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

Jazz For Mara - A History

JAZZ FOR MARA- a history

When our mom Lilly Barnes's book Mara was published Daniel's Quartet played for the jam packed event at the Pilot Tavern. They asked me to sing a few songs that were mentioned in the Jazz centric book and low and behold Jazz For Mara was born. Telling the story of young Jazz musician Ted obsessed with an older european lady who has been accused of a heinous crime seemed to already be set to music given the way Lilly wrote the story soaked in the Jazz scene of 1964 Toronto.

THE TEXT
When the published suggested that it made a good way to perform "readings" of the book my brother Daniel started to mastermind the creation of an evenings length concert. Building the actual show was a year in development involving workshops, readings, video and lots and lots and lots of editing and rewriting. Thank goodness we had the able hand of director and dramaturge Ed Roy on board to help us shape the piece.

THE MUSIC
Although there are plenty of recognizable Jazz standards in Jazz For Mara, both instrumental and vocal, Daniel and I developed a few original songs that helped set the mood and tell the story. Both "Obsession" and "Mystery Lady" as well as Daniels original "Jazz For Mara" become motifs that reappear and support the characters and plot.

THE REHEARSALS
Because Lilly has always been a writer behind the scenes we knew we would need a series of performance opportunities and so with agent Robert Missen on board we booked a few showcases allowing Lilly to find her feet as a performer and for the show to develop. Getting into the Factory and Lower Ossington Theatre's for on stage rehearsals was an important part of building the show for us as well. Our crunch time Fall 2011 was full of Daniel arranging and scoring, myself writing lyrics for the original tunes and Lilly working out the kinks of her performance with Ed.


THE AL GREEN THEATRE

A place Daniel and I have performed in many many times, including the tribute to our father composer Milton Barnes. So it's a logical and organic place for us to premiere the full length version of JAZZ FOR MARA with our excellent band on board. More about the show later but for now..
memorizing lyrics like crazy! ha ha

Domesticated Tour Pics

The second date on the tour brought us back to Queen Street West at our old stomping ground The Rivoli.. Ariana Gillis opened the show and her focused powerful set really cast a deep voodoo over the crowd. This shot of me in the back alley brings a lot of good memories back from the days when we regularly played The Bamboo, The Horseshoe and The Cameron Tavern!
Dan and Micah at Parc LaFontaine in Montreal.

As anyone whose ever been on the road will tell you it sounds great in theory and can be a lot of fun. But it also means sleep deprivation, long periods of boring road travel, weird performance situations, bad food that sounded good in theory... and wild parties full of groupies and drugs.

(OK clearly when your band is discussing the relative merits of the smoked meats at different Montreal deli's for most of the tour the wild parties are not so much a reality)

Last Domesticated Tour Date!

Tour Blog July 6th

Our last show of the season. A special event because I will be joining Daniel Barnes' critically acclaimed Jazz Quartet at The Hillebrand Jazz Festival. An honor and a privilege. Made even more special by the rarity of the occurrence.

Singing Jazz and Blues has always been a very natural place for me. Since my early teen years when I sat with the standards trying to understand the chords and melodies and lyrics of Cole Porter and the Gershwin's my musicality has been informed by the work of Fats Waller, Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole and Sarah Vaughn. I've been lucky enough to work in the Jazz idiom long enough that I feel at home there and cherish the opportunity to join a top notch Jazz Quartet like Daniel's.

Daniel and I have been working out the set list and decided on a few choice standards I have been working with since my teenage years.

Lullaby Of Birdland which is of course best known in it's version by the incomparable Sarah Vaughn is one of the uptempo tunes we're doing. Giving the band a chance to shine and the singer a chance to stumble LOL

Light and frothy lyrically but with a gorgeous melody, it was in fact one of the first of the Jazz standards that I tried to learn how to play and sing back when I was preparing material for the coffee houses and cabarets in Toronto at the tender age of 14 or 15!

I first heard Stormy Weather in Ethel Waters version. She was a huge superstar of stage and screen and recording studio in her day and the song was written for her before it became Lena Horne's trademark tune. I've always been attracted to the deeper spiritual question and the time change on the bridge. A complex and yet simple art song that defines the spirit of the blues.

We're also going to try out hand at the tune Cloudburst as a vocal duet for us brothers. This tune was penned by Lambert Hendricks and Ross in it's vocal version and covered by the Pointer Sisters in their early days as a Jazz vocal group. Daniel and I grew up on these recordings so this is going to be a blast.

The Hillebrand show is in fact the first time I've joined The Daniel Barnes Quartet at a Jazz festival. A very special way to wrap up THE DOMESTICATED tour!

