CABARET:The World Of The Solo Performer

                                                                     
 
                                         I don't believe that Cabaret is a dead form.

     Although cliches of the genre abound, the reason I was attracted to it as such a youngster (I started playing the coffee houses and cafe's in Toronto as a teenager) was that it spoke to me as a kind of living art form that could  allow me to blossom.

         Lets not forget that in the 70's we not only had breakthrough performers like Bette Midler and Liza Minelli but also rock n roll stars like David Bowie and Lou Reed borrowing heavily from the world of Cabaret and reinventing the concepts.

                                                                           

           Lucky for me Toronto had a vibrant Cabaret scene in the 70's and early 80's which allowed me to perform 7 nights a week and be able to pay a band while I worked out a way of entertaining crowds night after night.

            My current solo show is a reflection of what I learned at that time, combining Jazz standards with originals, reinventing R&B and classic Pop covers to suit my musical personality and combining them all in a kind of narrative that tells my own story.

Although I love working with musicians, the challenge of the one person cabaret show is something I've been working with a long time, and it feels like a natural place to communicate from.

The immediate relationship created with the audience is one of intimacy, my favorite kind of relationship ha ha!

To hear current material from the new show please log onto  Myspace

To join my FB fan page and stay in the loop on upcoming shows please click "like"
on this page: Micah Barnes Fan Page

To follow my adventures on twitter follow me at  Twitter

Cheers
Y'all!
Micah Barnes
http://www.micahbarnes.com

                         

New York Stories Part 1

Last summer (2011) I joined my partner in NYC who was working on Broadway at The Palace Theatre, a very interesting adventure in itself. We were staying up in Harlem on Lennox Avenue in an apt complex on the very site of the old Savoy Ballroom where so many luminaries of the big band era had performed for the wild jitterbug dancers, (Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington and Count Basie among them).
   The Savoy apartment complex was also a stone's through from the location of the legendary Cotton Club where the likes of Fats Waller, Billie Holiday, Ethel Waters and Lena Horne, (still a chorus girl), entertained mixed black and white audiences alike in the 30's and 40's.
   Not far away down on 125th street was the famous Apollo Theatre, still an in important home to touring African American artists and yes thats where James Brown was interned. (Talk about yer Black President!)
    Harlem has such a rich musical history and it certainly seemed as if the ghosts and vibrations of the past were with me as I wrote sketches of the songs that  will become my next disc.  I used to ride the subway down to rent little piano studio's off of Time Square. The little rooms gave me a private space in the middle of the madness of manhattan to sketch new material and it seemed that the melodies and lyrics were deeply influenced by the atmosphere of my environment. The smart and sophisticated blues and jazz of the 30's and 40's New York.

To hear an early demo for the disc please log onto The Official Micah Barnes Website and hear my version of the Jazz standard "Body and Soul"....Hope you like it folks!

PS! The Face Book Fan Page is still the place to stay in the loop on developments with the new disc.. sneak preview Winnipeg at West End Cultural Centre Sept 8th and Toronto at Hughes Room Dec 11th! to join click "like" here http://www.facebook.com/micahbarnesmusic

The Boathouse Songs

Summer time is the perfect time for songwriting.     Although lots of workshops happen out of town in the summer months  I can generally open up my schedule to create the larger space needed for creative exploration. When my management and I started talking about a new disc I felt it best to clear the deck during the summer months while I have access to the family cottage up north.

       Mornings it's nice and quiet before anybody rises and so by about 8 am I take my morning coffee down to the dock and sit at the desk my mom (writer Lilly Barnes) and I share.   Thats already late in the day of the lake which remains dead calm and smooth after dawn, things tend to get more dramatic as the day moves on. The desk in the boathouse looks out on the changing weather and whether meditating, writing lyrics or playing with chords and melodies on my portable cassio it's the perfect creative place to be.
 A  meditation at the top of the session helps clear the mind of the little drama's and prepare to dig into the process. I write longhand in a book transferring to the computer once a song is being shaped and rewritten....
By noon the cottage stirs with life and my brother (Jazz drummer/composer Daniel Barnes) comes down for his morning swim and I move myself off to other activities to get the blood going again before continue to work lyrics throughout the day up in the cottage.

Much of the last disc "Domesticated" (including the saucy title track) were originally sketched in the boathouse before I travelled to Montreal to put the finishing touches on the songs.
This summer I have a new batch going, most of which were started in NYC last summer. ..(More about those songs and that experience as the blog continues).

To have a preview of the "Domesticated" tunes check out  http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/domesticated-ep/id406730900

Enjoy Your August People! (See you in Sept Winnipeg!) 

http://www.wecc.ca/site09/performers/Micah_Barnes.html