Jazz Monthly.com Interview with carol welsman

“Jazz Monthly Feature Interview” Carol Welsman

Smitty: Well, it is certainly my wonderful pleasure to welcome to JazzMonthly.com for the very first time an incredible singer/songwriter and a fantastic entertainer. She sings with such grace and style, and her latest CD is evident of that. It is a total eruption of exquisite lyrics, powerful grooves, and the effulgence of voice." Please welcome the incredible and amazing Ms. Carol Welsman. Carol, how are you, my friend?

Carol Welsman (CW): Great, thank you, especially after a lovely intro, I like that!

Smitty: (Laughs.) Well, it is certainly well deserved. Wow, you have so much to celebrate and so much to be happy about because this great CD is just amazing. I just love what you’ve done with it. It is so different and it’s just such a diverse project. I mean, you sing in multiple languages and I must say that even though I don’t understand the words, I’m totally diggin’ it.

CW: Oh, I’m so glad to hear that.

Smitty: Yes.

CW: It’s very important.

Smitty: So tell me, how did the piano stumble upon you?

CW: Well (both laugh), I’m born into a very musical family. I am blessed with three brothers who all play and sing and play multiple instruments, and my parents started us in classical piano growing up and I was playing what my brother was playing by ear when I was about three, so my parents were told that they should start me a little bit earlier. I was picking up by ear what I was hearing downstairs in the house, so we were really encouraged by my mom, who used to teach piano for years, to finish our classical training before heading into anything else, so I was actually a pianist before I was a singer.

Smitty: Yes, so now when you started playing the piano, how did you work in the vocals? I mean, how did that happen? Because when you’re playing piano, it is such an instrument that you have to concentrate on and you’re learning the chords and all of that, and then all of a sudden you want to sing.

CW: Well, I guess I was always singing too, but putting the two together, you’re right, it’s something to think about because, especially with classical piano, there’s no singing that goes along with that.

Smitty: Yes.

CW: But obviously we had a lot of music in the house with three other siblings and everybody had different styles. One was listening to the Beatles, another would be listening to Led Zeppelin, another was listening to Keith Jarrett, Bob Marley. We grew up with so much music around. My dad had Big Band—and still has Big Band—CD’s and he introduced us all to Peggy Lee and Frank Sinatra, and George Shearing was a favorite artist of his all time, and also he introduced me to Sergio Mendes and Brasil ‘66. I found these albums and listened to the singing and, funny enough, I actually started singing probably when I was about 10 or 11 and started to figure out chords on the piano to accompany myself because I had a fairly good ear and, I thought, I think I can do this, and out of a passion it just developed.

Smitty: Wow. So did you dream of being an entertainer or was it just fun to play the piano and sing?

CW: I started to think that someday I would be on that talk show that I was watching when I was about 12 or 13. I really did have a fairly good idea by then that I was going to pursue music as a career. I didn’t know exactly that I was going to be doing the style that I am now at that young an age, but by the time I was 19 or 20 I knew.

Smitty: Yeah. Do you remember your first gig?

CW: Sure, yeah, it was at our school and I was playing guitar and singing. I was horrified because I was so nervous because I knew everybody in the school and it was very nerve wracking, and then at the next school the same thing. We used to perform with guitars and sing, which was really funny, but I did for a time of my life in folk music, so I guess that’s why.

Smitty: Yeah. Do you ever get an opportunity to pick up the guitar now?

CW: I do, actually. I have one now and I used to actually bring it into the show sometimes, but it’s pretty rare these days, but I mostly just play Brazilian music on the guitar. I play the Bossa Nova.

Smitty: Yeah, and you’re an Oscar Castro Neves fan, aren’t ya?

CW: Oh my gosh, yes.

Smitty: (Laughs.)

CW: A huge fan.

Smitty: Yeah, and I must say that I can feel that influence in this great new project as well.

CW: Well, it’s funny because Oscar produced a CD for me called The Language of Love in 2003. And so I always wanted to meet him because from a very young age, here I was singing “Mais Que Nada” in Portuguese and I saw his name on the back of the albums as musical director for Sergio Mendes, and his name just kept coming up. He was one of those people that I really, really wanted to meet and, funny enough, when I was signed with Savoy Jazz, they said “We have a suggestion for a producer. His name’s Oscar Castro Neves” and I practically fell off my chair. I thought, I can’t believe that you’ve come up with the person that I would love to work with out of all the producers, so we had a ball doing that CD and that led to some producers in Canada producing an hour-long documentary on my career, and they came to Brazil and Oscar came with us, and we played there in Sao Paulo, and he’s all through the documentary, so he’s a really big part of my Brazilian influence, of course. Which is now translating into the new CD.

