Paula West and the Art of Making Art

Jazz singing is like a horse race. To the casual eye, all the horses in the stall look the same. But they aren't. Some have more talent. Some are better trained. Some have better jockeys. Some are more exciting to watch. But no matter what we see or don't see, what the odds might be, or how much a horse has going for it, the same rule applies. It's all about who crosses the finish line first.

If you were placing bets on the future stars of jazz singing, Paula West might seem like a long shot. She doesn't have a manager or the support of a major record label. She isn't peddling a sexpot image or a gimmick that would grab the attention of the press. When you consider that there are singers who have all of that going for them, Jane Monheit comes immediately to mind, you might be tempted to bet against Paula West. But that would be a mistake.

In 1987 West sat in with her first group of jazz instrumentalists at an informal jam session. She wasn't even a professional singer. She was a waitress. Fourteen years and three superb albums later, the San Francisco based vocalist has left behind the day job to become one of the most engaging and promising talents on the scene. In October she will be wrapping her month long gig at San Francisco's Plush Room. If the past is any guide, it is an engagement that will be marked by glowing reviews and packed houses. The day after she closes at the Plush Room, West will share the bill with the great Rosemary Clooney at the San Francisco Jazz Festival. And then she will be off to Manhattan for a five-week engagement at New York's premier supper club, The Oak Room at the Algonquin Hotel.

All of which is fairly impressive for a singer who has never been given a platform from which to build a national reputation. Many of today's most interesting young jazz singers worked in total obscurity until a label recorded, packaged and promoted them. Paula West decided she wasn't going to wait around to be discovered. She pressed her own records, compiled her own mailing lists and forced her own way into better clubs. Through a combination of hard work and a willingness to fail, she has slowly built her audience the old fashioned way—one person at a time.

And there is a very good reason why her audience has grown. Paula West is one of those rare jazz singers who has the ability to make music that is both sophisticated and accessible. Her performances are filled with good tunes sung with style, invention and wit. She always swings but never scats, and she can refurbish a familiar standard without rendering the melody unrecognizable. "I know I'm not a Betty Carter type of singer and I don't want to be," observes West.

That security in the knowledge of who she is as an artist and what she wants to do has never been more evident than on her latest CD. Come What May stands apart from West's previous records simply due to the sheer quality of her supporting cast. West's longtime collaborator Ken Muir shares piano duties with rising star Bill Charlap. Victor Lewis on drums and Peter Washington on bass round out the frontline rhythm section. The CD features notable guest appearances by the brilliant Bobby Hutcherson on vibes, Frank Wess and Joe Temperley on reeds, Ken Peplowski and Don Byron on clarinet, Ryan Kisor on trumpet, Peter Bernstein on guitar, Rudy Bird on percussion, and John Blake on violin. Since a record company did not finance the CD, West's decision to hire so many top jazz musicians made the venture must riskier for her financially. However, she felt that it was the right time to make this record. "I needed to do this now for myself," she explains.

One of the pleasures of Come What May is the creativity with which the musicians are employed. Only two out of the fourteen songs feature identical instrumentation, and opportunities for soloing abound. "You want to have [the musicians] showing their stuff," says West. During the recording sessions, the singer was keenly aware of the quality of the company she was keeping. "If you're working with people [of that caliber], they're going to push you," says West. "You're going to have to rise to the occasion or sink. I hope that I kept up with them on some level."

In fact, she more than holds her own. West displays the kind of musicianship that is so assured it does not call attention to itself. Listening to a Paula West record, you never have to concern yourself with distractions caused by poor intonation or faulty time. Although she reads music and has studied the clarinet, "the most important thing," says West, "is a good ear."

Fortunately, she not only has a good ear, but the pipes to match. Paula West has a distinctive sound; her voice is a dark, rich, powerful contralto that seems to wrap itself around a song and slide inside all the crevices. Her timbre could be compared to that of a female Johnny Hartman, but with more breadth and flexibility.

However, the heart of Paula West's appeal lies in her phrasing. She unfolds a tune with a sinuousness and tension that focuses the listener's attention on each line without losing a sense of the overall melody. She has astonishing breath control that allows her to sustain notes in tune with no vibrato for extraordinary lengths of time. "I feel like some of these songs lend themselves to sounding better when the note is longer," explains the singer.

However, whatever she does musically, Paula West's focus remains on the words. "I think just about every song is about telling a story and getting that message across," she says. West uses a largely 20th Century repertoire to convey the full range of what it means to be an adult in the 21st Century. "I like to display different kinds of emotions and feelings in a set," she says. There is something refreshingly grown up about Paula West's interpretations. She never overreaches, and she doesn't heighten emotions for dramatic effect. She centers "Lush Life" on Come What May in the quiet melancholy of depression rather than in the exaggerated pathos of despair. She explores sexuality on "Some Cats Know," from her CD Restless, without sounding coy, flirtatious or vulgar. She can be quite witty, but she is never cute or silly. On Come What May she infuses a stunning performance of "I Remember You" with a palpable sense of loss. "I think about people in my life that have been important to me when I sing that song," she explains. However, West is generally not an autobiographical singer. "I don't think my life's been as exciting or dismal as some of those lyrics," laughs the singer. "You just have to believe in what the person wrote about. I haven't sung "Ten Cents a Dance," but I'd like to someday, even though I'm not going into [prostitution]. But there are some songs I won't sing. I won't sing a song dealing with physical abuse like "My Man," and there are some songs I'm not old enough to sing yet."

