Posts by restlessbadger20

I won't start a new thread, I'll just keep going here...

About ten days ago, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival happened. Since there wasn't much else going on, I figured, "Why not give this a shot?" Rock is my territory, and I've never actually tried listening to jazz before. Anyway, on the very first night, we got to hear two vocalists. First up was Diana Krall backed by The Supremes (which left me thinking, "Yeah, this definitely isn't for me—it's dead, cold, and boring"😢), and then Esperanza Spalding with Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. Now, *that* caught my interest. When they played "Girl from Ipanema," it was...😁 It was actually pretty cool how both singers performed some of the same tracks (Bye Bye Blackbird, Lush Life, Lullaby of Birdland...). It really shows how much an interpretation can either kill a song or breathe life into it... and hook someone enough to make them start digging deeper. 🙂

So, I immediately jumped online to find different versions of those songs and stumbled upon a few artists. But you know what they say—the smart ones ask, while the fools just wing it. Can anyone recommend some must-listen albums for a jazz beginner? I'm mainly looking for vocal performances, not just instrumentals...
Thanks in advance!

I used to drop my "R" sounds. Instead of the tongue actually vibrating, the lazy thing just stayed flat. So it sounded like "Marina is going to m*sticate the cr*bs and Peter's ears." 🙄

I saw a speech therapist when I was a kid and learned how to roar, but I could never integrate it into actual sentences. My attempts sounded roughly like "Marrrrrrina is going to morrrre rrrrhonit rrraaaaackers and Peterrrrrov's ears." Going to the therapist twice a week was exhausting for my stomach and my mom’s patience, so we eventually quit. By the time I hit college at 18, I still had the speech impediment, and everyone thought it was "sooooo cuuuute and sweeeet," so I didn't really care. Until I realized people weren't taking me seriously. 😢 Someone made a joke about it, and looking back, I realized that's how a lot of people view anyone with a speech impediment. Unprofessional, immature, irresponsible. 😢 I couldn't let that be my reputation.

Thanks to my "boss, Elvis," who started teasing me about it, I began overcompensating by forcing an "R" into every single word just for the hell of it. Slowly, those extra Rs smoothed out and faded away until they were almost gone... I didn't even notice it happening. Only people who hadn't seen me in a while picked up on the change. Nowadays, even professionals trained to spot these things—like psychologists during a job interview—don't notice unless I bring it up myself... 🙂 IF I bring it up. 😁