Clarity: Music of Clare Fischer

Last updated
Clarity: Music of Clare Fischer
Clarity- Music of Clare Fischer.jpg
Studio album by
Released2014
RecordedAugust 26 and September 9, 2013, at Charlestown Road Studio, Hampton, N.J. [1]
Genre Vocal jazz, Afro-Cuban jazz, Brazilian jazz
Length56:32 [2]
Label Random Act Records
RAR-1016 [2]
Producer Paul Wickliffe
Roseanna Vitro chronology
The Music of Randy Newman
(2011)
Clarity: Music of Clare Fischer
(2014)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
All About Jazz Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svg [3]
The Buffalo News Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svg [4]
JazzTimes favorable [5]
External audio
Nuvola apps arts.svg You may listen to "Pensativa" here

Clarity: Music of Clare Fischer is the 13th album by jazz singer Roseanna Vitro, released in 2014 by Random Act Records. The first instance of a singer releasing an album devoted to Fischer's music, Clarity unveils six new lyrics to previously instrumental compositions. [5] One of these, "Take Your Breath and Sing" (aka "O Canto"), features the composer's son Brent Fischer on vibraphone.

Contents

Reception

All About Jazz awarded the album 5 stars, with reviewer Michael C. Bailey citing Vitro's vocal prowess, arranging skills, and astute selection of material. [3] JazzTimes' Christopher Loudon makes note of Vitro's "standout quintet" while acknowledging both the historic nature of the project ("never before has a solo vocalist paid Fischer album-length tribute") and its "magnificently thoughtful" execution. [5]

The significance of this recording was not lost on Buffalo News music critic Jeff Simon:

This disc is as groundbreaking and as hugely valuable as her Newman adaptations were regrettable. This is what Grammys, it seems to me, ought to be for. What you have here sung by Vitro is music by Clare Fischer, a great jazz composer whose complex and difficult melodies and gorgeous songs are perfect for Vitro's abundant gifts as a jazz singer [...] What she hopes to do, she says, is introduce Fischer to the repertoire of many more jazz singers. With what she does here – along with pianist Mark Soskins [sic] and violinist Sara Caswell – she may wind up doing just that. An important disc, whether she succeeds or not. [4]

Track listing

All music composed by Clare Fischer except track #2. All other writing credits are for lyrics alone. Where no credits are given, both words and music are Fischer's.

  1. "Morning" - 6:38
  2. "Web of Love" ("Inquietacao") (Ary Barroso, Roger Schore) - 5:31
  3. "Seagull" ("Gaviota") (Weaver Copeland) - 5:35
  4. "Love's Path" ("Love's Walk") (Paul Wickliffe) - 5:19
  5. "Swingin' with the Duke" (Cheryl Pyle) - 4:59
  6. "Pensativa" - 6:26
  7. "Life's Journey" ("Pavillion") (Cheryl Pyle) - 5:43
  8. "Sleep My Child" ("Sleep Sweet Child") (Roger Schore) - 4:45
  9. "Take Your Breath and Sing" ("O Canto") (Paul Wickliffe) - 5:55
  10. "I Remember Spring" (Ron Boustead) [lower-alpha 1] - 6:00

Personnel

Notes

  1. As a replacement for the original "I Remember Spring" lyric (written by Les Wintz, previously recorded by Lorez Alexandria [6] and Dianne Reeves [7] ), with which the composer had long expressed dissatisfaction, [8] the new lyric is incorrectly credited on the CD to Fischer himself. As the composer's wife explains, "When this lyric was found, it was thought Clare had written it and it was identified as being his, but actually Ron Boustead wrote it and came forward when he heard it on Roseanna Vitro's recording in 2014. Brent is trying to get the copyright corrected to reflect the Boustead lyric and credit him for it." [9]

Related Research Articles

Clarity may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clare Fischer</span> American keyboardist, composer, arranger, and bandleader

Douglas Clare Fischer was an American keyboardist, composer, arranger, and bandleader. After graduating from Michigan State University, he became the pianist and arranger for the vocal group the Hi-Lo's in the late 1950s. Fischer went on to work with Donald Byrd and Dizzy Gillespie, and became known for his Latin and bossa nova recordings in the 1960s. He composed the Latin jazz standard "Morning", and the jazz standard "Pensativa". Consistently cited by jazz pianist and composer Herbie Hancock as a major influence, he was nominated for eleven Grammy Awards during his lifetime, winning for his landmark album, 2+2 (1981), the first of Fischer's records to incorporate the vocal ensemble writing developed during his Hi-Lo's days into his already sizable Latin jazz discography; it was also the first recorded installment in Fischer's three-decade-long collaboration with his son Brent. Fischer was also a posthumous Grammy winner for ¡Ritmo! (2012) and for Music for Strings, Percussion and the Rest (2013).

