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| Arne Fogel by John Whiting ALL PHOTOS BY JOHN WHITING FOR KBEM |
For 12 years, he produced and hosted “Arne Fogel Presents”
for Minnesota Public Radio. With Connie Evingson, he co-hosted “Singers &
Standards” on KBEM from 2002–05. You can read more about Fogel on his website.
He’s a busy guy, an idea man, and when he has a good thought,
he doesn’t let it go. There’s a Post-it on the wall in his home office on which
he has written two words: “Certain Standards.” It’s been there for years. An
old file on his computer describes a radio show of songs from the Great
American Songbook and the stories behind them.
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| Tanner Taylor |
Each episode—there are 65 in the series—lasts 3 minutes 30
seconds. (As long as an episode of “The Engines of Our Ingenuity,” which also airs on KBEM.) That’s not a lot of time. And when you hear one, you may think it doesn’t sound
like a lot of work. Fogel introduces the series, talks about the song, we hear
the song, Fogel goes through the credits, and it’s over. Easy-breezy, right?
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| Matthew Zimmerman |
Monday, October 11,
2010: Nancy Harms
This is my first time in a recording studio, and I don’t yet
know I’ll be writing about this series; that decision comes later. Today I’m
here out of curiosity.
It’s fascinating to hear the various takes, stops and
starts, Fogel’s precise and incisive comments, the performers’ decisions, and
the results of Zimmerman’s work at the console. He turns two takes into one and
the seam is indistinguishable. The studio’s speakers make my home speakers
sound like tin cans.
Because this is Fogel’s show, “Certain Standards” has at
least two meanings. Obviously, it applies to the songs he and the other singers
have selected, all American standards from the golden age of song (roughly the
mid-1920s to the mid-1950s). But it also applies to how he chose the singers,
and it applies to how they approach the music. Harms treats each song
with the respect it deserves, then puts her own stamp on it.
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| Nancy Harms, Tanner Taylor |
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| Nancy Harms |
“If I Were a Bell”
“At Last”
“On a Clear Day”
“Autumn Leaves”
“A Kiss to Build a Dream on”
“Beautiful Love”
“I Could Write a Book”
“The Days of Wine and Roses”
“How High the Moon”
“Almost Like Being in Love”
“Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise”
“Cry Me a River”
Monday, November 1,
2010: Maud Hixson
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| Rick Carlson, Arne Fogel, Maud Hixson |
It’s one of several funny moments during this afternoon’s
session at Wild Sound. Recording is hard work, but there’s an easy, relaxed
feel to this group: Hixson at the mic, her husband, Rick Carlson, at the piano,
Zimmerman at the board, Fogel beside him.
When Hixson sings, it’s like she’s whispering in your ear.
There’s a profound intimacy to her style and interpretation. Also a delicious
coolness; think Chet Baker in a dress. Rick is known as a singer’s pianist.
He’s tuned in and receptive, a true partner in making the music, simultaneously
weaving a safety net and expressing his own complex, lyrical ideas. Both are
students of this music and experts at performing it.
For “All My Tomorrows,” take 1 is too long. Fogel calls for
take 2 and suggests, "More salooney." Take 3 is magical. Throughout
the session, he listens, then asks for more of this, less of that—time, tone,
legato, rubato, attack, mood. Zimmerman works his juju, at one point patching
in a four-word phrase Fogel has asked Maud to sing several times.
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| Arne Fogel, Maud Hixson |
“I Got Rhythm”
“I See Your Face Before Me”
“I Fall in Love Too Easily”
“Young at Heart”
“Look for the Silver Lining”
“I Wanna Be Around”
“Laura”
“The More I See You”
“I’m All Smiles”
“All My Tomorrows”
“Love for Sale”
“For All We Know”
Tuesday, November 23,
2010: Debbie Duncan
Although it’s late November, it might as well be spring. As
we arrive at the studio, Debbie Duncan is singing the Oscar-winning Rodgers and
Hammerstein classic “It Might As Well Be Spring” with so much warmth that she
could melt the snow on the ground.
Her voice breaks on an interval near the end of “Spring,” so
she sings the phrase over twice, then takes a different approach. If something
doesn’t work for her, she has a hundred more choices in her pocket. She also
knows what she wants from pianist Taylor. When she hears a chord she doesn’t
like, she asks for a do-over, Fogel concurs, and Zimmerman punches it in.
