Rolling Stone<\/em>. \u201cWe\u2019ve done good work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\tThe songs Reeves recorded for the album include a rendition of the Syreeta\u2013Stevie Wonder duet \u201cTo Know You Is to Love You\u201d; a new version of a song she recorded for Motown in the Sixties that never came out, \u201cI\u2019ve Got It Bad\u201d; Reeves\u2019 own gospel composition, \u201cThank You, Jesus\u201d; and jazz standards like \u201cSummertime\u201d and \u201cMood Indigo.\u201d Thanks to Marsalis\u2019 production and the influence of the Crescent City, the music feels both like classic Motown soul and jazz.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe album started coming together in 2023, when Roe got the idea of trying to get Reeves to do a jazz album. He recruited Marsalis at a Dallas film festival, and even though it began as jazz, it evolved as soon as Reeves opened her mouth. \u201cMartha would get into the control booth and just start wailing, and it started to take more of an R&B\/blues feel,\u201d Roe says. \u201cAnd that was OK. There\u2019s no reason to force something.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tReeves\u2019 Motown past loomed large in other ways on the album, as well. The influence of her onetime labelmate Stevie Wonder reverberates in a couple of different ways since Reeves recorded \u201cTo Know You Is to Love You\u201d with two different approaches on the album. The main rendition has a big horn arrangement and a funky beat, while the one included as a bonus track feels more downtempo, allowing Reeves to flex her voice acrobatically. She\u2019s excited for Wonder to hear it. \u201cThe last time I saw him was at [Motown founder] Berry Gordy\u2019s birthday party, and it was delightful, but he hadn\u2019t a clue [I recorded it],\u201d Reeves says. \u201c[My manager] Chris and I decided we wouldn\u2019t say anything about it at the party.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n \t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n
\n\tRegarding the album\u2019s other song with a Motown connection, \u201cI\u2019ve Got It Bad,\u201d Reeves reckons it was one of \u201cover 100, or maybe 1,000 demos\u201d she sang at the request of the label\u2019s A&R department. \u201cI\u2019ve got it bad,\u201d she sings on the song, and backup singers repeat the line, Vandellas style, but this version is undoubtedly funkier than the version of the song that never came out. \u201cI\u2019m hopeful they put out [the archive of songs I recorded] before I leave here,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\n\tReeves also enjoyed pushing herself out of her own comfort zone on the record, singing Duke Ellington\u2019s \u201cMood Indigo,\u201d which Frank Sinatra and Nina Simone previously recorded. She fell in love with the song when she acted in the musical Ain\u2019t Misbehavin\u2019 <\/em>and always hoped to record it herself. \u201cThat\u2019s got some jazz chords that are not difficult to sing, but they touch a certain place in your heartstrings,\u201d she says. \u201cYou know that you\u2019ve been there; you\u2019ve had that mood indigo.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\tEven more impressive, at least vocally, is the album\u2019s title track, which she cowrote with Marsalis. Every note Reeves sings feels more remote from the one before it, as she pulls off vocal feats some singers a quarter of her age couldn\u2019t. But she laughs this off, explaining she just wanted to sing like the session musician\u2019s horn.<\/p>\n\n\n \t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n
\n
\n\n
\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\t\u201cThe musicians on Searching <\/em>are session musicians, but they are musicians who have toured the world with people like Allen Toussaint and B.B. King,\u201d Roe says. \u201cThese cats are the best of the best. Delfeayo, who of course is a master on the trombone, is featured on \u2018Mood Indigo\u2019 and \u2018Summertime,\u2019 and he plays brilliantly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\tAside from jazz songs she\u2019s known most of her life, the album also reflects another side of her youth: \u201cThank You, Jesus\u201d is a swinging gospel song. \u201cI\u2019m from a family of 12 children, and my grandfather, Elijah Joshua Reeves, had a church in Georgia,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen we moved to Detroit, we basically sang in our grandfather\u2019s church. Dad played the blues guitar; that\u2019s where I got my blues from.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe way she sees it, she\u2019s still on the journey she embarked on more than half a century ago. \u201cThe word \u2018retirement\u2019 doesn\u2019t mean a thing to me,\u201d she says. She plans on continuing live performances, too, where she still sings her Motown hits. \u201cIt\u2019s a surprise when you have teens in the front row mouthing the words and enjoying the music as if they were there when we recorded it,\u201d she says. \u201cMotown music is profound. It just makes everybody happy, and I\u2019m so proud to be a part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAnd when she turns 85 in July, she\u2019s planning a bigger celebration than usual. \u201cThis has got to be a big birthday celebration with the release of a jazz album with the Marsalis family,\u201d she says, again, her voice filling the phone receiver. \u201cI\u2019m just glad to still be here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n \t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n
\n\tSearching<\/em> Track List<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\t1. \u201cIntro\u201d
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"She\u2019s a couple of months shy of turning 85, but Martha Reeves\u2018 voice still booms with all the excitement of an invitation across the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":64066,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop","article","has-excerpt","has-avatar","has-author","has-date","has-comment-count","has-category-meta","has-read-more","thumbnail-"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}