Jazz, Storytelling and Voice, with Adria Godfrey

Transcript

Welcome And Meet Adria Goldfrey

SPEAKER_00 0:00

And a warm welcome to this episode of VoiceCast. And I'm very excited to be welcoming an amazing singer and a really good friend of mine to come and talk to me today. I have spent a lot of time on this podcast talking to people who aren't singers, even though it is a voice cast. But this is an episode where we're firmly in the performing space with a jazz singer, and her name is Adria Goldfrey. She's a really good friend, and she's a Jersey-based jazz singer with a big heart and a really fantastic gift for communication. Adria's Colombian by birth, but she's lived in Jersey for nearly 30 years. She's a wonderful performer and is committed to excellence in everything she does. She's Jersey-based, but she performs all over the place. She's recently returned from performances in France, Guernsey, and in the UK. She's performed at Ronnie Scott's and the Jazz Cafe and all sorts of wonderful places with wonderful musicians. I know Adria as a person who cares deeply about the quality and integrity of her work. She has an artistic vision and she stays fiercely aligned with it. And that integrity has led her to collaborate with some amazing jazz artists. And excitingly, for Jersey, she's brought many of them over to our small island to enrich our cultural life with memorable performances with her own initiative, Jazz Ongerie. Adria's approach to jazz, we will find out more about during this podcast. But I think I get the impression that it's rooted in storytelling, in connection. There's always a kind of Latin connection to her roots. You can't miss it when you listen to Adria and watch Adria perform, as she bridges the various different cultural landscapes that she's inhabited. So I'm really looking forward to hearing more about her work, about what having a voice means to her, and about upcoming projects and the evolution of her style and brand. This is VoiceCast with Nikki Kennedy, exploring voice in every sense, the sound you make, the story you tell, and the presence you bring. I'm Nikki Kennedy, your host, a classical singer, vocal health and rehabilitation specialist, and an executive coach. And my work is about helping people transform, find new directions, get unstuck, and express themselves in ways that feel authentic and true. Together we'll look at how your voice and your presence can shape change in work, in life, and in yourself.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

Oh, it's great

Growing Up With Caribbean Song

SPEAKER_00 3:00

to have you.

SPEAKER_02 3:01

Thank you for such a nice introduction. Can I go now?

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Yeah. No, you have a little bit more work to do. But would you say that that in introduction captures something of your of your journey?

SPEAKER_02 3:15

Absolutely. But thank you so much for um the lovely words about it. And um yeah, it it's it's been quite a journey actually, thinking about it, and especially um my time in Jersey and my time before Jersey, and the sort of, as I call it, brackets, the quiet space in the meantime, in in in between, which was um my children being born, and obviously the music took a pause at that time.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:39

So so yeah, you captured that well.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

I'm really interested actually in that um I think for those of us who are mothers in uh performing space, it it presents interesting challenge and opportunity, I suppose. And I think that there often is a kind of pause point. So we'll find out maybe more about that. I think my very first question, though, is around what the experience is like for me when I hear you sing, when I watch you sing, your voice feels like you have really found you, that it's very authentic. It just feels very natural. It doesn't feel like you're trying to be anything else, you're just Adria performing. And I I wondered how that developed over time.

SPEAKER_02 4:25

Oh, that's that's that's very nice of you to say. Um I come from a very rich musical culture where I come from. I'm from the north coast of the of Colombia, it's the Caribbean, and um music and dance is just everywhere. Uh particularly in my family where I grew up listening to music from the 20s and the 30s. My grandfather sang just socially between you know, family gatherings and uh the evenings will always end up with a trio. I really connected with phrasing at the time because the words and I mean the music of that time, some of the songs that were written were honestly there were poems. Poems of love or poems about life or nature, and I was just mesmerized by the by the words. So listening to some of these artists and listening to my grandfather sing really connected me with Frays. And although I'm not musically trained, um I know and we all know that you know not everybody has to read music to be able to sing or or or even play an instrument. And uh to me that was just uh developing the ear and that raw instinct of uh what it is that moves me. And I want to say that, or want to talk about that, or I want to sing that. And yeah, that was the beginning of it.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

So it's a real connection from childhood with family and with immersion in music as part of your family and in text, it sounds like the the the that poetry of the words as well has been a really big driver for you.