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| Arne Fogel, Debbie Duncan |
Her final song, the one she’s been working up to over two
days in the studio, is not officially a Great American Songbook tune, but Duncan
wants it in and Fogel says okay. “I’ve Gotta Be Me” was first
sung by Steve Lawrence in 1968, but it took Sammy Davis Jr. to loosen it up and
make it a hit. Duncan sings an arrangement she did with bassist Gary Raynor; Taylor
plays a walking bass line. It's simple, passionate, and convincing. The third
take, fast and swinging, is the winner and a wrap.
Duncan explains why the song matters to her. “It’s kind of a
mantra for me. All the lyrics are good. ‘Do it now, do it righteous. Live,
don’t just survive.’ It used to be my theme song, and when I sing it, I really
mean it.”
These are the songs Debbie Duncan sings for “Minnesota’s
Voices—Certain Standards,” accompanied by Tanner Taylor on piano:
“Where or When”
“There Will Never Be Another You”
“I Loves You, Porgy”
“I Concentrate on You”
“September in the Rain”
“This Can’t Be Love”
“The Gentle Rain”
“I’ve Grown Accustomed to her Face”
“I Thought About You”
“Cheek to Cheek”
“Alfie”
“It Might as Well Be Spring”
“I Gotta Be Me”
Tuesday, December 7,
2010: Arne Fogel
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| Arne Fogel |
On “Day In, Day Out,” he’s unhappy with the key, unhappy
with the results. He thinks he’s singing
too high because he has to belt, and belting with the piano sounds silly, and
there’s pressure involved in bringing it down too much, and maybe it’s too loud for a
radio series, and now he has 20 minutes left in this session to record two more
songs and there’s a sense of urgency on top of everything else.
“Day In, Day Out” doesn’t make the final cut.
As Fogel works through “You’re Getting to Be a Habit with Me”
at the mic on the other side of a closed door, John and I learn a bit about
Zimmerman. He’s a musician who studied piano as a child, played drums in a
band, and worked for a while in a music store, so he plays many instruments “a
little.” For a time, he had his band, his recording studio, and his marriage,
and his wife suggested that he pick two. Bye-bye band.
“Isn’t This a Lovely Day” is an upbeat end to the day’s
session. You can hear Fogel smile his way through the lyrics; “Let the rain pitter-patter”
sounds positively sunny. He’s been singing for two days straight, three hours
each day. It must feel good to wrap things up.
These are the songs Arne Fogel sings for “Minnesota’s
Voices—Certain Standards,” accompanied by Tanner Taylor on piano:
“Dancing on the Ceiling”
“The Very Thought of You”
“ ’Deed I Do”
“It Could Happen to You”
“I’ll Never Stop Loving You”
“You’re Getting to Be a Habit with Me”
“Embraceable You”
“The Second Time Around”
“Personality”
“Pennies from Heaven”
“You Took Advantage of Me”
“Skylark”
“Isn’t This a Lovely Day (to be Caught in the Rain)”
Tuesday, January 11,
2011: Connie Evingson
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| Connie Evingson, Tanner Taylor |
At Wild Sound, she’s singing “Old Devil Moon.” It’s a long song. She swings hard, adding a bit of lilt and growl to the lyrics.
As Maud Hixson discovered new things in the original chart of “I Wanna Be Around,” Evingson realizes she’s been singing “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To” differently until today. While many jazz singers know parts and pieces of the Great American Songbook, they may not mine it that often, and even if they do in live performance, their opportunities to record these tunes are few. Fogel’s series is doing a service by giving us new takes on classic American songs.
The “ooh ooh ooh” in “What a Little Moonlight Can Do” is
Evingson’s alone, a reminder of how many ways there are to handle a single
phrase in a song everyone knows. After two takes of this song, the session is
over, and all of Evingson’s songs have been recorded.
These are the songs Connie Evingson sings for “Minnesota’s
Voices—Certain Standards,” accompanied by Tanner Taylor on piano:
“Old Devil Moon”
“Come Rain or Come Shine”
“Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered”
“Body and Soul”
“On the Street Where You Live”
“After You’ve Gone”
“Close Your Eyes”
“What a Little Moonlight Can Do”
“Let’s Face the Music and Dance”
“Get Out of Town”
“All the Things You Are”
“Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby”
“You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To.”
