Musical Dissonance

Jacqui Naylor rematches lyrics and tunes for original interpretations at Crossroads Theatre.

By: Anthony Stoeckert
   Teaming up the lyrics of George Gershwin with the music of the Allman Brothers may not seem like an obvious choice, but Jacqui Naylor isn’t looking to do the obvious.
   The San Francisco-based singer has developed a technique she calls "acoustic styling," which involves taking lyrics from a jazz or standard song and playing it over rock music (or vice versa). Among the examples of acoustic styling on her newest album, The Color Five, is Gershwin’s lyrics for "Summertime" sung over Ms. Naylor’s band’s jazzy interpretation of the Allmans’ "Whipping Post."
   That merger is something of a descendant of a version of "Black Coffee" (lyrics written by Paul Francis Webster) sung over Led Zeppelin’s "Moby Dick." She wanted the new album to include something with a similar feel and her bass player, Jon Evans, came up with the "Summertime"-"Whipping Post" marriage. The new album also features U2’s "I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For" sung over Miles Davis’ "All Blues." On a previous album, she recorded "My Funny Valentine" sung to AC/DC’s "Back in Black."
   "They don’t always (work)," says Ms. Naylor, who will perform a New Year’s Eve concert at Crossroads Theatre in New Brunswick. "A lot of laughing goes on (when we experiment). Or we’ll come up with things that do work but that shouldn’t be done. ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ works with ‘I Will Survive,’ but that’s a terrible idea."
   The goal is to find matches that fit musically and sound organic. She says the pairings sometimes come out of jamming and "just kind of happen." But most importantly they allow Ms. Taylor to sing some of the all-time great songs while giving them a twist that keeps things interesting.
   "It became this way to do popular tunes," she says. "How many people have sung ‘Summertime’? We don’t really need another singer singing ‘Summertime.’ But if we put it with (‘Whipping Post’) it’s different and interesting again. It comes out of that too, we look for things where we think, ‘I love that tune but what can we do to it that’s different?’"
   Otherwise, she might never have recorded "Summertime." "I have an Ella Fitzgerald version of ‘Summertime’ that I love, I don’t need to hear me singing it."
   An interest in vastly different music styles would seem prerequisite to acoustic styling, and Ms. Naylor grew up in a household where all kinds of music were heard. Her parents loved jazz and her brothers and sisters listened to bands like Led Zeppelin and Steely Dan.
   The Color Five features an interpretation of a Rod Stewart hit that Ms. Naylor heard many times as a child.
   "I can remember my sister playing ‘Hot Legs’ whenever we had to clean the house," she says. "Right before my parents came home from a trip, (my sister would) say, ‘OK’ and she’d put that on and we had to clean the house. To me there’s always been an attachment to that tune."
   Some of the other tunes Ms. Naylor has attachments to that are featured on The Color Five are standards like "Blue Moon" (done with a jazzy feel) and Cole Porter’s "Love for Sale" and rock songs such as R.E.M.’s "Losing My Religion" and the Kinks’ "Lola." For that classic (which is likely about a man who falls in love with a transvestite or transsexual), Ms. Naylor made the decision to stick with the song’s original lyrics and not change them to fit her gender. Hearing a woman sing "I’m not the world’s most masculine man" adds another twist.
   "A lot of people asked me (why I didn’t change the lyrics) and I’m like, ‘It is what it is.’ What am I going to change it to? Am I going to change it to a woman singing about a man who was a woman? It would still be about what it’s about so I decided to leave it as it was."
   She says similar questions were asked of her when she recorded the Rolling Stones’ "Miss You" for her 2003 album, Shelter, and left in the line about a friend coming by with some "Puerto Rican girls who are just dying to meet" the singer.
   "I can have Puerto Rican girls dying to meet me," Ms. Naylor says. "Why not? Again, what am I going to change it to? Anything different would stand out more. And there’s a thing about being respectful to who wrote the tune. This is the way the tune was written."
   Ms. Naylor also writes original songs with her guitarist/pianist Art Khu. The songwriting process can take different approaches, sometimes Ms. Naylor comes up with a melody and lyrics and Mr. Khu works on the structure and arrangement. Sometimes she comes up with an idea for a song and the two develop it together.
   In the instance of "Drive On," it occurred to Ms. Naylor to write a song about men who try to get a woman’s attention by shouting at them from a car. The results are lyrics like "Whistling at those girls won’t get you none/Has that really worked for anyone?"
   For her New Year’s Eve show, Ms. Naylor wants to lead a celebration while staying true to the music. Expect some romantic New Year’s music and, of course, some surprises.
   "New Year’s Eve can be terrible or great," she says. "We’re going to do a show in a place where everything is state of the art. It’s those kinds of things I look for as opposed to doing some kind of loud raucous New Year’s Eve party."
Jacqui Naylor will perform at Crossroads Theatre, 7 Livingston Ave., New Brunswick,
Dec. 31, 8 p.m. Tickets cost $150. Five-course dinner/concert package at Stage
Left costs $249 ($129 dinner only); four-course dinner/concert package at Catherine
Lombardi costs $199 ($89 dinner only). Dinner prices do not include tax, tip and
beverages. For information, call (732) 828-4444. On the Web: www.stageleft.com/sle/sl/events/new_years_eve/.
Jacqui Naylor on the Web: www.jacquinaylor.com