SPEAKER_02 6:02

Yes, and also watching really incredible artists perform because um one of my uncles worked for Univision and as a big, big um media uh company, and uh they have television radio, so he was in radio. And uh sometimes we would be invited to concerts like by Miami Sound Machine where Gloria Stefan rang the sang. And I would listen to these bands, big bands, and um and some of the singers and just be completely hypnotized by what it's so I I knew at that time that that's what I wanted to do.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

And so what were the next steps for you? You know, you knew it was something you wanted to do, but there's a long way between I mean a lot of a lot of young people know it's something they want to do, but how do you then get it? Yes.

SPEAKER_02 6:51

I mean, um the only thing is that where I was growing up, studying music formally wasn't really an option. Uh which at the time I it felt a little bit limiting, but I've come to see it differently. As I said before, so many great musicians, you know, don't necessarily read traditional music sheet. So um I went on about um intuition here, but it's something that is inside of you. You're always curious and uh passionate about these things. So it's it's almost like a daily call. It wants you to go somewhere. As a young girl, I didn't know,

The Jazz Club That Changed Everything

SPEAKER_02 7:25

but I mean my first experience was when I lived in Switzerland and I was um still quite young and I was invited to my very first time. I went to a jazz club and I listened to a trio, and that's it. I was hooked forever.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

Oh, fantastic. So you can really point to that first moment where I remember it, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 7:43

Oh, I love it. Remember it like um, you know, I will always remember it. So um from that time on I remember, you know, looking into that music in more depth. And of course, at home I listened to a lot of big bands, but it had more of a Latin angle. Yeah. Um and then the discovery of some of the great artists and bands and you know, sounds and living in Switzerland opened up a lot of um opportunities for me. I was invited um to sing a few times, and then that was the beginning of thinking I can actually do this. People like it. And uh and then it went on to my time when I lived in London when I was in university and I joined uh a band, and that was the you know, ten years of here and there performing at some of the clubs and being part of the scene at the time.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

Yeah. And I mean, I'm really curious because you've talked about music of the 20s and 30s, you've talked about the big band, you talk about the Latin roots, you've talked about formation in Switzerland. Are there any like were there specific artists who really you feel have been particularly influential, or is it just been that wonderful melting pot of movement in these different kind of cultural realms?

SPEAKER_02 8:55

Yeah, there's uh many artists, but for me, if I can name somebody, or well, if I can name uh Carmen, Carmen McRae, from Latin America and a lady called Olga Guillot from Cuba. Cuba is also very close to my heart because I I went there on many musical journeys many, many times. And umara Portondo and so so many artists to name, but I mean those two women really, you know, are the real storytellers to me.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

I'm I'm curious as well whether in that journey, you know, I think as I said, you come over as so relaxed in your own voice and in your own musical language now. Were there ever kind of roadblocks to that? Pl at times when maybe you felt you needed to kind of fit in with something that wasn't right. How did you sometimes in order to get somewhere really where you're settled, there has to be some kind of breaking away. And I'm wondering if that was an experience you had.

SPEAKER_02 9:53

Yes, I think I think it's also part of growing up. At first you don't understand why you feel that way, but I was very, very fortunate because being in London, which is a melting pot of all nationalities and cultures, and it it just opened up my mind to so many more ideas. So the the the first time I I we had um an incredible percussionist from Africa, and uh somebody else came from Cuba and played drums, and I realized that you know, we don't have to hide anywhere. I mean, these these people have been doing it for much longer than than than I would imagine. So I think I was lucky being in London. There are times that you you see a pattern in performances and then that seems to be doing really well, and then you, you know, as a young person, maybe one gets confused that maybe perhaps I should be doing that instead of. But I think um it's always so nice when you hear the feedback from members of the audience or or friends that say to you, you know, the Latin stuff is so special, you know. And and to me that's that's that's my heart.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

It's in your DNA, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 11:03

Although I still love all the other stuff.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Yeah. Yeah, and I think that there's something really truly wonderful about following the thing that feels interesting in the moment, feels that that that piques your curiosity as an artist, and not feeling that you can't.