Thursday, April 14, 2011:
Mixing
You
got a song that just won’t swing
Lord
knows, you’ve tried just about everything
Don’t
worry about it, baby,
’Cause
we can fix it in the mix.
—Kevin Mahogany, “Fix It in the Mix”
from Another Time Another Place
(Warner Bros., 1997)
Whenever artists talk about mixing a record, I hear Kevin
Mahogany’s voice in my head singing, “Don’t worry, baby, we can fix it in the
mix.”
Today Fogel and Zimmerman are working on Nancy Harms’ recordings.
Not that they need fixing. This is more about perfecting and polishing, about
getting precisely the sound Fogel wants.
“Let’s give her a fuller voice, a bit of an echo, a
concert-hall feel,” Fogel says. “I want it to sound live, like old-time radio.”
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| Matthew Zimmerman |
“Each label used to have its own sound,” Fogel adds. “You
could tell labels apart like you could tell cars apart. The Capital Records
sound was dry and crisp, with a sparkling clarity.”
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| Matthew Zimmerman |
There’s talk of the Steinway in Zimmerman’s studio that Taylor (and Rick Carlson) play during the recordings (“Steinways have more color than other pianos,” Zimmerman says), and of the special equipment and experience he has accumulated over time. Zimmerman has made hundreds of records.
Listening to “Almost Like Being in Love,” Fogel notices a
half-step difference between Harms’ voice and Taylor’s piano. In seconds,
Zimmerman brings them together. But he isn’t satisfied. “There’s too much
chocolate,” he says. “I want a little more pepper.” He lifts Harms’ voice up
and brings it forward without losing a note or embellishment on the piano.
When I ask, “How long does it take you to set up for a
recording session?” Zimmerman says, quite seriously, “Eighteen years.”
Tuesday, August 16,
2011: Adding the Words
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| Arne Fogel, Matthew Zimmerman |
The spoken intro (“Minnesota’s voices, setting the standards
for new interpretations of great American standard songs…”) was recorded once,
then reused for every show. The first part of the outro was recorded five times
because there are five different singers. (Example: “Debbie Duncan, with Tanner
Taylor at the piano.”) This is followed by the credits (“ ‘Minnesota’s
Voices—Certain Standards’ is a KBEM/Jazz 88 production….”) mixed with the theme
music.
Two versions of the credits were recorded, fast and slow, to
allow for variations in story and song length. “If we’re tight for time,” Fogel
says, “you hear me racing through.” Each episode ends with a slight arpeggio
chord from Taylor’s piano.
“It’s modular,” Fogel explains. “There’s a nine-second intro
and a thirteen-second outro—twenty-two seconds of business. The songs are
anywhere from two minutes to two minutes thirty seconds long. The rest of the
time is the script—the story. There was no prerequisite that any song have a story. But
it turns out that every song does.”
Fogel wrote and speaks all the words. Each story is unique.
Which means that in addition to producing 65 songs with five singers (including
himself), Fogel is researching and writing 65 scripts. How many hours does that
add up to?
Today at Wild Sound is about recording scripts. Fogel worked
for many years as a copywriter and broadcast producer, so he knows all about
fitting words into temporal spaces. He and Zimmerman get busy.
Here’s the script Fogel wrote for “Embraceable You,” one of the
songs he recorded:
The show Girl Crazy was a smash hit for tunesmiths George and Ira Gershwin
in 1930. And though it was introduced to post-market-crash audiences, it had
something of the heady, carefree, frothy feel of pre-crash, Jazz-age
entertainment. That doesn’t mean the songs provided by the Gershwins were
without depth, however.
One of the pair’s most poignant
songs was written for this show, the timelessly tender “Embraceable You.”
Lyricist Ira Gershwin once claimed that he viewed his brother’s melodies as
“rather mosaic-like.” Ira’s challenge was to fit words to these textured,
occasionally uneven melodies, adding a quaint and witty cohesion to these
idiosyncratic creations.
With “Embraceable You,” Ira took
advantage of the tune’s odd rests and pauses by crafting playful rhymes that
straddled rather than avoided these rests. Today, after decades admiring this
marvelous creation, it’s hard for us to imagine the song any other way.
Here’s “Embraceable You.”
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