The whole Doo-Wop Madrigal project started with Garrison Keillor who called to invite the Gregg Smith Singers to appear on his American Radio Company program. He was, he said, particularly interested in some "Doo-Wop" Billings -- William Billings, that is, the great American composer from the Revolutionary War era. By the next conversation, the concept had metamorphosed into "Doo-Wop Madrigals", that is, taking standard Madrigal literature and giving it new life by creating jazz interpreations which still retain all the essential musical elements which made them such great musical masterpieces in the first place. Madrigals are fun to sing, but the Jazz approach adds entirely new dimensions to some very familiar ground. While word painting is a vital element in Renaissance choral music, the substitution of scat sounds for words and the addition of vocalized percussion highlights the sometimes subtle rhythmic and contrapuntal aspects of the works, bringing a different kind of clarity to the music itself. Finally, the blues treatments added a new poignancy to the more solemn works. |
