A Conversation with Cheryl Bentyne – HuffPost 9.27.13

Mike Ragogna: Hey Cheryl. You be good?

Cheryl Bentyne: Good, how are you doing over there?

MR: Good, though I’m in better shape now that I’ve gotten my dosage of West Coast Cool.

CB: Oh, you’re sweet. Yeah, we had a ball doing that. It started out as just a casual, “Well I’ve got a few tunes that I like.” “Well I do, too.” “Well these are all west coast fifties singers” “Ooh, let’s create a show!” So we started doing the show and by the time we had gotten quite a few under our belts, Mark said, “We should record this.” I think because they’re semi-familiar songs to everybody, some of them, more than others, but they’re kind of songs that are down in the cracks between jazz and swing and they’re not any of those. They’re definitely just the fifties cool music, which I think is very, very evocative and sexy and fun.

MR: And you nailed the period. I think when one thinks of West Coast “cool,” it’s usually in the form of jazzers like Chet Baker. And the “Route 66” medley especially does the trick.

CB: Yeah, that was fun. That was kind of an easy call. It fell together in a rehearsal, actually, or it may have been on stage. I started singing “Alright, Okay,” and “Straighten Up and Fly Right,” it’s all the same song, really.

MR: I also love that you recorded “Take Five” with those overlapping lyrics. All those cultural shoutouts.

CB: I know, Mark came up with that and I thought it was just fabulous. He and Rich Eames, our pianist, they got together and Mark said, “I’m going to write a little vocalese section into it.” Really, when we do it live, people just go, “What?” because a lot of them know “Take Five” and then we do this and they just kind of giggle. He creates really cool pictures for the song in the middle of it there.

MR: I remembered with Manhattan Transfer, you had the Hendricks collaborations and rewrites. It was just really sweet to me. And how can you go wrong with a nod to Chet Baker?

CB: I know, that’s really Mark’s forte. Chet Baker was one of his favorites, and my favorite singer and obviously a great trumpet player and whatever his life story was, he was still an amazing artist and his voice. Oh, the way he could sell a song and tell a story, and Mark does it so well. And Bobby Troup, Mark did a whole record of Bobby Troup, so that was an easy call, too.

MR: What is your history with Mark? You guys have been doing this act for a while, but how far back do you go? What’s the history?

CB: We met through an engineer friend of mine. I was looking for material and my engineer friend said, “You’ve got to meet this guy Mark Winkler, he’s a writer and a singer and he’s written a couple of very successful Broadway shows, too.” So I met him and we hung out and he gave me some of his CDs, which were fabulous. He’s really a unique artist. He’s a great storyteller, but he’s also a great interpreter of straight-ahead songs and jazz pieces as well as writing in that genre. We just started hanging. I was on his “Cool,” which came out on an album of his, and then he joined me on my Gershwin record on “Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off,” and then we started hanging and decided to turn it into a show together. It was so much fun instantly because we’re just goofy together. The people were endeared by our repartee on stage.

MR: Yeah, and the album includes a live version of “Cool.”

CB: Yeah, we have so much fun. That was up in Canada in Hugh’s Room and we had the most amazing trio, because when we travel around, we pick up the trios wherever they are. Mark sends the music ahead and we have a long rehearsal, and some are better than others. All are totally adequate, but some are outstanding and this band in Canada was just killer and we had a packed house, a big, nice room and we recorded the whole show and we got to the end of the recording and Mark said, “You know, this is really good, this live version,” and I said, “What a great idea, to put it at the end of the record.” I always love when people do that, and we’d wanted to record the song because it’s one of my favorite songs in the show and it’s Mark’s composition so yeah, that was a lot of fun.

MR: Who were the musicians for the album?

CB: Oh, boy there’s so many. Rich Eames on piano, he played on the entire record. Dave Tull on the drums, Bob Sheppard was all over on the saxes and flutes, Anthony Wilson played guitar on a few things, Kevin Axt played bass, Roy McCurdy played drums, Jon Mayer played piano on a few, on the live recording it was Eli Brueggerman and George Koller and Mark Kelso. Tim Emmons played bass on a bunch of stuff, too. So we’d kind of pick and choose. It depended on the song as well.

MR: How did you draw the line and say, “Okay, this is the album,” because you could have kept going.