Smitty: Yes indeed. And you and Oscar….What I appreciate so much, and I think it’s so unique and it’s beautiful, is that you both remind me of each other in that when you perform, you seem so happy. Just to hear you sing, it sounds like you’re in such a zone, in a Utopian zone you might say, and when you watch Oscar, he is always smiling and he’s just having a great time with the guitar, and it’s so contagious to the audience and I think that’s a beautiful thing.

CW: Oh, that’s great. It’s true. You know, we all have dark moments, sad moments and everything else, but generally speaking, especially when you think of rhythmic music, it’s pretty hard to be down and out.

Smitty: Yes.

CW: It’s a natural high. I guess Oscar feels the same thing, but I really do feel that way. It’s a natural high and I can’t help but have it bring out my sunny personality. And I know it does translate. I have a lot of fans who feel that way. They say at the end of the night that they just had such a great time and that’s the whole idea, is we’re there to entertain.

Smitty: Yes, and we need more of that kind of feeling, don’t we? (Laughs.)

CW: Oh, always. There’s never enough and it’s beautiful.

Smitty: Absolutely! Now, you got to work with Herbie Hancock a little bit, right? You got to meet him.

CW: Yes, the first time we were paired up was for the onetime Billboard Jazz Awards that were aired in 2000 and I had a relationship already with BET, with Waymer Johnson and having done some on camera work with them in promoting Canada, and one day I just went to visit Waymer and he said “Would you like to co-host the Billboard Awards with Herbie Hancock?” And I said “Let me think about it. Okay.” (Both laugh.) I mean, I’m kidding obviously. I was thrilled to do it. I didn’t have to think one second. And so we had a ball together on camera delivering our lines and sort of clowning around on stage, and actually T.S. Monk came up to me afterwards and said “Oh, you and Herbie were so relaxed and you were having such a good time. How long have you known him?” And I looked at my watch and said “Eight hours.” (Both laugh.) Because that’s all I had known him. But we really did hit it off and that led to a duet performance that he agreed to come and do with me as part of this hour-long documentary.

Smitty: Yeah, well, your career has just been a dream for so many others and so inspiring and, once again, I have to go back to this great new project, I mean, because your producer, Jimmy Haslip, how do you get any better than that?

CW: Oh, I know. Well, this is another thing that when I was living in Europe about 15 years ago and I was studying there and I was writing music, all my musicians had the number one CD that was played every day, it was the Yellowjackets. It was always Yellowjackets music and they always talked about Jimmy and all the different members of the band, but Jimmy’s name came up more than anybody’s.

Smitty: Yeah, he’s incredible.

CW: And again, this is somebody who I have known since the beginning of my development as an artist, and I was so lucky to have him introduced to me as a possible producer. I said “Oh my goodness. I’d be so grateful.” And that’s exactly what happened. We clicked right away, we hit it off when we met, and we had all kinds—we could’ve produced three albums of songs, we had so many ideas. (Both laugh.) And then the fact that he agreed to play as well with us on the CD was just, oh, I can’t even describe it. It was such a wonderful experience.

Smitty: Yeah, well, you know Jimmy. That’s just Jimmy, you know? He’s one of the top performers, top musicians in so many ways, in so many categories, he’s just a great guy all around.

CW: It’s true and he continues to be, and he’s so supportive when we’re playing and there’s something about him incredibly positive and so musical, and he’s turned me on to even more music, like a lot of his earlier stuff that I had never heard, and it remains in the CD changer all the time.

Smitty: Yeah, he’s a great guy. Well, now, I want to talk about you as a songwriter. You are an incredible songwriter. Most notably the great song “This Lullaby” that you wrote for Celine Dion for her “Miracle” album.

CW: Yes.

Smitty: Talk a little bit about that and how that happened.