SPEAKER_02 11:17

Yeah, I think. And I and I think also with jazz, which is something else that I I adore from the beginning, is that you you you you you have one song, one standard, for instance. That can be interpreted in so many ways by anybody, you know, wherever you come from. So this is this is a great space to be creative as well as to say, I'll swing, or I'll do a boleto, or we'll do a ballad, or we'll do any, you know, you there's just so mu so m there's so much freedom.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Yeah, I mean there's even an expectation really, isn't there, that you know, if you're going to sing something, uh you you will find your your way. Your your Absolutely Which I think is wonderful. So I'm really curious about you you mentioned this period of time when you took a break because you had family. We

Motherhood Pause And Returning True

SPEAKER_00 12:05

also had the period of COVID, which was, I guess, during the period when you were bringing up your children. So there has been a period of time where you have been out of the hurly burly of it, out of the daily practical kind of and the regular performance. And I'm curious now that you've kind of gone back in and you're back to performing a lot, what do you think that almost fallow period, if anything, what did it do for your growth as a jazz artist?

SPEAKER_02 12:35

Yeah, it's an I I think it's also growth as a person, you know, before before thinking about anything else. But a little bit before that, I as I said, I was living in London for nearly 10 years, and um I perform a lot, and then of course I traveled to Cuba where I was involved with a little bit with the project of Buena Vista Social Club and collaborations with some of those musicians. And you can imagine what goes through your head, oh, this is it, this is this is gonna be me, despite the fact that I studied something else at uni, but yeah, never mind that. And uh and of course I met my husband and uh came to live in Jersey and had my first child pretty much straight away. So it was wonderful, and it was it, you know, there's there's no pause or anything, it was just that time was was what it was. It was just time with family, and um then my second child, and then all these years in Jersey, also trying to do a little bit of here, of music, play a little bit of music here, and rediscovering yourself um uh as a as a singer, as an artist, and thinking, what now? Because quite a lot of the people I used to work with or new from the scene are some of them are still there, but there's a lot of new people, there's so many new ideas. Uh the scene has changed a little bit as well. And uh so it's it's almost like knock at that door, oh, I'm back, and who's around or not? Or and um I think it in a way what it what what has been so nice about it is that it's made me realize that I am a lot more true to myself in choices I make, in performances I choose to perform, in curating events where I am adamant that people come and listen to an artist pay for a ticket and that I respect that a lot. Uh that we live in such a filter world and digital world that we sometimes take it for granted that if we don't support these things, they will slowly, slowly fade away. And um I myself go to quite a lot of concerts and sit and just be in the moment there for an hour for whatever long it is. And and uh so that was my m very, very strong point when I got back. I want an audience that listens to this incredible artist that I work with, to these arrangements, and maybe even if they don't know anything about jazz, they can go away and think it was a great night, or it was a great night of music without picking it or analysing what jazz is about. Because a lot of the time it's just it's music really. That's all it is.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

It's an experience in the present moment, isn't it? I mean, this this I love about you, Adria, that you have uh that you have brought that kind of quality into the front of whatever you do.

Creating Jazz Angerie For Jersey

SPEAKER_00 15:29

And w that brings me on to talk about your initiative, Jazz Angeli, which is uh something which I've really enjoyed. That's bringing great artists to Jersey, but also performing yourself uh with some really great artists. And there has always been in those concerts, in those moments, there's always been an emphasis on respect for the artist and their art and a sense that, you know, as an audience, we are we are there to participate with the performers in this in this moment and to be fully attentive and to be fully, fully present. And I think that's something I have really appreciated because the quality has been good, and I think audiences they don't need to know. I mean, I'm no jazz expert. I don't know how to analyze a great performance of jazz, but uh I I think that audiences know quality when they hear it, and they know authenticity when they hear it. Uh that goes for all kinds of performance, actually. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 16:27

I mean, I I started these many years ago uh in Jersey, but just a little bit here and there, and trying to get to know some local musicians. Some of them I work with a few uh for a little while. I what we don't have in Jersey is a jazz scene. We don't have a club, and not having a club you know really creates a lot of issues. However, we got two great theatres, the Opera House and Jersey's um art center. So I I I and and also my idea when I started, I curated something that I used to call at the time Magic Nights. And it was uh music in very, very special venues or houses, or manor houses or government house, or I did two years at Domain Duvaux for jazz, and uh those those were very well received. And I figure, you know, a few years ago when um this creative um moment that took off in Jersey, where lots of people mm like-minded just came about and with their own ideas, I thought, right, this is the time to do a you know, with a name behind. And I decided, well, jazz in Jersey, Jazz Angerie, why not? And um but it's been going on as magic nights for for almost nearly, I don't know, maybe eight, ten years or something. On and off.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

Yeah, so in fact the jazz in Jerie that I know has is is been in existence for quite a lot longer.

