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Interview: Heidi Krenn

"More Than Jazz" this Sunday - By Morgan, Aug 06, 08

Up-and-coming locally-based Jazz vocalist Heidi Krenn is a veteran of the European and New York jazz scene, having studied and performed on both continents and traveled to New York from her native Austria on a Fulbright Award.

Recently relocated to Shanghai, Heidi's jazz vocal style diverges from the mainstream into contemporary and experimental territories including vocal improvisation and scatting.

She performs this Sunday at the Shanghai Oriental Arts Center with other experimentally minded musicians Coco Zhao (vocals), Steve Sweeting (piano), Tinho Pereria (bass), and Ronnie Williams (drums) as part of the JZ Club's "More than Jazz" concert series.

Tickets are 100/150/200rmb, available online through SmartTicket here.

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Heidi: Well, that also one of the great things about the upcoming concert -- there's going to be a lot of improvisation, which is the really great thing about working with Coco: he is a great improviser. "Bold new style," what that really means is doing a lot of new material, original material. Steve Sweeting, he wrote a lot of the songs that we are going to perform on Sunday. And we're combing that with the traditional notions of singing and playing jazz, but using new harmonies and different rhythms -- being very creative in how we interpret that material. Basically it's a lot of improvising.


Heidi: Well, some people say that they hear Sheila Jordan but maybe that's because I've studied with her. You know, it's interesting because even before I studied with her, the way that I sing is very similar to her -- just how I naturally sing. And of course that got even stronger when I started studying with her.

Also sometimes people compare me to Betty Carter, because I like to back-phrase -- I like to sing behind the beat and stretch out my phrasing. And I guess the singer that most people associate with that kind of thing is Betty Carter.


Heidi: Well I think, what I really enjoy about working with him is that I feel that we have a similar understanding of music. One part of it is that our voices blend -- naturally, we blend very well together -- but also the concept of where we want to take a tune, where we want to build a tune, and how we like to work on music in general is very similar. It makes it very easy and very relaxed. And he's a great inspiration because he's a very free spirit and a very creative mind.


Heidi: New York is the jazz place... everybody from all over the world is there. Whatever it is you want to learn about jazz and music in general is there and you have a chance to. And of course a lot of people come for that very reason, so there are a lot of like-minded people.

But it's also very hard because when you do jazz... it doesn't have a really large audience like pop music. If you go to a jazz concert there aren't as many people as there would be for a Brittany Spears concert. So it's already a very small audience and usually they are all musicians themselves so the competition is harder -- it's tougher. You're catering to a smaller audience than with other kinds of music. And there aren't as many places to perform, and there are more and more jazz musicians who want to be performing in New York.


Heidi: The Shanghai jazz scene is very... jazz in Shanghai is still very young -- even though it has this great history from the '30s. There is still, you know, a gap. So the city is kind of being re-introduced to the music. And jazz has managed to become a fixture here, which is fantastic. And it keeps growing and growing.

But people , I think, are just now just starting to see jazz music not only as entertainment.

You know -- you want to have a fun night out so you choose jazz music because you like the vibe and then you just party there.

It's very different in New York because jazz is considered an art form. People sit down and listen to it and they don't just listen to straight jazz. That's the other thing: people are still finding out about jazz, it’s a new thing. If they can snap their fingers on beats two and four, they like it and it’s something that they are familiar with and can identify with -- it's something that they’ve heard before.

Whereas in New York people have listened to this music and watched it grow and followed all its different movements to where it is today. So it's more artistic, more contemporary, and more daring for the listener.

You will find more extravagant things in New York... maybe music that in Shanghai would be too difficult for people to listen to or understand. But in New York it would have a strong following because people have grown into it.

But people in Shanghai are just starting to do that and they're enthusiastic, which is fantastic...


Heidi: I think for me it was Lincoln Center. It was a big thing for me, and also when we performed there it was only original music. It was a very new and prestigious stage in New York and to perform our own music for an audience that was very well educated in jazz... it was a great experience.


Heidi: Of course I was [Laughs].


Heidi: I just recorded a CD and we are searching for a label for that, so we've started the whole 'independent jazz artist quest for where am I going to release my CD' [Laughs]. But it's in the works, so I hope we'll be releasing it soon.

What else can I say about my CD... actually, there's another recording project coming up. But the CD that's finished is standard jazz with great musicians from the United States. We have Alan Jones on drums, and Steve Christofferson on piano, who was for years and years with the great Nancy King.

The new recording which we're going into in the fall -- I have to go back to Austria for that -- but we're putting music to the poetry of e. e. cummings.


Heidi: Yeah, so it's going to be very modern and contemporary, and more European jazz -- a European jazz style... and we have a string quartet, which I’m very excited about. It's my first time working with strings.

So yeah, that's the new project coming up. Released next year. And I have my own thing going on at JZ every other Monday night.


Heidi: Well its going to be a lot of fun [Laughs]. Because we don't really know what to expect ourselves. There's going to be a lot of sections that are improvised, and really happen in the moment.

Especially when Steve does what he calls "pulling a wild card." It often involves the audience. So we take inspiration from the audience and we try to make that into a musical piece. So we have the form of the song, but we really perform it, experience it, and finalize it on the stage. It’s a very interesting and risky prospect. Because you never know, you might fall on your face, and then you have to figure out how to pick yourself back up again.


Heidi: Well, it could really be anything, you know. The audience gives you five words and you have to come up with a story. Or sometime the audience will play percussion with us. They get little instruments and they play along. It depends on the setting... but we try to have everybody involved one way or another, so we end up all making music together.

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