CB: You’re right, and we just keep going. When I did “An Occasional Man,” I hadn’t been doing that in the show yet, but we thought, “We’ve got to put some Jeri Southern in this, because she’s definitely part of the cool scene,” but we just didn’t have it up and running yet. So we picked that just to record it, but now I’m doing it in the show. I could start digging and get more obscure with the female singers of the fifties, I picked the obvious ones–Chris Connor, June Christy, Julie London and Jeri Southern. But there’s still another level of all those ladies, too and obviously Mark picked the obvious ones. We’re thinking of doing an East Coast Bop or something, because there’s a whole scene on the East Coast that was very big. We might even jump the coast and do another version of the other coast’s fifties music. I don’t know if we want to adapt it yet, but there’s some great music on that coast as well.

MR: I also wanted to talk about the song “Something Cool.” Why, could that have been your first solo album, too?

CB: Yes! You are correct, sir! You’re doing your homework! Yeah, I recorded that like a hundred years ago and on and off, I’ve kept it in my repertoire because it’s just an amazing piece of music. It’s theater. It’s an entire story. So we went in the studio and just kind of did one take of it because I knew it inside and out and when you do a song for that long, for so many years, you just kind of start to live in it. That, to me, is the ultimate cool song of that era. I love that song.

MR: And, also let’s not forget that you were on [Rob Wasserman’s] duets album. You were on “Angel Eyes,” if I’m not mistaken.

CB: Yeah, that was awesome, but oh my God, that was a hundred and twenty years ago!

MR: [laughs] Was that your first time stepping out on your own?

CB: Yes, it was! That was before Something Cool. It was a great little record, and that was before it was even popular to do duo records. It had Dan Hicks and Rickie Lee Jones and I can’t remember who else was on that record. It was a lot of fun. That was a very evocative, kind of fifties-style song, “Angel Eyes.”

MR: So if somebody wonders what other affiliation you’re a part of, you’d answer…hmm. I can’t remember. Is it The Beach Girls? Hell, I forgot the name.

CB: [laughs] The Manhattan Transfer!

MR: Why that’s it! One of my favorite vocal groups ever, oh by the way. So you joined as part of a latter variation of The Manhattan Transfer, with Janis Siegel and Tim and Alan. Can you give us a little history lesson of the group, from your perspective, that picks up after its Capitol debut?

CB: Well, it came together before I was a part of it. I replaced Laurel Massé in 1979. The group for seven years was Tim and Janis and Laurel and Alan. They met in Manhattan, Tim was driving a cab. It’s a long, interesting and drawn out story that you’ve heard many times, but I wasn’t there. I was still in high school. But I was an instant fan when I heard the first Transfer record. I thought, “Oh, my goodness. Nobody sounds like this. This is something completely new,” even though they were doing some older tunes. Not all older tunes, there were a couple of pop tunes, a bunch of variety right out of the chute. It was just so interesting to me. Four voices singing harmony, and the way they did it, it just twisted your head. You’re thinking, “Wait a minute!” It didn’t sound nostalgic or old, it sounded new and fresh, but they were doing such interesting material. Laurel left in ’79 and I joined and we started doing more jazz. Obviously, you know about the jazz and vocalese direction, you talked about Jon Hendricks. “Birdland” won our first Grammy, and we’re still finding new musical directions. I don’t know how it’s possible, but we still are. What a long, incredible ride. Forty-one years, it’s been going.

MR: On the other hand, the band is an establishment. I saw you live in New York at The Blue Note two years ago.

CB: Oh yeah, we’re going to be there again in November!

MR: Cheryl, you came on in Extensions, right?

CB: Yes.

MR: That was the big breakthrough album. The next three albums, and you can also include Vocalese, maybe not the Bop Doo-Wop album…

CB: Yeah, Bop Doo-Wop was kind of a mishmash of other songs we hadn’t recorded but had been doing. So that was kind of an interim record. But yeah, when I came in, that was also when they met Jay Graydon, who created kind of a new sound for the group. Obviously, it was a new vocal sound because I came in, but it was also a whole new time in music. Then after Jay worked with us on a couple of records, he worked with Al Jarreau. It was that whole eighties sound that’s still very timeless.