SPEAKER_02 17:52

Yeah, but not called Jazz Angers. So um with Jazz Angerie, I just uh and and and having sort of uh gone back to to the UK and work in France uh with uh a few musicians, I decided why not? Let's bring them over to Jersey, let's try and find who are the jazzers here. Yeah and who are people who would like to come and experience it and be curious about it, and then maybe hope hopefully come back and uh share the audiences as well with other great projects that go on. And I think this is just the healthy community theme that we we need here. So we I have brought some well, we have brought so many um great artists. Um one of them is Joe Webb, who I was gonna say, Joe Webb.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

I mean I I I have been now to hear Joe Webb play twice here, is that right? That's right. And uh I but once at the opera house and once at another venue, and both times I felt so lucky to be at at home in Jersey and able to go and hear music of that quality. Uh an artist of that quality. Absolutely. I mean, he's so creative, isn't he?

SPEAKER_02 18:56

And and yeah, he's uh he's a regular with Jules Holland. He he's on national television quite quite frequently. I mean, so we we were lucky to have him here.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

He's also Welsh. I mean, you know, that that's his greatest asset as far as I'm concerned. Absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:09

Being a fellow kind of Welsh and so uh it's also been great to have them come over because they've gone back to wherever they live and say, hey, Jersey's been great, and we've had and the audiences have been growing and growing. So Carlum Gillis was here only two weeks ago, three weeks ago, and we had a sold-out room. So I'm I'm delighted with that. So I'm forever encouraging people to just check on the website Jason Jerusalem.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

Yes, I must, because I missed one. I can't believe I missed one there. Oh no.

SPEAKER_02 19:39

And uh, but so that that that has been great to you know bring other performances. Sometimes I perform, but you know, it's not always me. It's there's other people coming too, yeah.

Recording An EP And Touring Again

SPEAKER_00 19:51

So that brings me on to uh a question about your next plans. I know you're you're um doing a recording project, is that right, at the moment?

SPEAKER_02 19:59

Yeah, finish uh recording an EP with my band, and um I'm so excited. So we're in the final production stages of it, and uh it should be ready soon with the visuals as well. And that that is really um they came over to Jersey and we went into a studio for a few days and we got very creative, and that that that's the project and the product that we want to take away, and so we we will be performing in Europe and and and the UK and uh wish us luck.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

Oh really?

SPEAKER_02 20:33

And I want to go and tell a lot of stories about what you know there's a couple of uh songs of mine and uh some great arrangements by some of them. So we will be in Jersey this year in October. That's fantastic. At the manor, so all of that can be found in the Jason Jerie website.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

Oh, that's wonderful. So, people keep in touch with the Jason Jerry website to find out more about Jersey.

SPEAKER_02 20:56

Jasongerie.com.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

We're going to take a short break now and we're going to talk when we come back a little bit about looking after and nurturing the voice as we move through a longer singing career and how working with the voice more intentionally and with the body actually is so important.

New Stories And Present-Moment Jazz

SPEAKER_00 21:16

You've mentioned kind of stories that you want to tell. We talked a little bit about storytelling at my introduction. What are the stories that you're telling now? How do they differ from the stories that you might have told even five years ago? You know, what's the evolution?

SPEAKER_02 21:32

It's it's funny because I'm I I've always loved um old music and I'm I'm I'm I'm always listening to to a lot of things. So actually it's a good question. So um recently I've been traveling traveling quite a lot um and I've come back to South America uh to see my mother who's getting on, but she's she's really well. And uh so I've connected with things that I perhaps saw so many times in my life. When I was a child, but didn't really pay attention to them. Some of these things could be like nature or flowers or birds and fruits as well, because you know, I come from such an exotic tropical place. And um so funny, you know, one of the songs I wrote is about a bird that that flies at home, Cotorrito. And I just um so this is new, you know. I didn't expect to do anything like that or uh to connect with such a situation, put it that way, with that experience.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

What you're really describing there is something around when you move and there's that absence, and when you go back somewhere, you see things through different eyes. You've got um eyes that are informed by uh living in different cultures, you've got eyes that are informed by being an adult, whereas before they were you were seeing things as a child. And you what you really just described is something about noticing, I think, noticing things differently.

