Acacia Quien, Alto

I was already a huge Beatles fan by age eleven, so when PME did a rendition of “A Day in the Life” in 1994, the choir earned major cool points in my mind. See, I have been attending the Jazz & Pop concerts since I was a little girl. My father discovered PME in the late 80s, and every year since then and until I left for college, my parents & I have been going to this consistently enjoyable spring show.

When I auditioned for PME at the dawn of the J&P season, I recognized at least half of the choir immediately. I could put names to the faces of the repeat arrangers and soloists, so to me it felt like these folks were either quasi-celebrities or adults from my childhood whom I already knew but who didn’t recognize me yet. Crazy, I know. I half expected Jim Hale or Kathy Longinotti to approach me and ask if I was indeed that scrawny girl in the audience every year in the 80s and 90s, all grown up. Yeah, that never happened.

From the first rehearsal I knew that this choir was no joke. These guys were serious about music, and they were good! Coming from the band world—a nebulous world of dimly lit, noisy bars, smoky casinos, and cocky horn players (singing along side 10 horn players can often feel like a competition), this was a new awakening. No one taking cigarette breaks? No musicians jiving each other, or the singer? No glasses breaking or obnoxious drunks? I knew that my ten year hiatus from choirs was officially over. I had finally found my musical happy home!

I also realized that my choir game was a bit down after all these years, and I needed to stand next to certain people (Polly, Kim–yeah ladies!) to get my sight reading and harmonic mojo back. PME moves fast, and, unlike the choir directors of my youth, Lynne Morrow doesn’t take time out of rehearsal to teach sections their respective parts. We are expected to know our stuff upon arrival, which means a combination of great sight reading skills and a bit of homework. I was officially in the land of real adults and it was intimidating.

However, I had never met a more friendly and supportive group of musical people in my life. Really! PME is unusual in its lack of snake-pit vibe that I’ve seen in other musical groups—the environment is so positive and encouraging, it’s extraordinary. The Pajaro retreat was awesome (see Kate’s blog), and I really dug that such hard work was accompanied by an abundance of quality food and drink. Great singers are great eaters, that’s for sure.

We finished our final concert on Sunday.  I was unfortunate enough to acquire a nasty cold for the first show, so although I sounded a bit like Janis Joplin after a doing some damage to a fifth of whiskey, I rose to the occasion as best I could and made it through without passing out. The versatility in the musical selection and styles of arrangement is amazing—each song is unique and beautiful in its own way. Because there is such a collective support system for risk taking, I am already considering arranging my own tunes for next season.

So I’m finally old (and mature) enough to be singing with my choir idols, and it feels fabulous! I have a feeling that I will be a PEEMER for a very long time, and I hope to see more young adults hope on the bandwagon and join this talented, disciplined choir full of awesome, supportive folk. So where my young choir dorks at?

Acacia Quien
Alto

It’s coming. Soon. The always-entertaining, uniquely wonderful Jazz & Pop à la PME. You loyal readers of past blogs may recall that the first step in putting the show together involves finding new and existing arrangements, finding members of the group to sing them with you, and finding time in otherwise super-busy lives to rehearse them like mad. Then you audition said arrangements for a friendly crowd of your peers and hold your breath overnight while you await the results. The next morning we have a List of Songs.

The List, which generally runs the stylistic gamut, then has to undergo another kind of scrutiny. This takes place at the always entertaining, uniquely wonderful J&P Retreat, held at the always picturesque, uniquely inspirational Pajaro Dunes vacation spot near Monterey. We’ve been going there for years and love it. For reasons we can’t fathom, they keep letting us come back.

This is not your average I-am-reliving-my-college-spring-break moment. No, indeed. Real work is involved. We sing for hours in our small groups and with the whole ensemble, for our super coach/directors, Lynne and Dick, and for a hired gun, the spectacularly talented and breathlessly energetic Kerry Marsh. They nit. They pick. They fix the broken stuff and pat us on the head when we do it well. We make Progress.