MR: Yeah, you wouldn’t have expected the synthesizers to blend with the vocals as well as they did. Jay and you guys really pulled off magic with those records.

CB: That’s all him. That’s all his sound.

MR: But I would venture to say your cover of The Kingston Trio’s “Coo Coo-U” is still one of my favorite tracks by the group. I find it in my head, or out of my head, so to speak, every once in a while.

CB: You’re nuts!

MR: I’m coo-coo-me!

CB: [laughs] I had just come into the group and they were bringing songs in and I was just doing what I was told because I was so new. I wasn’t really picking tunes, but I participated when they would play something. Tim brought that in and in my mind, I’m thinking, “This group is nuts. Really? Really?” But it was just fun to do, and then we do it live, and we’re wearing space suits on stage and doing all this weird “Twilight Tone” and “Birdland” and “Trickle Trickle” stuff and then we did “Coo Coo-U.” It was just part of the new phase, I guess.

MR: You know that you put a new spotlight on many groups you covered, even if some of them didn’t really need it. That combination really relit jazz in some respects, like it hadn’t been before. It was fun, it was almost like another kind of fusion.

CB: Yeah, I agree. “Birdland” was obviously a classic before we came near it, and then when we did it, it was like, “Oh, really?” You can take an existing piece like that and make it something else. Not that it’s something better, but it’s something else, something probably more accessible to more listeners just because there were voices interpreting a song. “Birdland” still remains one of the most amazing pieces of music we’ve ever done. I think it is the most amazing thing because it’s just so big.

MR: And, of course, you had the two giant hits “Twilight Zone” and “Boy From New York City.” Then you get to Bodies And Souls, a pretty perfect album.

CB: Thank you. It’s just really interesting. That was Dick Rudolph, and he was really close with Rod Temperton and Stevie Wonder. It was really an interesting direction. We did some Marc Jordan songs. He’s an incredible writer from Canada and a dear friend. It was really an interesting corner we turned there. And it was well received, too, so it was a lot of fun.

MR: Okay, I’m obsessing about the next subject, I admit it. But I heard your label promised that if “Mystery” had become a Top Ten or number one record, not sure about the number, at AC, it was going to promote the single at pop radio. Well, “Mystery” goes to number one on the AC charts, but no pop promotion.

CB: Yeah, I think we were still under the umbrella of jazz. It was probably tough to kick out of that category. Wasn’t it also still a time when music on the radio was kind of crossing over a bit, before it got so categorized? Before the wave really took over? I think it kind of got a bit lost in what stations were going to play it. And then Anita Baker recorded it and had all the same licks and had a hit with it.

MR: It goes with how Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis, Jr. did the first version of “Saving All My Love For You,” too.

CB: You’re kidding! Is that right?

MR: Yeah, and I brought it up when I interviewed them recently about reissues of their duet albums. I asked something, “How do you feel about that becoming such a signature song for Whitney Houston?” and she said that after her initial confusion, she listened to it and said that Whitney really nailed it.

CB: I didn’t know that, that’s really interesting. I love Marilyn McCoo’s voice, I’ve always loved her voice. “One Less Bell To Answer?” Oh my God! Beautiful voice.

MR: She was my first crush.

CB: I don’t blame you! She’s so beautiful and the voice just kills me.

MR: Yeah, to this day. Hey, I have to point out the Transfer’s Grammy for “Sassy.”

CB: Oh, yeah, that was fabulous. Janis really put her stamp on that. The chords, the writing, the verse, I wrote a couple lines on there, so she gave me credit as a writer, which was very generous of her, but that was our last Grammy. All in all, we’ve won ten. Janis won one on her own for “Birdland,” I won one with Bobby McFerrin on “Vocalese,” and then the group won eight, so eight, nine, ten all together. But “Sassy” was our last one.

MR: And you’re still going strong, and beloved internationally.

CB: Yeah, we’re still working internationally. We’re going to Australia at the end of the month, then we end up in Japan at the jazz festival, then we’re going to Europe in October and November and then back to Japan. We’re really lucky that we’re still able to do this.

MR: Cheryl, when you look at the state of jazz, what do you think?

