jack was so crushed by not just the devastation of her passing away. I mean, this was a great loss to the world of music. But just as a composer, he was crushed that she had agreed to record it and he had written it for her, so he literally put it in a box and put it in his attic for over 50 years, then he had gotten a copy of my album from a neighbor and contacted me, asked me if I’d be interested, I went down to Florida and met with him, he played through the song once, and I was just in tears.

I mean, first of all, being offered a song like this, second, hearing the lyrics and actually hearing his rendition of it, and he’s not a vocalist but a piano player. I was just so emotionally connected to it, so I brought it back to look it over with Jon Cowherd, who had a brilliant take on it and sort of modernized the changes a little bit, and we decided that it didn’t need anything else but piano and vocals on it, and so we recorded it for the project and I think it’s really special. I think the story’s incredible and I think hopefully that we captured the sentiment behind what Jack was trying to do.

Smitty: Yes, I love it.

AG: Nobody could sing it like Billie Holiday (laughs), but I sang it like Alyssa Graham and that’s the best I could do, but I was really, really connected to the song and I’m so fortunate to be able to put it on the album.

Smitty: Yes, it’s a beautiful song. I really love the album, the entire album, but that song is really such a wonderful story and I think you sang it well. (Both laugh.)

AG: Thank you. I would still like to hear Billie sing it.

Smitty: Yeah, so would I and I’m such a Billie Holiday fan.

AG: I know. Me too.

Smitty: That would’ve been great, so it really got my attention when I read the story. It’s just beautiful. So now how can people get your record Echo?

AG: Well, Echo is available everywhere online, Amazon, iTunes. It’s being featured right now in Barnes & Noble throughout the country. I think it’s on one of those fancy listening walls with headphones. And for any additional information people need, they can go to my Web site, which is www.alyssagraham.com, and I have a My Space, which is www.myspace.com/alyssahopegraham. Hope is my middle name.

Smitty: Wonderful, okay. That’s an appropriate name. That’s kinda cool.

AG: (Laughs.) You know, people have asked me before what the tone of this record is, what I want people to bring away from it, and without even thinking of my middle name, I really want people to take away a sense of hopefulness from it because I’m in love with love and I think the album is really a tribute to a successful modern day love affair and so, yes, it’s very appropriate that my middle name is Hope. I didn’t choose it, though.

Smitty: No, we really don’t have a say at that time, do we? (Both laugh.)

AG: Exactly, exactly.

Smitty: But I just want to congratulate you on such a great album and such a great team to put together such a wonderful project. Wow. A lot of love and a lot of heart and soul went into this great project, that’s for sure.

AG: Thank you, Smitty. I just wanted to say in addition that, yes, you just said the great team. The musicians on this album are just phenomenal. They gave a hundred percent and they really were able to tell their individual stories and come together and make this album what it is, so I’m just so grateful for all their generous playing.

Smitty: Okay, well, let’s intro them, give them some props.

AG: Absolutely.

Smitty: Give me your lineup.

AG: The producer of the project is the great Jon Cowherd, who is very well known for his work with Brian Blade Fellowship, and he produced Liz Wright. He also plays piano on the album, French horn, he sings most of the backup harmonies, and he is the co-writer on all the original material, so he gets No. 1 spot. Then, of course, Doug Graham, who is my partner in crime, and he plays guitar and he is also one of the two fabulous lyricists. Bryan McCann, who is not on the project musically, but he is also one of the lyricists on the album. He wrote “Echo” and “Arkansas,” two of the wonderful pieces on the project. Romero Lubambo , a fantastic Brazilian guitar player, and he also sings vocals with me on the last song on the album, which is the only song in Portuguese, “Izaura.” Obed Calvaire on the drums, Doug Weiss on the bass, Gregoire Maret on the harmonica, Jeff Haynes on percussion, Lawrence Dutton on the viola, Elizabeth Lim Dutton on violin, Laura Seaton on violin, and Sachi Patitucci on the cello. And I believe that’s it. I hope I named everybody. And me, of course, Alyssa Graham, on the vocals.

Smitty: Brilliant group of artists! So tell me, what else do you have in the works? What’s happening? What’s on the scene right now? Any great shows or are you working on some new music?

AG: Yeah, well, both. We are about to start doing the East Coast tour. I think that we’re gonna be doing a CD release party in New York probably at the end of September, although we haven’t solidified the venue yet, but we are doing gigs in D.C., Virginia, Philly, Boston. Everything’s on my Web site so you can see that and dates are being added every day, which is exciting.

Smitty: Yes it is.

AG: And I believe in January we’ll probably be going to Asia for a little while. We have an invitation to go over there and do some shows and it’s a good time because everybody’s with their families during Christmas time. Then after that we’re going to be going out west and doing a West Coast tour and some Colorado shows and Arizona, I think, and California, so I think we’ll be on the East Coast until the end of the year and then we’ll move west after January.

Smitty: Very cool.

AG: So we’re really excited. And as far as recording, we are thrilled about Echo and so we really want to let it breathe and, you know, you record a project and it’s done, it’s finished, but as musicians the most exciting part is playing live and getting to open new doors and really delve into those tunes and see what else comes through. I mean, I learn something new from the stories that I sing every day and hopefully that won’t end for a while, so we’re really focusing on Echo and letting it get out there and work its magic on us and hopefully the fans.

Smitty: Yes.

AG: And we do, though, write all the time and I believe we’re pretty close to having all the songs ready for the next recording, which we’ll probably go back in the studio next spring.

Smitty: Sweet! Well, will you come back and talk to us again when you finish the next project?

AG: Absolutely, Smitty. I would love to. Maybe we’ll go down to Houston.

Smitty: Hey, you really should! That would be nice.

AG: I hope so, I hope so. I’ve only driven through Texas.

Smitty: Well, I would advise strongly that you do that in October, November or March, April because then it gets brutal when you get into May, June, July and August. The summers are mean.

AG: Right, right. So you’re telling me that when I’m about to fly down to Florida tomorrow.

Smitty: Oh!

AG: So I’m not so happy about the heat. I’m a winter girl. I like the cold and the snow. But yeah, I mean, hopefully actually we’ll get down there for something like South By Southwest next year.

Smitty: Hey, sounds great and I hope to catch you around New York.

AG: Absolutely, that would be great. Look me up any time you’re in town.

Smitty: All right, sounds good. Well, Alyssa, once again I want to congratulate you on this great record. It is called Echo. I highly recommend it and I certainly highly recommend that if she’s coming to your respective venue that you get out and hear some of this great music live because it is something to behold and listen to. Alyssa, once again, thank you very much for spending some wonderful time talking about this great record and your career, and I certainly wish you well and all the best in 2008 and beyond, my friend.

AG: Smitty, thank you so much. It was a pleasure. I really appreciate it.

Baldwin “Smitty” Smith

For More Information Visit www.alyssagraham.com and www.myspace.com/alyssahopegraham