"If I Didn't Have You" is a song written by singer-songwriter Randy Newman, that appears during the end credits of the 2001 Disney·Pixar animated film, Monsters, Inc. Sung by John Goodman and Billy Crystal, the song won the 2001 Academy Award for Best Original Song. This was Newman's first Oscar. Previously, Newman had been nominated fifteen times in the Best Score and Best Song categories, but had never won. Arguably "the film's lone song", the tune serves as the major motif for the film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mino Cinélu</span> Musical artist

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roseanna Vitro</span> American jazz singer and teacher (born 1951)

Roseanna Elizabeth Vitro is a jazz singer and teacher from Arkansas.

Mark Samuel Soskin is an American jazz pianist based in New York City.

"Pensativa" is a bossa nova jazz standard by American pianist/composer/arranger Clare Fischer, first recorded in 1962 by a quintet under the joint leadership of Fischer and saxophonist Bud Shank, and released that year as part of an album entitled Bossa Nova Jazz Samba, comprising music in this style, as per its title, all of it arranged by Fischer, and, with the exception of Erroll Garner's "Misty", composed by him as well. In retrospect, this would prove to be just the first of countless forays by Fischer into various areas of Latin music. This particular song was one of the first, and almost certainly the most famous, of all the foreign-born - i.e. non-Brazilian - bossa novas. Its form, though extended (64 mm.), is standard A-A-B-A, with each section consisting of 16 measures instead of eight.

"Morning" is a Latin Jazz standard written by American pianist/composer/arranger Clare Fischer, first heard on his 1965 LP, Manteca!, Fischer's first recording conceived entirely in the Afro-Cuban idiom, which, along with the Brazilian music he had explored at length over the previous three years, would provide fertile ground for Fischer's musical explorations over the next half-century.

<i>Reaching for the Moon</i> (album) 1991 studio album by Roseanna Vitro

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<i>The Music of Randy Newman</i> 2011 studio album by Roseanna Vitro

The Music of Randy Newman is the 12th album by jazz singer Roseanna Vitro, recorded in 2009 and 2010, released in 2011 on the Motéma label. It received a 2012 Grammy nomination in the category of the Best Vocal Jazz Album.

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The Delirium Blues Project: Serve or Suffer is the first album released under the joint leadership of Roseanna Vitro and Kenny Werner. It was recorded live at the Blue Note in New York in August 2007, and released in 2008 on the Half Note label.

<i>Live at the Kennedy Center</i> 2006 live album by Roseanna Vitro

Live At The Kennedy Center is the 10th album by jazz singer Roseanna Vitro. Recorded over the course of two consecutive nights in September 2005, it was released the following spring by Challenge Records.

<i>Tropical Postcards</i> 2004 studio album by Roseanna Vitro

Tropical Postcards is the 9th album by jazz singer Roseanna Vitro, released in 2004 by A Records, an imprint of Challenge Records International. Brazilian jazz and popular music predominate, with seven of the album's eleven tracks provided by Brazilian composers, plus one familiar standard – Sammy Fain's I'll Be Seeing You – performed as a bossa nova.

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<i>A Quiet Place</i> (album) 1987 studio album by Roseanna Vitro

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References

  1. "Clarity: Music of Clare Fischer (Musical CD, 2014)". WorldCat. Retrieved 2015-05-16.
  2. 1 2 Giroux, Pierre. "Pacific Jazz - ; Clarity: Music of Clare Fischer - Roseanna Vitro". Audiophile Audition. November 7, 2014. Retrieved 2015-05-16.
  3. 1 2 Bailey, C. Michael. "Roseanna Vitro: Clarity: Music Of Clare Fischer (2014)" All About Jazz. September 29, 2014. Retrieved 2015-05-10.
  4. 1 2 Simon, Jeff. "Listening Post: Music by Kiki Ebsen, Rosanna Vitro, John Harbison, Satie" The Buffalo News. September 21, 2014. Retrieved 2015-05-12.
  5. 1 2 3 Loudon, Christopher. "Roseanna Vitro: Clarity: Music of Clare Fischer" JazzTimes. November 27, 2014. Retrieved 2015-05-10.
  6. "A Woman Knows, Musical LP, 1979". WorldCat. Retrieved 2015-05-22.
  7. Gordon, Diane. "Poncho Sanchez - Afro-Cuban Fantasy". JazzTimes. January/February 1999. Retrieved 2015-05-20.
  8. Email correspondence with Donna Fischer. May 5, 2013. Retrieved 2015-05-22. "Here is the lyric that Clare wrote for “I Remember Spring.” I no longer have the lyric that Lester Wintz wrote in my computer, but I found it and will type it after the one Clare wrote... Here is the one Mr. Wintz wrote, but I don't think Clare would like to have it publicized – he really didn't like it."
  9. Email correspondence with Donna Fischer. May 31, 2015. Retrieved 2015-05-31.