SPEAKER_02 22:57

That's right, noticing things different differently also in relation to who you are now, uh finding a lot of peace on just sitting in and watching. And uh again, it uh I I I had a moment with a musician in France. I was invited to come up on his stage after my performance the night before, and uh uh he is half French, half um Moroccan, and uh half English, so sort of English French Moroccan, if you like. Uh but his music is is just stunning, and um for some reason I connected with what he was playing, and uh in that moment we we created something. He did most of it, but it it those are things that are very in the moment, you know, they're very new because uh before I I would find myself preparing a lot more.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

Ah, so this is this really interests me because there's I think that thing of our youth and our pursuit of goals and our ambitions or our desires or uh um and is there something here around the um maybe it's a it could be a mellowing or it could be just a an appreciation of of what happens if you do stand still and if you do just observe.

SPEAKER_02 24:15

And also you just trust yourself in the moment and you give your because you don't want to prove anything. You just want to express something. And I think that that's how it comes across for me is an idea that is there in the moment with him, and I just want to sing it, as opposed to I need to go away and prepare this because it needs to be a certain quality or whereas now I don't, yeah. I I just think it's uh and and because of the honesty of that genre as well, you know, the the beauty of of of having that collaboration that is genuinely in the moment, and uh only people who are sitting there are able to see it for what it is. That that's the biggest reward for me.

SPEAKER_00 24:57

Absolutely wonderful, really. It's it speaks to the whole uh business of the pressure cooker, kind of having the lid taken off when I suppose that when we get to a point in in our work where we, as you say, you don't have anything to prove, you just want to express and communicate. Yeah. I think that's a really terrific quality in an artist. And I think I think you can always see the artists who are driven by that by that innate kind of communication piece rather than rather perhaps than an intellectual or uh an academic approach. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 25:39

Does that resonate? Yeah, absolutely. And and it's also see seeing, seeing and also hearing his emotion that night and and realizing as well that this is what what is so human, that he is human and so am I, and so is anybody on on stage and and no filters again, very acoustic, and that's how the voice is, you know. Yeah. And uh and that's how his emotion in his hands, and whether there is a melod, you know, there there is something there that wasn't quite right, it wasn't wrong either. Yeah. And that is that is that is exactly what I wanted to come across. And working with musicians as well that have taught me so much, that they come up on stage and they somebody who I know plugs into this 1940s speaker who who works with that. But he says, Ah, but that's how it all started, and that's how the sound should be. Ah and then you know you realize that this is a lot of different things.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

This is my world of playing on a baroque violin. Playing on an original instrument, isn't it? It's just recapturing something of the of the origins of the of the thing. I suppose the difficulty that people have with being present in the moment. As a person who has a meditation practice, this is something that I spend time thinking about. I think that's something that jazz really, really offers. It offers it to me, anyway. That I can only talk about my own experience of jazz. But when I come and listen to a jazz concert, I can become quite immersed without consciously really understanding or worrying about what might or might not be happening in the music. Whereas I think in classical music, which is, you know, I'm I've got a more a natural tendency to go towards analysis of, you know, there might be parallel things. I might be being I may be being moved, but I may also be thinking about the quality of what I'm hearing and the technique and the, you know, whereas when I go to hear jazz, that doesn't happen for me. I don't know enough about it. Um so I can really feel that wonderful immersion in the in the moment and I I love that. My next question really is what next?

SPEAKER_02 27:47

Well no, next next is definitely um my journey with my band. Yeah. Uh so as you asked me before, um how have I gone back into this after taking that not taking a break, but you know, after being a mom and looking after my children and going back full-time to the music, um through a lot of um invitations on somebody else's stage and I I loved every single one of them, but now it's going to be my stage. Yeah, so that's that's what's next.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

So really investing time in that in in your your people and your Yeah, so we will be performing.

SPEAKER_02 28:25

Um I'm working really hard at with that at the moment, but we have a few invitations and then I'm hoping for more and uh mainly in the form of jazz festivals as well as jazz clubs and uh collaborations with other musicians uh, you know, depending where we are and uh growing growing from that. So no no thoughts of slowing down at this point?

SPEAKER_00 28:47

No, right now I'm a hundred at a minute. I love do it while I can. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. And I think that's um that's a really wonderful thing. Uh I think there was a time when that period of having children made it quite difficult for people to come back. But I think it's quite inspiring to talk to artists like you who have taken that pause in the in your stride and then come back in with more to offer and with more to think about and more enthusiasm perhaps.

