McFerrin’s Bay Area legacy stronger than ever
Singers who worked with ‘Be Happy’ vocalist forging new paths
Vocal wizard Bobby McFerrin hasn’t called the Bay Area home for more than two decades, but the spells he cast during his ascent from local sensation to international creative force continue to work their magic on the area music scene.
In hindsight, what’smost impressive about McFerrin’s Bay Area legacy is that his closet vocal collaborators went on to follow their own idiosyncratic paths rather than trying to walk in his inimitable footsteps.
Molly Holm, who makes a rare appearance with her Unmistakable Band at Berkeley’s Freight & Salvage onWednesday, was already a veteran vocal explorer when she first encountered McFerrin in the early 1980s at one of the Saturday afternoon jam sessions at the storied North Beach jazz club Keystone Korner.
She was leading a talent-packed vocal ensemble called Jazz Mouth that performed regularly in Albany at Erle’s Solano Club when McFerrin approached her saying “He wanted to start a vocal ensemble, and he asked me to run the auditions,” Holm recalls.
“It was hard work. He was very thorough and the whole process lasted a year. We heard 100 singers, but we’d do it in groups of 10. It wasn’t just come and sing a solo. We did circle singing and an improv game called Four Square. It was a lesson every time.”
The group went on to be the groundbreaking a cappella outfit Voicestra, which earned acclaim for its farreaching musical explorations. Holm ended up joining Voicestra as a founding member, as did several of her Jazz Mouth singers. Another original Voicestra vocalist was Linda Tillery, already an East Bay mainstay who first gained notice in the late 1960s with the psychedelic Berkeley rock ’n’ soul band the Loading Zone.
After leaving McFerrin’s orbit, Tillery went on to launch the Cultural Heritage Choir, a vocal and percussion ensemble devoted to laying bare the oft- overlooked threads connecting African-American music, from field hollers to hip-hop. While less active in recent years, the choir performs a family matinee Nov. 18 at SFJazz’sMiner Auditorium.
One of the projects keeping Tillery away from the choir was collaboring with Holm in creating the music for California Shakespeare Theater’s acclaimed production “black odyssey,” Oakland native Marcus Gardley’smodern-day retelling of Homer’s epic. Rave reviews and packed houses led Cal Shakes to announce that the production will return for a two-week run next fall.
“Linda and I are longtime friends, but I consider her my mentor,” Holm says. “What was amazing about working on ‘ black odyssey’ with her was that she brought in about three times more music than could be accommodated in the piece. Her knowledge is encyclopedic. She not only knows the music, she can sing it and bring the whole African diaspora history through her voice.”
Nicolas Bearde, another founding member of Voicestra, has steadily evolved since heading out on his own. After years of performing as a sensuous R&B crooner, he’s turned his attention in recent years to jazz. Last year he released “Invitation” on his Right Groove Records label, a confidently swinging collaboration with pianist-producer Nat Adderley Jr. Bearde performs his 11th annual holiday show at Oakland’s Piedmont Piano on Dec. 9 with pianist John R. Burr, bassist Ron Belcher and drummer Lorca Hart.
When it comes to extending concepts that McFerrin explored in Voicestra, no ensemble has worked more assiduously than SoVoSó. As amember ofHolm’s Jazz Mouth and founding Voicestra vocalist, David Worm embodies the connection between those bold experiments and the present scene. These days the a cappella sextet includes Vernon Bush, Ashling Cole, Sunshine Becker and Cultural Heritage Choir members Bryan Dyer and Zoe Ellis.
SoVoSó performs as part of choreographer Tandy Beale’s “Joy — A Holiday Show” Nov. 24-26 in the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium and Dec. 1-3 in San Jose State’s Hammer Theater. The group presents its own holiday show at Freight & Salvage on Dec. 18.
Like Worm, Holm has continued to accrue new influences and sources of inspiration since leaving Voicestra, including her close creative alliance with composer-pianist Terry Riley. Her repertoire ranges from free jazz pieces gleaned from the Art Ensemble of Chicago to folk songs like “Poor Wayfaring Stranger,” which she transforms into a modal incantation.
“I use it as a way to implement some extended vocal techniques, in a small way that adds a lot of tension to the piece,” she says. “I take it into this African 6/8 where I play piano and let the band do their thing.”
At the Freight, she’s performing with pianist Frank Martin, who produced her excellent 2013 album “Permission,” saxophonist Charles McNeal, drummer Deszon Claiborne and bassists Peter Barshay and Jeff Chambers. A passionate educator who is always looking for new songs and sounds, Holm considers herself a work in progress.
“I’m always taking classes,” she says. “I’m always learning. I’m on the path of discovery.”