CW: Well, when I was living in Europe, I was in Europe for seven years and I had a band and then I continued after I met this great songwriter and producer in Italy named Romano Musumarra. I decided to stop performing because he needed a lyricist for his music because he started to produce a lot of songs for artists in English even though he had a stronghold for artists in both French and Italian in the pop world, and he had the number one artist in France when I met him and produced and wrote songs for Princess Stephanie of Monaco that sold millions of copies, so he was kind of like the David Foster of Europe. So I was thrilled to be able to work with him and he actually produced a CD for me and there were numerous songs. We had another song together that we wrote that was a number one hit in France with an American singer named Dana Dawson while I lived there, and so one thing led to another. I walked away, I came back to Canada to live, and we continued to write together, but I did walk away with one song that I said I want to record on my first CD called “This Lullaby” and it happened about four years ago or so.

Romano was in a studio in Paris and he met up with one of Celine’s producers who he was working on this project with and overheard that she was doing this lullabies album and he said “Well, that’s funny. I have a song that I’ve co-written with a friend of mine and I think she might really like it.” And apparently she and her husband sat down to listen to it and it brought tears to their eyes and they said “Oh, this has to be on the CD,” so it’s entitled “Baby Close Your Eyes” and it’s on this lullabies album that she recorded in 2004 [Miracle by Celine Dion/Anne Geddes].

Smitty: That’s amazing, you know, to write a song for Celine Dion. I mean, that’s gotta be so rewarding.

CW: I have to say I really did have the true chills when I heard her sing that song for the first time. (Both laugh.) I met her years ago before she could speak English, because she came to Italy to record with Romano, and so then to see her career blossom like it has and she’s just such a huge star, it’s really an honor to be a part of her career.

Smitty: Yes, absolutely. And speaking of honors, you, too, have awards of your own that you certainly are proud of. For the past two years you’ve been crowned Keyboardist of the Year at the Canadian Smooth Jazz Awards. Talk about how that experience when you learned that you had won the award.

CW: Oh, first of all, it’s a true honor, but it is such an uplifting feeling and gratifying in the sense that we as artists strive through our entire careers to do the best we can and we’re always perfecting our craft and honing in on our skills and sharing emotions with audiences, and it’s amazing to become recognized for it and it’s a real accomplishment, and in society everybody always benefits from these things because people do, in a sense, judge you by what you’ve done.

Somebody will point out, oh yeah, that person has their Ph.D. from MIT or whatever. You always can sort of stand for something and obviously in the music business it really is a great honor and it’s a sign of recognition and it makes us feel great because it gives some real quantification to what we have done. I’ve been nominated many times for Juno Awards in Canada, which is like the Grammy awards in the States, and I have never won a Juno Award, so this was really a lovely surprise.

Smitty: Yes, and I must tell you that I first heard of you through a friend in Canada, Mary Kirk. And so I started to look around and said “Oh, I love the music.” So when I heard about the new record, I said “Oh, I hope we get to do something.”

CW: Oh, it’s so great to talk to you too but, yeah, it’s really fun to know that this album is released in the U.S. and Barnes & Noble especially racking it through the summer, and it’s exciting to finally really hopefully become better known in the U.S. because my career has been predominantly in Canada and internationally but not as much in the U.S., so this is a great opportunity.

Smitty: Well, I think you will. I think you have been released from Canada to really step out into the U.S with what you’ve done and what you’re doing now and in the future as well.

CW: Wow.

Smitty: Now, talk to me about this great album. Oh, now, I gotta tell ya, and this may come as a shock to you, I don’t know, but I just love the French rendition of “Beautiful.”

CW: Oh.

Smitty: That’s my favorite song on the CD.

CW: You know, it’s so sweet to hear that from you because I have a real soft spot for that song, number one. Number two, I know Gordon Lightfoot. I’ve met him a couple of times and I sang a Bossa Nova version of “Beautiful” for him and he’s been known to be quite difficult with people kind of rearranging his music, but he apparently really liked it, he was very gracious, and so I went ahead and took this to the next level, which was coming up with a beautiful French lyric from a friend of mine who’s a lyricist in Canada, and I have to say it really makes it stand out. It’s so unusual to hear.

Smitty: Yes.

CW: And it’s very romantic in French.

Smitty: Yeah, I just really locked into that whole romantic mood when I heard it, you know? It’s like wow, this is incredible. And trying to sing a song not knowing any French, it wasn’t until later that I realized what I was singing.

CW: Uh-huh.

Smitty: But that’s all I know in French. I can sing that song, but at first I didn’t even know what I was saying. That’s how much I love that song.

CW: Oh, that’s so wonderful to hear. Well, they snuck in the bonus track in English.

Smitty: Yeah, right.

CW: But you can stick to the French as long as you want. I think that’s wonderful. It is pretty daring. The whole idea of recording five different languages on this CD is daring. It’s a dream I’ve had, though, since I was right out of college. I’ve always had this vision of taking either pop songs and jazzing them up or jazz songs and adding some kind of more contemporary slant to them in a very early stage of my career, and I’ve always been careful because people say “Oh, American audiences prefer English” and all these things and, funny enough, everybody seems to be embracing all these languages. People who have bought the CD tell me “Oh, it’s got this breezy feeling throughout” and I don’t think they’re really noticing that they don’t understand the lyrics, so it’s more just a little bit of a nice musical romantic journey.

Smitty: Yes, and Eric Marienthal, what great work he did with that song on soprano sax, just incredible.

CW: Oh, so lovely, so lovely. I remember meeting him. Finally I met him last year. I had never met him. And though I’m so familiar with his music and love his sound, and he’s a good friend of Jimmy’s and he said “Oh, sure, I’d love to play” and, oh, it’s the icing on the cake for me, it’s the glisten.

Smitty: Yes, I bumped into him in Holland and we got on the subject of your new project.

CW: Uh-huh.

Smitty: And he just lit up, you know? He was like “Yeah, man, it was just great being a part of that project.” He had so many nice things to say about you.

CW: Oh, that’s so wonderful. Well, the feeling is mutual.

Smitty: Yes. Now, one of my other favorite songs, once again, this time a Latin flavor, the classic song by Henri Salvador.

CW: Oh, “Dans Mon Ile.”

Smitty: Yeah, the French song. That’s the one. I listened to them and I said “I can’t wait to talk to Carol and ask her how do you pronounce this?” (Both laugh.)

CW: We had all different permutations of the title and most of the time it was “Dans Mon Ile.” Everybody would say the “ile,” which is cute, as it sounds a little more Italian, but it’s “Dans Mon Ile.”

Smitty: Yeah, oh, and you have a unique way of singing with such ease and such effortlessness that me trying to sing this in English, I would have trouble. (Both laugh.)

CW: I don’t know about that, Smitty. I think we’re gonna have to put you to the test. I think you’ll do great because you’re so musical, but that kind of rhythm too, though, I’m really partial to the rhythms on this CD. It’s like Jimmy Branly, the drummer, had a big hand in coming up with different styles for these songs. I basically had most of the arrangements sculpted out and then between Jimmy and Jimmy, the two Jimmys, many things were added and reshaped because I essentially came to the table with the idea of Bossa Novas and Sambas, and then Jimmy Branly would say “Oh, no, well, we can’t just do this as a Samba. Let’s do it as something different.” And he knows how much I love to play funk music and sort of the funk shuffle grooves because they’re very similar to swing, in a sense, and so when he started playing that groove on “Dans Mon Ile,” I said “Oh, yeah, this is just too good,” and so if you have that to sing over, it’s really easy, I have to say, with a rhythm section that strong. My goodness.

Smitty: Oh yeah, and the song, “Café,” man, you guys just tore it up on that song, wow.

CW: (Laughs.) I didn’t really want it to be that fast, I have to tell you the truth. It’s a little speedier than I would’ve liked.

Smitty: (Laughs.)

CW: It’s hard for me to keep up at that tempo, but it has a great energy and I’m half kidding you, but it’s always fun for us to play live and the audience really seems to chime into it and they seem to be able to sing the refrain back. I have lots of people who want to sing along.

Smitty: Oh.

CW: I’m not sure that’s always good, but anyway it’s kind of a crowd pleaser, so it’s certainly fun.

Smitty: Yes. Well, talk to me about working with Jeremy Lubbock because I know he’s just an amazing producer/arranger. He’s done so many wonderful things and I know it just had to be such an honor to work with him as well.

CW: Jeremy and I have been friends for three or four years now, I guess. He was working with David Foster when I was called in to actually sing five-part harmony on a Renee Olstead CD and she sang an arrangement that I did of “Slow Boat to China,” and I got this call from Jeremy and I couldn’t believe it was Jeremy Lubbock because I’ve been such a fan of his for so many years and I had to kind of re-ask if it really was the Jeremy Lubbock I thought it was, and we met up at David’s studio and I fell in love with this man as a musician even more because meeting him he was just such a sweet fellow and such a classy human being, and he’s world class in everything he does musically and he has just such a beautiful air about him when you meet him.