SPEAKER_02 29:18

As I said before, and you know this yourself, when when when you're an artist is is is every single morning is knocking, knocking out inside your body saying, Let me out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me out or do something about it. So you you can't avoid it. It's got to and and you know, all creators will will relate to that. So um I I I think, you know, I'm I'm forever learning as well. I I enjoy so much listening to people now with so many new ideas and and arrangements that um that it just um you know this is this is the world I I I love.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

It's still feeding you, isn't it? And it's it's that, as you say, the compulsion to communicate something that's inside you that needs to come out.

Vocal Care For A Longer Career

SPEAKER_00 30:02

On a kind of slightly different subject, uh I mean we I on this podcast I've talked um with a lot of people about things related to voice and about things related to confidence too and nerves. And I just wonder whether you have any particular tips or strategies around taking care of your voice as as uh as we get older after we've had children and so on as women. You know, are there things that you are finding helpful? Are there changes that you're embracing? Or how is that playing out for you?

SPEAKER_02 30:39

Definitely there's a change, you know. And um I think I think I find that I need to um I need to apply myself a lot more with uh routines about vocalizing and warm-ups, and I try to connect with that at least three, four times a week when I'm not performing and and you know, not not just sort of do it as I used to when I was younger, which I didn't actually know so much when I was young, you know. And and then you would sing and that would be great. And sometimes you warm up 15 minutes before the gig. Um I really enjoy that, but it's also helpful because um I'm obsessed with Arabic lines, you know. I is one of the ways I like to vocalize. I like to listen to that and and and just go with it with my voice, you know. And I think that that's something that I I would say is spending more time, also spending more time with your body as well, knowing that you are well rested. This is something that I need to do. I mean, I I hear it from a lot of singers and a lot of performers now that we joke amongst each other's like, well, we're not we're going to bed early. But it's it definitely means, I mean, uh it's just such a you know, bundle of energy when I'm on stage and I'm rested. And I can just that is just the best feeling. Whereas uh I know I need to get ready for if I have two or three things three nights in a row with audiences like that right in front of you. I work on that. So nutrition and rest and uh and understanding and vocalizing and then building it up because it's just like anybody else practicing to run a marathon or something, you know, you gotta do the same with your voice, you know.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

Yes, and I think I mean from a vocal health perspective, in in my work, one of the biggest things is the is the acknowledgement of the whole system and and not just the voice, not just I mean, the voice is a whole system anyway, because it takes over a hundred muscles to coordinate a singing task. It's massive. But there's also that acknowledgement that as we get older we need to work to keep things more flexible. We need to I mean those Arabic lines that you were describing, that speaks to me immediately of laryngeal flex flexibility. It speaks to me of of um of keeping things moving. I it's like if I don't get up and do some yoga in the morning, I can barely walk across the bedroom these days without howling with pain, you know. It's just getting to that stage of life where you have to work at it, you know.

SPEAKER_02 33:13

And also, you know, funny, uh something I do now that I didn't do before is I actually prepare my body first. So I'm actually warm within my body, whether I play some music and I start dancing and then I start stretching, and the stretching takes takes over 25 minutes sometimes. Once I'm completely, you know, relaxed like that and stretch, I can I can then begin to work on the voice. So the this can take quite a long time, you know, but it's a really joyful hour and a half. It usually is a I don't know if you find the same, it's usually a pain in the neck for the next 10 for the first 10 minutes. And then after that you kind of go, oh yes, I can feel it now working.

SPEAKER_00 33:53

I mean, but isn't that also part of stepping into the discomfort of any of the things that are good for us? I mean, you know it's just always like going out for a run when it's raining, or you know. It's that whole thing about I mean, and I struggle, oh, we'll be really honest, I struggle, my I've kept my voice um very healthy and flexible always, because I've been teaching so much, and I've been there's one part of every singing lesson that I join in with, which is the kind of sirens and the what we call in the um singing-teaching world SOVT exercises, which is semi-occluded vocal tract, which is a particular way of exercising the voice, which is incredibly beneficial and healthy for the vocal folds. And I'd be doing that naturally again and again and again throughout the day, and I find now that I'm moving into other activities, I'm not doing that every day. And so I have to start thinking now, I think I need to really be more you and actually just really kind of take take more of that into my own routines.

SPEAKER_02 34:56

It really is a sort of discipline, is a discipline because also when I'm with the musician, my musicians, you know, the the guys I work with. Um it's much easier for me, especially with James on with the double bass, to to stand next to him and begin to warm up. I connect with that instrument straight away for create creation as well. Yeah, and um that that just makes it a lot more enjoyable. Yeah. When you're on your own, it's like everything. Come on, here we go.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

Yeah, it's gotta do it, gotta get gotta start. Exactly. Once you start, that's really great.