Domesticated Set List (Part 2)

Exhausted? Yup. Happy? You bet! The London Free Press just gave us excellent converge of tomorrows show at The London Music Club. The shows are going great, everyone's being really supportive and the buzz on the disc is growing by leaps and bounds. I feel like a very lucky artist indeed.

More about the Songs from the Set:

Two Silhoutes On The Shade:

One is my favorite of the old school covers that the Nylons rearranged and recorded, this one on the classic "One Size Fits All" (my personal favorite of The Nylons discs). Daniel and I are singing with only Jon playing bass in this arrangement which allows the classic heartbreaking story of boy who thinks his girl is cheating by spying below her window and then realizes he was just on the wrong street. One of the best of the old school vocal group songs in that the story is so precise and well expressed lyrically and melodically.

Inside Out:

The beginning of a relationship is an exciting time but also a scary experience. Will be accepted for who we truly are when we stop pretending and pull away the masks? Natural insecurities are bound to come out and I wanted to write a song about the struggle to feel lovable that we all feel.

Its true that I have rerecorded this song on each of my solo discs, I believe this time that we have finally gotten it right. You be the judge.

After You:

Living at the end of the freeway right on the ocean in Venice Beach, (the beach town mentioned in the lyric), and struggling to find balance after the end of a long term relationship..I wrote this song to express "just how far a man could fall". The song was the last one completed for the album "Micah Barnes" and ended up opening up the disc with it's deep sense of drama and loss with communication to the lover saying "I thought you'd want to know, this is what happened after you".

Don't You Forget About Me:

OK Daniel and I agreed we needed a "pop" song that would be deeply familiar to our audiences and give them the kick of memory to leave them feeling happy, (Our "in house" name for this tour has been " The Make The People Happy Tour"), but we hadn't figured out what tune would work best. I was shopping at The Metro late at night and heard this Simple Minds classic over the sound system and got a sudden shiver through my body. I guess thats when I knew we may have found our perfect slice of familiar "happiness".

Domesticated Set List (Part 1)

Thursday June 2nd 2011

I am having the time of my life folks. The Tour dates this weekend are like a pleasure ride waiting at an amusement park. Yahoo!

SoooooI thought I would describe how the songs in the set emerged for us and where they come from.

Firstly a word about the set order and song choices.

I rely heavily on brother/ collaborator Daniel Barnes to find the right balance and not go over board on the ballads which I would sing all night long if given the chance LOL.

We have very similar taste in music, and Dan has the overview about how to build sets that will satisfy an audience much better than I.

…And so our tour set Part 1

(with variations depending on the show and venue and audience of course)...

Wild as the Wind

Been playing with this cover song for years, trying it our while performing solo shows in Los Angeles. I first head this song in the David Bowie version. Bowie's European Cabaret roots emerge from underneath his Rocker image more than just occasionally..both of which I relate to of course.. and his version is a prime example of his deep crooner style. The Nina Simone version is also well known, the original Johnny Mathis version from the film of the same name quiet vapid by comparison to my ears. I find the simple but poetic lyric carries me deep into the wilds of abandon every time I perform the song…making it a perfect way to set the tone and start our sets!

My Teenage Heart

This song from our latest disc "Domesticated" has a Bowie connection as well. While writing that summer in the boat house I was feeling the adolescent messiness of my past romantic behavior and found a way to say I'm sorry to all the past lovers in this tune. Our bridge, which Daniel created, is very much an ode to the classic Spinners sound but the groove idea I was using while writing it was very close to Bowie's "Panic In Detroit" which I've always loved. Although the recorded version which both Daniel and producer Gavin Bradley helped me develop sounds nothing like that recording it's always fascinating to remember the source.

(Now I Know Why They Call It) Falling

I remember well what a simple singable melody does to a crowd from my days with The Nylons. My past solo work has usually been more focused on lyrics and passion and pain…But that same summer in the boat house there was something new happening in my writing. A fresh approach to melody and harmony that held a new sense of joy and happiness and possibility. Writing an open hearted love song is in fact one of the hardest challenges a writer every has. Lets just say there was a bit of inspiration floating in the air that summer that this song tapped into. We used the old Buddy Holly record "Everyday" in our arrangement approach to keep everything simple and straight forward….

Shop Around

When looking for cover tunes the Motown songbook often seems overmined for it's gems…. but this tune, which Smokey Robinson wrote with Berry Gordy and made an early 60's hit with The Miracles, still feels fresh. The sexy and clever lyric always feels playful and a little naughty to me, which isn't a bad thing when you are performing for an audience right? The band (Daniel Barnes and Jon Maharaj) have been turning out a slinky funky groove on this one that feels like we could ride on it all night long. SO much fun to deliver!

More songs later. Off to Waterloo for my first date their as a solo act.

(We're taking this country one town at a time folks ha ha)