Defying Gravity: an artist hits a new level

I've written before about my sister Suede, a professional jazz singer who lives on Cape Cod. On January 1 in Provincetown she delivered her annual New Year's show.

This year there was a big difference: she'd had significant abdominal surgery 11 days earlier, and none of us knew whether she'd be able to sing at all.

But she did, and she blew us away. Still recovering from deep incisions through four layers of muscle wall, she didn't have the customary powerful vocal mechanism that singers learn to use - and hers is stronger than most. But the artist was still there, and she pulled together everything she did have, and she performed. Man, did she perform.

Defying Gravity, from Wicked, starts: "Something has changed within me - something is not the same." When she sang it this night, there was new meaning; we got to see who the artist is when the usual palette isn't there. And a different kind of power emerged: authentic, vulnerable, sometimes softer. Yet there was no sign of weakness or compromise; before her last song she announced she'd had the surgery, and there were gasps and murmurs.

And the show she found inside her was newly excellent. There were two standing ovations within the show, before we even got to encore time. In 20+ years of seeing her perform I've never seen that. Yes, this was mastery; this showed a layer of the performer we'd never seen before.

In the end, for her second encore, she pulled out her eternal crowd-pleaser, Sister, from The Color Purple. Including trumpet solo. (Hear the full song on her sample tracks page.)

Unbelievable. As a chorus singer myself, I have an inkling of what it must have taken to achieve that breath control with that sutured abdomen.

Later she said it was quite something, confronting her own mortality. (Don't I know it!) Her surgery was more complicated than planned; the surgeon discovered things were much worse than expected, and the recovery was difficult. She went right home to bed after this show, and her recovery is continuing well.

Yeah, I'm proud of my sister. But more than that, I'm in awe. Because really, two days earlier we all didn't know if the show would even be possible. And she pulled together a masterpiece.

Her next show is in Annapolis on January 15, then Ogunquit, Maine on Valentine's weekend. Ticket info on her schedule page. Here's hoping that future shows include more of this newly discovered gem side of her - the softer side of Suede.

Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" as sung by my sister

When I was in college in Boston, Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen was a big deal. His dark, pensive voice and poetic lyrics set him apart from much of Sixties music.

His best-known song then was "Suzanne," but Wikipedia says in recent years it's been surpassed by his 1984 "Hallelujah." I'd never heard it until, at my sister Suede's recent concert at Boston's Sculler's Jazz Club, she pulled it out (total surprise to me) and rendered a beautiful, spiritual six minute version of it.

Suede is much loved on Cape Cod, and she sang it at an annual spring bonfire, another much-loved occasion. Perfect.

Takin' It Back with Barack, Jack

As many of you know, my sister Suede is a professional singer who's just released a new CD, "Dangerous Mood." Two of the songs have fabulous harmonica accompaniment from a guy named Will Galison. When I saw her CD launch tour's inaugural show in DC this summer, he was there, live.

Little did I know he can sing. Here he is with a swing group – and what a song!



(A plug – this weekend we're going up to see Suede at Jonathan's, a fabulous restaurant and music venue in Ogunquit, ME. We saw her last weekend in Provincetown, and even with a cold she still got a long standing ovation and hollers for multiple encores. What a trouper – can't wait to hear the full voice again!)

Randy Pausch: "Alive and Healthy"

Randy Pausch is the Carnegie-Mellon professor whose "Last Lecture" got widespread media coverage last fall. (See Wikipedia for links to many articles, including the Last Lecture.) Last Friday (2/15/08) was a big day for him. From his Update page:

"Today is a pretty important day. It was August 15th, 2007, when I was told I likely had three to six months of good health left."

As I've said several times on my CaringBridge site, I like a lot about Randy's attitude: "I'm going to keep having fun every day I have left, no matter how many or how few of them I get." In the picture at left he's holding the 2/15/08 newspaper, as if he were a ransom hostage proving the date. :)

Actually, truth be told, I don't have the opinion that everyone should keep having fun every day they have left - my stand is that people (that's you) be fully alive, whatever form that takes for them. (My sister Suede sings a wonderful song about this, Roxanna Ward's "Remember Who You Are.") And for this Randy Pausch guy, who he is is Fun. In the Last Lecture, he said "I don't know how not to have fun. I mean, look at me - I'm dying and I'm still having fun." It's easy to see why he's been a gifted coach for Disney's Imagineering people.

Neither he nor I knew where we'd actually be at our "likely" drop dead date. We just did everything in our power, and meanwhile we just lived the hell out of every day.

When you're told you likely have six months to live, and that day comes, will you still be absolutely being who you are, every day? I request that you do.

p.s. You'll know you've really gotten the unbearable lightness of it all, when you can look at Randy's situation and grinningly wonder if it's all an elaborate ruse to get early retirement and get away with it. :)