SPEAKER_02 35:27

So, yeah, spending m more time uh understanding resting your body, understanding where you are with condition as well.

SPEAKER_01 35:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:36

There are times that you have a gig, but you're not a hundred percent. Yeah. And then it is possible to do it, but you need to know exactly what you are going to deliver and how far. Whereas I never used to think about those things when I was younger. I think when you're younger you can do other things easier. Yes. Um, but so so that is something that I think about a lot now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:56

I and I suppose that takes care of some of the anxiety that can creep into performance. It's you know, there are times when you can just be very relaxed in the moment, and there are other times when we have to get up and do our job when things aren't a hundred percent and when things are difficult. And there are sometimes judgment calls, aren't there, where we may even need to not sing, but yeah, but mostly we find ways through and we we manage.

SPEAKER_02 36:25

Yeah,

Nerves, Trust And Live Performance Risk

SPEAKER_02 36:26

yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:26

Uh exactly.

SPEAKER_02 36:27

And I I th nerves will always be there, otherwise we wouldn't be human. No. You know, but the the the nerves are usually, well, at least for me, is the anticipation of before I go on stage. Once I'm on the stage and I hit the first note, that's fine.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:40

It's just that moment of come on, let's get it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

Let's do it, let's do it. I used to really I when I was performing a great deal, I often used to sort of be just before going on, I often used to think I can't wait till it's over. And then I'd catch myself thinking that and think, hang on a minute, this is supposed to be the joy of my life. And then you give yourself talking to and then you get immersed in the performance. But there's that that moment of fear when you c kind of looking forward to the moment when it's done and missing out almost on the actual Yeah, and I and I and I think it's also that relationship with the musicians around you.

SPEAKER_02 37:16

When when that relationship is great, then there is nothing, no fear, nothing, because you got each other's back. You know where you are in in the situation, and that's and that's the beauty of it. And sometimes, you know, the moments after the concert when you sit down and talk about it, oh, do you remember? Oh yes, and we went from this to that, and da-da-da-da, and then you have these conversations. And there are times that you think, oh God, yes, because you went on that, and then I picked it up from there, and then we went into the verse, and it was a and I wish we recorded it because then we sort of think, How did that happen? Yeah, yeah, how did we do it? So great moments like that that make it all so special.

SPEAKER_00 37:58

Oh, that's live performance, isn't it? It's got all of the uh all of the wonderful in the moment risk as well as the joy, and that it just takes it into something a bit more uh a bit more high stakes and a bit more exciting. Exactly, exactly.

Dream Collaboration And Desert Island Choice

SPEAKER_00 38:14

So as we come to the end of this uh conversation, I'm curious, is there any one thing that you would love to do still in your career that you haven't done that you just like what would be the dream gig or opportunity or concert to attend, even?

SPEAKER_02 38:37

Yes, I I I I do have one. I'm I'm I'm actually working on it. Oh so we're gonna keep it quiet. But is a collaboration? I would say as far as a collaboration with uh with a maestro that is just very special.

SPEAKER_00 38:53

Ah, so we need we really do need to watch the space for that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:57

Fantastic. That's all I can say, I'm afraid.

SPEAKER_00 39:00

Okay, no, that's fine. And I think my my last question would be um a little bit of a desert island discs question. If you were going to be abandoned on a desert island, I'm gonna steal that whole construct, what would be the one recording that you would take with you to listen to?

SPEAKER_02 39:20

Carmen McRae, no doubt. And her tribute to Monk. I will always love that.

SPEAKER_00 39:26

Anytime I listen to that, I love it. That's fantastic. You didn't have to hesitate at all with that. Adria, it's been just a joy to have you here. And thank you so much. To hear your kind of insights, uh, what having a voice means to you, what jazz means to you. Um, really inspiring. And uh I hope you'll come back and talk to you.

SPEAKER_02 39:47

Thank you for having me. Yeah, not at all.

SPEAKER_00 39:49

Brilliant. You've been listening to VoiceCast with Nikki Kennedy. For me, voice has always been more than just sound. It's presence, connection, music, transformation. I hope this episode has offered something to carry with you into your own conversations and your own story. So drop us a line, be in touch, and until we meet again, I hope that your voice finds the space it needs to be really heard.