CB: I don’t know, most of the jazz musicians are gone. I can think of Chick and Herbie Hancock, and there are a few left, and even these gentlemen who I also admire beyond belief change with the times. I think if Miles was still around, he’d be playing with a rap band. Jazz has to take a new form and it has to keep evolving because to me, that’s part of the definition of what jazz is. It’s modern, it’s improvising, it’s taking something and making it into something else and creating new dimensions of chord changes and whatever. It’s improvising upon a basic piece of music. It’ll always be there, but unfortunately for kids coming up and wanting to learn jazz, all of the greats are gone. You have to just listen in the past. You have to just go back and listen to them because there’ll never be another Miles or Charlie Parker or Dexter Gordon or James Moody, they’re all gone. These were pioneers. I don’t see pioneers anymore. People will absolutely kill me for saying that, but I mean it. Not of that level, not at the Ella level. Not at the Miles level. Don’t you agree?

MR: Yeah, and I think one of the problems is when smooth jazz hit, it was misinterpreted to become faux pop or wallpaper and elevator music as opposed to pushing further. My feeling is when you think of Herbie Hancock, age-wise, he just missed that era where he would have been considered one of those eternal greats. However, I believe he and Chick Corea and a couple of others are still at it, reinventing things, but not as profoundly as that golden age of innovators, maybe from the proliferation of artists. And lot of younger acts are trying to smack jazz around a little, like The Bad Plus, Medeski Martin & Wood, and groups like that. I think they’re trying they’re best, but it’s almost like we’re going back to fusion in a lot of ways.

CB: Yeah, and fusion has its place and I hope that some bands will hang onto that because it’s the closest thing to an expanded version of jazz. There’s a trio of these Swedish guys called Dirty Loops, have you heard of them?

MR: Yeah!

CB: There you go. These are young guys who are absolutely tearing it up. If Miles was around, he’d be playing with these guys. So they are out there, and obviously, they’ve listened to a lot of musicians that have come before them. But that’s a problem, too. I work with students, I coach singers and I do workshops and these young kids are not listening back. All they know is Cassandra Wilson or Diana Krall, which is fine and I love these women, but they’re not listening back to the roots of where these women and men came from. It’s really a shame, because that’s how you learn; you’ve got to go way back. Maybe that’s my age speaking, but I say grab from the best and go as far back as you can and get rooted in music before you jump out on stage on American Idol or something.

MR: Why, this leads perfectly into the question that I ask everyone. What advice do you have for new artists?

CB: Well…listen! Listen and work your craft. Don’t stand in line for three weeks to get onAmerican Idol. Go home, take classes, go to college, learn an instrument. Piano is a great instrument, guitar is too. But I think piano is the overall best instrument to learn if you’re going to be a singer so you can at least read music, accompany yourself if you have to, work the voice, take lessons, go out and listen to singers, go out and start working the voice, work the craft. It takes years! It’s not going to come instantly. You need those years to build up the instrument. Take your time, be gentle with yourself and use the time wisely.

MR: That’s a beautiful answer, thank you. I think, in a lot of cases, when these kids are coming in, we have encouraged them so much to break the rules and innovate that they don’t learn the rules and then they never innovate.

CB: Exactly, and it hurts them in the long run because they’ve got nothing to fall back on. It also builds the spirit and creates layers inside from which they can pull musically. You can never listen to enough music.

MR: Yeah, that’s nicely said. So what’s Cheryl doing in a year?

CB: A year from now? So many things! I’m just a young kid, right? I have so many things to do. I want to do a lot more recording, I’m probably going to be teaching a bit, I’m working on a theater piece that I’ve been working on for a year, I went through a health issue a couple of years ago, I blogged about it; I had cancer and I got through that. I’m actually writing some songs and trying to work out a one-woman show called Chemo Cocktails For One.

MR: Uh-oh.

CB: I want the lighter side. Literally every third person I’ve ever known has either had cancer or is close to someone who’s had cancer. It’s just epidemic. I want it to not be a scary thing that you don’t talk about, it’s not verboten. You can actually relate to it and make it more human and see the lighter side of it. I know I can say that because I was in it. You get through it and you get to the other side. So I’m working on a show about that right now as well as a lot of other things.

MR: Beautiful. Let’s wrap it up there. Thank you very much Cheryl for your time, I really enjoyed this interview.

CB: Thank you so much.

Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne