Thanks for letting me know, very sad to hear the news. I met Al Jarreau and sang with him on French TV in 2009, we both agreed that Chick Corea changed the game and that Spain was a masterpiece. Very nice tribute
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Okay, I'm seriously envious, as I'd love to have simply MET Al Jarreau, who has long been a favorite artist of mine. What a fabulous experience that must have been.
And, though I knew his music before, it was indeed his album "This Time," which features his masterful take on Corea's "Spain," that made me fall completely in love with his style and delivery.
And I LOVE his lyrics to Spain; the moment my dad gave me the album, I set about learning the piece, and sang along with it virtually every time I heard it played.
Funny, too, I was thinking last night that I should have included that in my homage to Chick Corea, because that song meant so much to me at the time, particularly Jarreau's version. Gorgeous, gorgeous piece of work.
Thanks so much for your comment, @edprivat, as it is lovely to hear these stories of our musical heroes.
Have a lovely time moving forward.
Thanks @crescendoofpeace 😁 I was just lucky to do that TV show and sung with many more Icons like Tom Jones, Akon, or Rihanna, but by far my day with Al Jarreau was something so special.
Maybe one day I will write a post about it, as it really changed me. At the same time I don't know if I want to share it to the world, because then it won't belong to me anymore. Hahaha that'a weird conflicting feeling.
The day of the rehearsal, I had the time to tell him everything I felt about music, his music to me as I studied it in on my private time and a little bit at music school also. Everything was filmed of course, and they made it look like a sort of a surprise as they knew I was a long time fan.
He played his best songs on a CD player, I sung by heart the solo on Agua de Beber and made him laugh. I made him a hot chocolate (for some reason I was losing my mind for a long time about this) and was THE ULTIMATE FAN.
At the time I was barely 23 and he couldn't believe someone "that young" was still interested in jazz the way I did. It was 10 years ago, way before Jacob Collier was famous, way before the revival of jazz with Snark Puppy.
I kept writing emails to his managing team, they always responded with courtesy that they have printed my emails and read them out loud to him as he was getting weaker to do so. At the time I was a nobody and he had no reason to even be remotely interested in my life and always asked kind questions, knew who Edouard was.
Al Jarreau knew me!!! Can you believe it?
That's too cool.
He always had the reputation for being an exceptionally nice and decent human being, so I'm happy that he treated you well, but not surprised.
Of course, I would have sung Spain for him and REALLY made him laugh. ;-) Hopefully I wouldn't have flubbed it too badly.
Yep it felt like speaking to an old friend 😄
Haha it's not the easiest one neither, I am sure you would have nailed it ^^
Thanks for the vote of confidence, @edprivat, I definitely spent a LOT of time working on getting the lyrics and timing down.
Who knows? I may have to take it up again. I SO love that song! ;-)
Yeah me too, please let me know if you post a recording 😁
LOL, will do!
Hey, you never know, if I get a decent USB adapter for my mic I may just do that. ;-)