While all this work is going, we’re bonding. This is an essential part of ensemble singing, not some I’m reliving-my-last-encounter-at-Green-Gulch moment. Plus, we don’t have to sit still while we do it.

This is good because we wouldn’t be able to get up and consume large quantities of noshes, which is an essential part of singing as any Peemer will tell you. As loyal readers of this blog will tell you, eating goes hand in hand with singing. Just ask us. Heck, ask Shakespeare (see title of this blog). Clever, huh?

On Saturday night, the bonding, singing and food components come together in a fabulous feast for the senses. We wax rhapsodically about 1) how great the food is (no lie - it’s GREAT); 2) how great the coaching was (and to prove it, we sometimes sing our tunes for each other); 3) the great selection of wines, which most certainly impacts how GREAT we sounded in item 2; 4) how much we enjoy each other in a really GREAT way; and 5) how GREAT this concert is going to be.

You can see all the pictures from the weekend here:
2009 Pajaro Retreat
(Thanks to Dick, Steve and Doug)

But hey, don’t take my word for it. I certainly wouldn’t. Come see/hear/taste for yourself at the upcoming concerts!

Sunday June 7, 2009 at 5 pm
Berkeley City Club
2315 Durant Avenue, Berkeley

Friday June 12, 2009 at 7:30 pm
The Green Room, War Memorial Veterans Building
401 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco

Saturday June 13, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Finnish Brotherhood Hall
1970 Chestnut at University, Berkeley

- Kate Berenson, Soprano

Technorati : A Cappella, Jazz & Pop, Kerry Marsh

Seargent Pepper at the City Club
June 15, 2008

Way Down in the Hole at the City Club
June 15, 2008

Tour de France at the Green Room
June 14, 2008

Look out for more as I dig through the archive footage.
-erawk

Technorati : A Cappella, Beatles, Kraftwerk, Tom Waits

Here’s a smattering of scenes from the last 2 weeks.

Here we see the women of Summer Bounty engaging in the time honored tradition of squeezing in just one more run-through before the show. Each hall is different, so there’s always a mad scramble to sing in the space during that precious time before the doors open. If you’ve ever been stuck out side waiting for us to get the show on the road, well now you know what we are up to!

The Green Room is a great place to do this show. The acoustics are fabulous. There were a number of tunes that sounded there best here on Sat. And as if that wasn’t enough, it’s beautiful! Here’s a shot of Old MacDonald revving up the audience for the show.

Somehow we ended up with a lot of props this year; Armageddon cloaks, wigs, bling, feather boas, and a pick-axe! You know, I’m not so sure the foreman is gonna let those ladies go down in the mine dressed like that…

This year there were a lot of languages. One of the hardest to memorize was Tour de France. There were German and French lines to memorize over a very repetitive melody. Someone had the bright idea that the Tenors should be lucky enough to get that assignment. W e were cramming right up to the last (and maybe could have crammed harder, if you know what I mean…) At the City Club, Bryan came up with a solution that amused some, but was met with stern disapproval from others…

After the last show everyone congregates to unwind and relive the highlights of the show. This year we found ourselves once again at TCs house (Thanks TC!). The party was a blast and we sang through a couple tunes from the show. The high point of the night was a rather robust rendition of With a Little Help From My Friends, complete with revival clappin’ ‘n’ stompin’. In TCs house the thing sounded amazing… and loud! I don’t think Gretchen’s relatives from NY knew what hit them!

As usual, the singers were ravenous after the show, so when some smart guy brought a Zach’s pizza, the feeding frenzy began. Gone in 30s!

It was a great show and a great time. Thanks everyone who helped make it happen and thanks to those of you that came to watch the show.

You can view the entire slide show here:
PME Jazz & Pops 2008 Pictures

See you next year!
-Eric

Technorati : A Cappella, Beatles, Berkeley City Club, Green Room, Old MacDonald, Workin in a Coal Mine

• Here’s a choral group that actually performs classical, modern and popular music, and pretty darn well at that.
• For the past 20-something years, each Jazz & Pop show has almost completely new repertoire. We’re talking 25 to 30 new arrangements every year.
• No other group, to my knowledge, does what PME does.

I think that this show in particular attracts singers, not unlike myself, to PME who love to sing in the pop and jazz style but then get the opportunity to sing and perform classical, traditional choral, innovative and unusual material the rest of the year. It’s a challenge, and switching gears for the various styles can be tricky. BUT … this group can do it.

The process for putting this show together is pretty amazing, and not for the light-hearted. Individuals get their own song ideas and charts together, form up small/medium sized groups and rehearse outside our regular Monday night rehearsals in order to audition for the program. A committee is selected and on one Monday night, early in May, all those rehearsed small groups audition and the final program is chosen that night. Whew. It seems that even the busiest of our singers find time to put songs together and rehearse. It’s fun to hear what unfolds in the auditions, although selecting the final list is not always the easiest process since there is an abundance of great stuff. The end product is an a cappella show like you’ve probably never heard. Humor, beauty, rock ‘n roll, a few farm animal noises …

The performances are always fun for the audience and (usually) for the performers, but between the audition night and the concert dates, we all pack up and head down to Pajaro Dunes in Watsonville (although we have had retreats in other places at times) for a weekend retreat to workshop the show. Now, we’re not dubbed the Singer-Eaters for nothin’. We do work hard all day that Saturday, singing our songs for the coaches and all, but we have lots of food and drink … and it’s one of those rare times when we’re together and can just hang out with each other. More singing ensues after the long day of workshops, believe it or not.

This year, our long-time friend and coach Nile Norton was not able to come to the retreat but we had the opportunity to bring in another fabulous educator, Kerry Marsh. Kerry directs the vocal jazz program at Sacramento State University and San Joaquin Delta College, and is a prolific and wonderful arranger and composer. Check out his stuff when you have a chance: http://www.kerrymarsh.com/ One of his beautiful arrangements will be in this years’ show, in fact; a completely new take on “Scarborough Fair”.

Jazz & Pop closes our concert season with a bang, and although we’re exhausted and ready for a break by mid-June, we keep coming back every year with renewed energy and lot of creative ideas.

-Angie Doctor

(All the pics from our J&P 2008 Retreat at the PME Group Pool)

Technorati : A Cappella, Kerry Marsh, Sacramento State University, San Joaquin Delta College

The Slide Show can be accessed here: PME JnP 07 pt4

Here’s a little taste of the the Green Room concert. Enjoy.

Still Loving You:

Barber of Seville:

Technorati : A Cappella, Barber of Seville, Scorpions, Still Loving You

We were delighted to see that the Berkeley City Club had set up a banquet for our Wednesday rehearsal. Most of us do not have time after work to get dinner, so this was a welcome surprise. It was an extremely healthy meal, as well, low on carbs and fat (and protein, … and fiber, … and plates).

The elegance and lush acoustics of the Green Room (in the Veterans’ Building across from City Hall in San Francisco) make for a special Friday night event. We sounded at times like a big cathedral choir, and we looked pretty spiffy, too. The momentum of the previous week propelled us through another fabulous evening, with the help of the best San Francisco crowd we have had in years.

We try to put together a show that combines inspiration, humor, and high drama, so each number takes the audience in a new direction. Having one concert under our belts prepares us for how the audience responds to these different aspects of the presentation.

The final performance, as is our custom, was in the lovely (and jam-packed) Berkeley City Club. The setting is more relaxed than the Green Room, we dress down a bit, and our confidence is at its peak. Many of our regular attendees told us this was the best J&P show ever, with impressive variety, entertainment value, and a consistently high level of singing. We featured some new soloists along with our veterans, and the team of arrangers within the group is growing.

It was a great way to end this first season with Lynne Morrow as our Music Director. Dick Grant finally got a break after 27 years (he took most of these photos).

Jim Hale
June, 2007

Technorati : A Cappella, Jazz and Pop

To add to the novelty, we gave the first performance this year in the Finnish Brotherhood Hall in Berkeley, where we have never sung before. The smooth barrel-shaped ceiling of this concert hall produces some unusual acoustics. It takes some time for singers to acclimate themselves to the standing waves and extensive reverb. Our dress rehearsal was further complicated by the fact that a martial arts class was booked the same night, so the first two hours of our rehearsal took place in a smaller room, also very resonant, which gave one the feeling of singing in a shower with 50 close friends.

One thing we discovered was how the hall projects male voices. Usually the men (except for certain tenors) have to work harder than the women in order to be heard, but that is not the case in Finn Hall. This made it somewhat easier to balance the group sound, and provided an ideal venue for a bass to channel Jennifer Beals.

Since much of this concert is prepared by small groups in various living rooms (see previous articles on making J&P happen), none of us hear or perform the whole program in order until the first dress rehearsal. Occasionally someone realizes that singing two particular songs in succession is vocally taxing and we have to make last-minute changes. We never print our programs until after the dress.

Along with a small, dedicated corps of volunteers, we singers set up for every concert ourselves - risers, lights, chairs, programs, a wine bar, recording equipment, box office, ushers, Jennifer Beals - it takes two to three hours to get ready for the first downbeat. By the time the show starts, some of us are downright sleepy and need some coffee.

The audience response Saturday night let us know that this was an especially good concert. Every tune got a warm ovation, and the more comic or dramatic songs had the crowd jumping. The presence of 200 people softened the acoustics a bit, and the attendees, most of whom have come to many J&P shows, remarked on the strength and clarity of the sound.

Between performances we listen to the recording to evaluate our singing so we can make it even better the next weekend. On Friday night we will be in the Green Room of the Veteran’s Building in San Francisco, and on Sunday it’s the Berkeley City Club (get tickets). That will be the conclusion of a very eventful and satisfying seaon for PME (well, not quite - we are performing in the Green Music Festival on July 12 - a reprise of our spirituals concert from last December).

Jim Hale
June, 2007

For the full photo spread go to J&P week 1.

Technorati : A Cappella, Flashdance, Jennifer Beals

The next step in preparing for Jazz and Pop is the retreat. Usually we take an entire weekend at a beach on Monterey Bay. One full day is dedicated to rehearsing and the rest of the time is for relaxing and partying. In order to describe a full day of rehearsing, we’ll have to do some math (sorry).

We have two coaches who work with each group, so for 22 groups that means 44 sessions, each 15 minutes long. That is a total of 11 hours. We also take at least 2 hours for the whole group tunes. If we start at 8:00AM, we would go to 9:00PM with no lunch break and certainly not a lot of energy left to party. (The party is an essential element here.)

Sound impossible? It isn’t. The solution is to figure out how to have 2 different small groups working with one of the two coaches at the same time. Potentially we can cut 11 hours down to 5 1/2 hours. The odds of being able to find 11 pairs of small groups with no overlapping personnel are very low, but each year we manage to shave a few hours off the day. It is still a marathon for the coaches, and the singers are often dashing from one room to another between tunes, grabbing lunch when they can.

Speaking of lunch, a huge part of planning the retreat is organizing the meals. We are rather particular about this subject, and having many outstanding cooks in the group keeps the bar high. PME has come to expect fine dining along with their music (the young son of a former member dubbed us the singer-eaters). With many active professionals in an ensemble this size, you cannot count on them all to be able to attend the enitre retreat, so figuring out who can prepare or clean up after a given meal and how many will be there to eat can be as complicated as figuring out how to find 11 pairs of small groups (see above).

Since many of us wanted to see our good friends Solstice (which includes three PMErs) perform in the finals of the Harmony Sweeps, we moved the retreat to Marin County so we could get from the retreat to the Sweeps more quickly. You can see some of the benefits of this move in the previous blog’s photo gallery. The Point Reyes peninsula is one of the most beautiful places on earth, and the weather cooperated nicely.

Jim Hale
May, 2007

Technorati : A Cappella, Harmony Sweepstakes, Solstice