One of the unique aspects of West's skill with lyrics is her ability to sing a song that in any other singer's hands might sound antiquated. For example, Leonard Bernstein's "Big Stuff" on Come What May and "Tired," from her first CD, Temptation, are filled with lyrics that should date these songs as nostalgia pieces. But West recognizes that the frustrated housewife of "Tired" still exists today. So instead of treating the song as a period number or keeping an ironic distance from the material, she commits herself totally to the lyric updating the emotional content of the song without ever having to change a word.

Her penchant for unusual material and her passion for neglected verses have prompted some people to mistakenly label her as a cabaret singer. West loathes the idea of affixing labels on artists. "I kind of feel like some people have pigeonholed me into being a 'cabaret singer.' I'm not sure what that means exactly," she explains adding, "I'm not sure what 'jazz singer' means either." Rather than trying to conform to a label, West draws on the best of both worlds balancing the rhythmic and improvisational devices of jazz with a taste for the kind of intelligent and witty lyrics that cabaret singers favor. In many ways, she is continuing an aspect of the vocal tradition that extends back to the early 20th Century and a singer West greatly admires, the incomparable Ethel Waters. "I'm proud of both traditions, of cabaret and jazz," says West. "I just want to do what I do and if people have to put a label on it sometimes, then so be it."

That having been said, given the performances on Come What May, it is hard to understand how anybody could mistake West for anything other than a jazz singer. The CD opens with a challenging pairing of Duke Ellington's "Caravan" and Dizzy Gillespie's "A Night in Tunisia." The arrangement continually alternates lines switching back and forth between each tune. "I thought it would sound more interesting than just doing 'Caravan' and then going into 'Night in Tunisia,'" explains West. "I wanted to do it entirely different because these tunes are so well known in jazz."

Her treatments of other well-known standards are less radical but no less effective. She doesn't so much reinvent tunes as she puts a new coat of paint on them. She rides "Day In, Day Out" over Rudy Bird's percussion giving the song a sense of urgent need. She swings "Them There Eyes," but not at the breakneck speed that has become common on the tune. The clever use of violin and guitar recall the feel of small group jazz in the 20s and 30s without ever making an overt musical reference to the era. West floats "Bye Bye Blackbird" on Bobby Hutcherson's vibes and shapes "Blues in the Night" using the rhythm section, three horns and a string quartet. West cites Harold Arlen as her favorite composer, and her treatment of Arlen & Johnny Mercer's "Blues in the Night" may be the most fully realized vocal version of the tune since Ella Fitzgerald's classic recording from The Harold Arlen Songbook.

However, the highlights of Come What May come from lesser-known tunes. West unearths a lovely and the totally obscure tune, "You Will Be Loved," written by Murray Grand, who also penned "Guess Who I Saw Today?" "It sounded like something Carmen McRae would sing," says West. Oscar Brown, Jr.'s "The Snake" will undoubtedly become a Paula West signature song. "From the minute I started performing it a year and a half ago, people just love it. It's the most requested tune that we do." Perhaps best of all, though, is Ralph Rainger and Leo Robin's "Here Lies Love" performed in a creative arrangement featuring clarinet, bass clarinet and a string quartet. West learned the tune from an old Bing Crosby record. "It's just a really sad song," she sighs. "It was something I'd put on after a break up." Instead of applying the typical formula of very sad = very slow, West takes a more forceful approach to capture the sense of confusion and agitation that follow the realization that something important has been lost.

Given the quality of Come What May, the real question is why haven't any of the major jazz labels come calling? "I don't think most of the people that run the business end know much about art," theorizes the singer. "They're looking at some formula of some sort thinking that's going to work for them. It seems like nobody takes chances anymore." While she would certainly like the opportunities that come with a strong record label, West also understands the risks. "Even if you get on a big label, they have to decide they're going to push you or you'd be better off doing it on your own," she explains. "What good would it do to be on a major label if they let your CD sit there and then they dump you? Then where do you go?"

Of course, if money and fame were the end goals then Paula West would be off singing pop or R&B. It is a path that has never appealed to her. "I don't like the songs," says West, adding with a laugh, "Not that I wouldn't love to make money, but I can't imagine singing the stuff that they do."

Like countless others in jazz, West is drawn inexorably to the standard repertoire. "Its power is that it is just simply good music," she explains. "Unfortunately, I don't hear a lot of stuff being written today that you think people are going to be listening to in 5 years much less in 50, 60 years." West rejects the singer-songwriter orthodoxy of modern pop. She points out that the great songwriters were exactly that—songwriters. "That was their job," she says emphatically, "to just write songs, and they wrote hundreds and hundreds of songs. They knew they weren't going to get out on the stage and be a performer. I think very few people can do both."

Also like many other jazz artists, Paula West grew up with almost no exposure to this music. While attending San Diego State University, she took an introductory jazz course. "That was the first time I'd ever heard Sarah Vaughan," she recalls. West began to explore jazz and jazz singing in particular. "First you just buy the basics," she observes. For West that was Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and Peggy Lee. "I would listen to them, and, of course, Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan, and then later on Carmen McRae, Maxine Sullivan, Mildred Bailey and Bing Crosby."

Within a few years, West had made the decision to pursue music despite having never performed as singer even as a child. She took some basic voice lessons and relocated to San Francisco in 1988. In the beginning, she didn't sound very much like Paula West. "I guess it's natural when you're first starting out to try to sound just like the record," she observes.

West performed wherever and whenever she could. She met pianist Ken Muir and they began working together. By 1995, West had developed enough confidence and enough of an audience to produce her own CD. Recorded with a sextet of Bay Area jazz musicians, Temptation proved to be an accomplished debut. The record does feel a bit like a demo tape in that it lacks the cohesiveness of her subsequent records, but it is filled with several wonderful performances including the aforementioned "Tired," a tune West learned from an old Pearl Bailey record. She nails "You Came a Long Way From St. Louis" and ends Carroll Coates' "You'll See" with a descending note that wouldn't have embarrassed Sarah Vaughan. Perhaps the most memorable performance on the CD is a languorous reading of "If I Only Had a Brain." "It's a song that people are so familiar that you to kind of have to do it a little bit differently and surprise them with it," says West. "[The slow tempo] takes the song to an entirely different meaning. It's kind of about getting it right in love for once."

By the time she recorded Restless in 1999, things had changed dramatically. She had established a foothold on the East Coast attracting both an audience and a number of critical accolades. She had also grown enormously as a singer and the results were readily apparent on Restless. The CD benefits from a strong selection of tunes, ranging from Hoagy Carmichael's forgotten "Bread and Gravy" to Antonio Carlos Jobim's complicated "Waters of March," and West has the measure of nearly every song. She makes more out of Cole Porter's "Don't Fence Me In" and Irving Berlin's "They Say It's Wonderful" than would seem possible at this late date. And just when you thought you never wanted to hear "Fly Me to the Moon" again, West comes along to remind you why you loved the song in the first place.

Unlike many singers, Paula West's recordings tend to lag behind her live set lists. They are documents of what she has been doing rather than what she will be doing. West is always searching for new songs. "I like to listen to out-of-print records to get a lot of ideas for tunes. Of course, I do some familiar things ... but I also try to pick things that people haven't heard before." The one thing you can be sure you won't hear at a Paula West performance or on her records is a songbook theme. "It's all about a certain variety and different textures," she explains. "To do just one songwriter, I would find it limiting." While she is scouring old records, West is also paying attention to what happening on the current scene. She admires active veterans like Blossom Dearie, Abbey Lincoln, Shirley Horn and Carol Sloane, whom she recently caught in performance at the Algonquin, "She was great. Exquisite taste in material." She also respects Cassandra Wilson, Dianne Reeves and Dena DeRose.

As for her own work, West is concentrating on her upcoming stint at the Algonquin from October 30 to December 1. "I'm working with an exciting group of musicians," she says with typical understatement. In an unusual move, West has scheduled four different rhythm sections during the course of the run. Bruce Barth's trio will open the engagement, Bill Charlap's trio will play the second and third week, Mulgrew Miller's trio will take over for the fourth week and Eric Reed's trio will close the run. Most of the singers who play the Algonquin would be unable to adapt to the different chemistry of each group. West simply observes, "I'm looking forward to it."

And as for Come What May, Paula West says, "I just hope people will take a chance if they haven't heard me. Chances are they haven't. I hope this time we can reach some new people. Then I can have some opportunities to perform elsewhere." Like any jazz singer, West would like to reach the point where she can work as often as she likes in good clubs and at jazz festivals. "I would love to be able to tour more. There are so many places that I haven't performed," she says.

However, whatever else happens, you can be sure that Paula West won't be giving up anytime soon. "There is a lot of hard work, but it's just necessary," she says. "I [recently] had to stuff envelopes, stamps and labels for 4400 people [on her San Francisco mailing list]... I'm doing all these little things all the time like going to a copy place. A lot of mailing. If there is one place I wish I could never have to go to again, it would be a post office."

In the race that is jazz singing, nobody knows who makes the odds or exactly where the finish line might be. But I do know two things. The race is marathon not a sprint, and I've got my money on Paula West to win.

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