Catherine Russell – An Xperience Interview

Catherine Russell – An Xperience Interview – by Liam Sweeny.

Catherine Russell is a Grammy Nominated jazz vocalist, and she brings a powerful, and infectious energy to the stage. Please welcome Catherine Russell.

RRX: Are you working on anything right now? Any projects, albums, anything released or in the works?

CR: We have a new live album coming out in April. And then I will do another studio album, probably over the summer for release, maybe next year type of thing, so. OK,

RRX: Your father was a legendary pianist, composer, and bandleader Luis Russell. He was also Louis Armstrong’s musical director. Growing up, did you get to see them a lot, like hanging around in the house, relaxed or discussing ideas, stuff like that?

CR: They took me to visit Louis Armstrong in his home, Louis and Lucille, which is now the museum. Louis Armstrong House Museum. I was there a few times as a child. And my dad and Louis Armstrong were very close. They were very good friends. So it was always a good time, with them, when they had time with each other. And Louis Armstrong was a very nice person to children. I remember that. He liked children, and he never talked down to me or anything like that. I could ask him something. And he would just answer me like a person. I remember that. So they like to eat and laugh and listen to music and go over different charts and stuff like that. That’s what I remember.

RRX: You’re from New York. You are in a world of giants, and your father’s one of them. What does New York look like for you growing up? What do you think you saw that maybe other people wouldn’t have?

CR: It’s a city full of culture. My parents, particularly my mother, because my father died when I was 7 years old. My mother got me involved in dance when I was maybe five and I was able to perform with a dance company. We went to the ballet, we went to opera, we went to theatre, we went to Broadway shows. My mother played in a few Broadway shows, so I got to do that. Concerts, jazz later on. When I was old enough to go to jazz clubs, I did that. And rock concerts; every kind of thing that you can do. My childhood was full of cultural events, Leonard Bernstein’s children’s concerts, that type of thing. It’s just very easy to get around here, so you can get to many things without driving. So it’s a convenience living in New York. It’s very easy to get to things.

RRX: You belong to a musical family, and there’s always a question of nature versus nurture. Do you think that musical families have bloodlines in the sense that there must be something about like a talent that runs down generations, or do you think that it’s just that musical families are more supportive? So better outcomes just because of that?

CR: It depends on if your parents are supportive of the kind of music you’re into. If, for instance, my parents both were studied classical musicians, but my mother never told me what kind of music to go into, or what kind to listen to. I was allowed to listen to everything, from rock and roll to American songbook to blues. We listened to everything. So I think that depends on the environment that you come up in.

RRX: Your repertoire contains songs that were, at least written in the 1920s, and so you’re performing these songs in a different ‘20s altogether and they’re two very different worlds. What’s in the music from the original ‘20s that we can apply to today’s ‘20s?

CR: The themes are universal, so first of all, if it’s twenties blues, the Bessie Smith, for instance. We’re talking about universal lovelorn themes, wanting to be strong in life, survival, all types of really universal themes for women in particular, because the blues, the women sang lyrically is different in my opinion than the blues that men sang; a lot of love themes, nothing like violence or putting men down or anything. It’s always asking questions and trying to find strength and harmony in life. So the themes don’t go away.

RRX: Jazz makes us feel good, deep down good when we hear it, but when people think about playing jazz, it’s like this inaccessible barrier. Sometimes it seems like only really smart people should understand jazz. How can jazz thinking mix with rock and roll thinking?

CR: Jazz is a very big word. It’s over 100 years old now. And it all depends on what kind of jazz we’re talking about, what era of jazz. And are we talking aboutt songs with lyrics? Are we talking about instrumental material, we’re talking about swing-based material, blues-based material, you know? I think that when people in general think about jazz, they think about a lot of notes and maybe Miles Davis turning his back to the audience or whatever. And a lot of chord changes that they’re not gonna understand and things like that. That’s one. kind of jazz, but there’s vocal jazz. The lyrics include the listener, they include the audience, so that’s the jazz I’m that I’m involved in, I’m talking about swing and blues, swing based material and blues based material. Which is different than um instrumental long form jazz. I’m also talking about short form songs, you know, so really based in the first half of the 20th century type of thing,

RRX: I didn’t really feel like this would be considered the jazz because I’m thinking of the long form jazz. But I’m listening to it. it’s almost like sometimes when the music happens and it just happens and at the end of the music you just end up grabbing a label and slap it on that. OK, well now this is gonna be jazz and it doesn’t really matter because it’s all one music really.

Yeah, and that’s exactly what happened. Rhythm and blues, for instance, they weren’t CR: calling it rhythm and blues then. They labelled it after the fact so for marketing purposes or whatever.

 

 

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