JON RAPPOPORT RADIO SHOW!

FEBUARY 8, 2010. Here are the details of my new radio show. It will air on Wednesdays at 4-5PM, Pacific Time. The first show is this week, on the 10th. Tell your friends! Spread the word!

To listen, go to www.progressiveradionetwork.com and click on the listen button.

All shows will be recorded and archived on that site.

I’ll do commentary on medical/health/political matters, and interview guests.

I’m lining up guests as we speak.

I’m not setting any limits on the subjects I’ll cover. I hope to make the show deal with topics in unique ways.

That’s all for now. More info as I get it.

Your help is appreciated!

JON RAPPOPORT
www.nomorefakenews.com
www.insolutions.info

By Jon Rappoport


Now and then, new singers enter the field to explore the romance of The Great American Song Book.

Rarely, a voice is heard that makes us believe it has always been there, must have been there, and, more importantly, is required to be there, so wonderfully does it express this unique music.

That is what happened when Diane Schuur launched herself into the scene in 1975. All these years later, the enormity of her work is finally being understood:

This is not only a voice for a generation. It is one of those rare voices for any time. Well, they do occur—and here it has.

Ms. Schuur is not always at the top of her game. I suspect this is because she sees through lesser material and pedestrian arrangements. These departures from what she deserves really don’t matter, because when she finds the right songs and the right orchestrations, she changes everything.

She can give you vibrato that comes from so deep within her talent and heart, and spills so effortlessly into the air, that you dismiss any notion she is overacting. She can also string out notes with a seamless clarity that would make the most bell-like of trumpet players ache in their caverns.

At moments, you can vividly hear her speaking voice in her singing—and somehow, neither extreme is diminished. The two, in fact, merge. I would say this is a nearly impossible feat, except for the fact that she isn’t trying to accomplish a trick. It’s an entirely natural integration. Frank Sinatra had it. On her very best nights, Anita O’Day had it. Occasionally, Joe Williams and Chris Connor had it.

For sheer power, for interpretation of lyrics threading through a marvelously varied instrument, Ms. Schuur has no contemporary equal.

I’m no devotee of opera, but hers is a voice I always imagined opera singers would have striven for, if they could. It emerges with such fine bold rounded and beautiful tones, you need to sit down if you are standing or stand if you are sitting down.

And then there is the emotion. The Great American Song Book is, of course, about love, and that is what you hear so plentifully coming from so many places in her, infiltrating, clarifying, and expanding the lyrics without struggle. I suggest two songs from her repertoire:

The underappreciated Williams-Lins-Martins composition, Love Dance, and Ray Noble’s The Very Thought of You are both in Diane Schuur Collection (GRP Records, 1989, GRD-9591). Arrangements are by Dave Grusin.

On Love Dance, Ms. Schuur gives the second stanza a real going-over. You’re moving on a clipper ship in the Milky Way:

We loved, we slept, we left the light[s] on
The night’s gone
And morning finds us caught in life’s most
Sensible trance
Turn up the quiet
Love wants to dance

Then she spreads out marvelously and modulates into the bridge:

Old souls find new life
In hearts that are listening like ours
And old dreams find young wings
In silence, in silence

And finally, she imparts every atom of potential meaning to the final lines:

From too much talk to loving touches
Love touches
When pure emotion takes the moment
We take the chance
Turn up the quiet
Love wants to dance

This song never had it so good.

In Very Thought of You, listen to how she winds and slips and slides down through the last take of the best line in the tune:

I see your face in every flower…

I hope you find these songs and listen to them, and realize what a towering talent Ms. Schuur is.

There was Caruso, there was Mario Lanza, there was Billie Holiday, there was Frank Sinatra. The great romantics. It’s time we placed Diane Schuur’s name beside them.

Joyously, her voice is not just a memory. It is here with us now.

Jon Rappoport has worked as an investigative reporter for 20 years. He has written about medical/health issues, politics, and the arts for LA Weekly, CBS Healthwatch, Stern, Spin, Village Voice, and In These Times. His current work can be found at www.insolutions.info and www.nomorefakenews.com