You know you’re meeting a star and there’s no doubt. And he just, I don’t know, he kind of took me under his wing and I’ve been singing a lot of his songs, trying new material out of his, because he’s a beautiful songwriter. Oh my gosh, he’s got a repertoire of songs that people would die for, and we just understand each other really well. He’s extremely supportive of my piano playing because he’s a pianist as well and he always comes out to see me live and he gives me great constructive criticism and everything, and I really hung on this song (With Me) and said “I’d love to record this song” and Jimmy Haslip heard it and said “Oh, this is a no brainer. It’s going to be on the CD.” And the changes are so beautiful. I would record a whole album of Jeremy Lubbock songs if somebody let me. I would.

Smitty: Yes, well, speaking of recording, you’re with Justin Time now.

CW: Yeah.

Smitty: And that’s gotta be a beautiful thing.

CW: Oh, it is. I’ve known many of the people at Justin Time for many years because they actually licensed one of my previous CD’s and they distribute my earlier CD’s in Canada, and so this was like coming home to a family. It was such an easy transition and they’re lovely people to work with and they’re very supportive and, yes, I really truly think that I’ve got a great team, great manager, Jeff Neben. I really do feel like I have a strong team together to help support the promotion of this CD.

Smitty: Yes, that’s a great comfort too.

CW: Yeah.

Smitty: Now, let’s see now, once again, the album released in the U.S. what date?

CW: 26th of June.

Smitty: 26th of June. All right. So I know that the U.S. is going to embrace this great record. I just can’t see how they couldn’t. I mean, it is so diverse, it is so, how do you say it, therapeutic?

CW: Oh.

Smitty: It has so many great values and elements that we all love as music lovers. It’s a great project.

CW: Oh, I’m so glad that you think so. I’m grateful for your positive words because there’s a lot of music being made today and I really do feel like we hit our goal and one of our goals was to obviously expose my ability to sing in different languages, which we did, and I have a great passion for that, and also another goal was to be able to cross over in different styles because it’s really very much a signature in my style to do jazz classics with a twist and to also do pop songs but add a degree of sophistication in the chords that brings it more into the jazz idiom, so I really feel that there’s an international sound here that I’m proud to put forth.

Smitty: Yes. Well, I think you hit it right on and, in a word, it is exquisite.

CW: Oh, well, you’ve made my day. You have made my day and my week and my year. (Both laugh.)

Smitty: Coming from a man like you, that’s very, very lovely.

Smitty: Oh, well, thank you, and it’s a pleasure to talk with you and to have this wonderful record in my possession and certainly encourage and highly recommend it for all music lovers in the U.S. and beyond.

CW: Oh.

Smitty: You have a great Web site too.

CW: Thank you! It’s www.carolwelsman.com?

Smitty: Yes, and what can they find on your great Web site that I’ve already seen and love?

CW: Oh, well, actually, there’s a seven-minute EPK that I always encourage people to watch because it really is a nice cross section of different styles of music and excerpts from the documentary, there’s a piece with Herbie Hancock, with Djavan in Brazil. There’s a little bit of everything to familiarize future fans with hopefully and also on the album page, of course, the new CD is being featured and one can hear all the songs on the Web site, so the samples are there.

Smitty: Very cool. And you have a way for people to sign up for fan mail, right?

CW: Absolutely, yes, and we strongly encourage it. There’s a fan tab and you can sign up and put your whereabouts and whether you’d like to receive regular e-mails, etc., so yes, I’m very much in touch with my fans.

Smitty: Yes, and if you have not seen Carol and know her by face or look, there’s a wonderful gallery. Let me tell ya, it’s a wonderful gallery. (Laughs.)

CW: Oh, well, that’s sweet. On my site.

Smitty: Yes. So you don’t want to miss that either. Carol, I can’t thank you enough for spending this time with me to talk about this great record, your wonderful career, and the beautiful things that you have coming in the future.

CW: Thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure talking to you and I am just so grateful for your support and I look forward to spending lots of time on Jazz Monthly.Com

Smitty: Well, thank you so much. All right, the album is self-titled Carol Welsman. I highly recommend this album. Carol, thank you once again and all the best in 2007 and beyond, my friend.

CW: Thank you so much.

Baldwin “Smitty” Smith

For More Information Visit www.carolwelsman.com and www.justin-time.com