Bobby McFerrin
Bobby McFerrin (born March 11, 1950 in New York City , New York ) is an American vocal artist, singer and conductor . With his extraordinary singing technique he reaches an enormous vocal range and imitates various instruments. McFerrin is known for his unaccompanied solo concerts.
Live and act
Youth and education
Bobby McFerrin is the son of Robert and Sara McFerrin. Bobby's father was the first African-American opera singer ( baritone ) at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in the 1950s . Sara McFerrin was a soprano and was a professor of singing. However, she gave up her career in order to be able to support her husband. Bobby's favorite place as a child was under the piano when his father gave singing lessons. Even though his father never gave him lessons, he learned a lot about music from him just by listening. At the age of six, Bobby McFerrin received piano lessons - initially at the Juilliard School of Music - and over the next few years also learned to play the clarinet and flute .
He studied piano while in high school, at California State University in Sacramento, and at Cerritos College.
First professional experience
After graduating, he became an instrumentalist in the Ice Follies , after which he toured with several top 40 bands. Only at the age of 27, when he was a member of the band Astral Projection , did he begin to perform as a singer. Comedian Bill Cosby arranged for McFerrin to be invited to the Playboy Jazz Festival as a singer in 1980 . His appearance at the Kool Jazz Festival in 1981 finally led to a record deal.
Debut album and reactions
Already with his debut album as a singer, Bobby McFerrin (1982), he became known in the professional world because of his artistic vocal technique with rapid changes between chest and falsetto voice . At that time Joachim-Ernst Berendt invited him to the New Jazz Meeting Baden-Baden , where he took part in a vocal summit with the advanced singers Jeanne Lee , Urszula Dudziak as well as Jay Clayton and Lauren Newton . He received two Grammys in 1985 for Another Night in Tunisia with Jon Hendricks and Manhattan Transfer . The next albums he can be heard solo are The Voice (1984) and Spontaneous Inventions (1985). The song Don't Worry, Be Happy (1988), based on a quote from Meher Baba , earned him worldwide recognition. The album Simple Pleasures (1988), on which the hit is located, sold over ten million copies worldwide and led to four Grammys. In 1989 he contributed the music to the documentary film Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt . During this time he also founded Voicestra , initially with Lyle Mays and Jack DeJohnette , from which a twelve -member a cappella vocal group developed.
Cooperations
Since the 1990s he has worked successfully with other well-known jazz musicians , such as the pianist Chick Corea ( Play 1992), or classical music , such as the cellist Yo-Yo Ma ( Hush 1992). In 1996 an album followed with the Yellowjackets and another with Corea. In 2003 a television film was made about him: Bobby McFerrin & Chick Corea - We play - a musical friendship that shows the preparation for a concert between the two of them at the Verbier Music Festival in Switzerland , as they prepared the piece Spain by Chick with a youth orchestra Corea samples. The film was broadcast on various German television programs.
Remarkable for its handling of the Ave Maria by Bach / Gounod , in which he himself, the Prelude from Bach interpreted vocally and in parallel the audience the melody of Gounod can sing along. He has also appeared as a guest singer on projects by Dizzy Gillespie , Bob Dorough and Laurie Anderson . In 2009 he performed his opera Bobble - Listen so we can really hear with 20 professional singers from Europe in the Roman theater of Kaiseraugst .
Conducting
McFerrin has been conducting since 1990. It is said that at first he was asked for fun if he wanted to conduct one day. Afterwards he conducted the conducting with increasing seriousness. According to his own statements, he had a lesson with the conductors Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa . To this day he has conducted various orchestras around the world, some of which are audio and video recordings. On May 25, 2004, McFerrin conducted the Vienna Philharmonic on the occasion of the enlargement of the European Union . The program included pieces from works of classical music by composers from eight European nations. On June 5, 2010 he performed at the final concert of ! Sing - Day of Song in the Veltins-Arena in Gelsenkirchen as part of the project RUHR.2010 - European Capital of Culture .
Lecturer activity, prizes and awards
McFerrin has worked as a lecturer at various universities and is currently honorary professor at the Berlin University of the Arts . In 2020 he received the title of Jazz Master of the National Endowment for the Arts and thus the highest honor in jazz in the USA.
Private life
He has been married to his wife Debbie since 1975 and has three children. The son Taylor McFerrin has now emerged as a musician with a NeoSoul debut album. His daughter Madison McFerrin has also released two albums.
Discography
Albums
year | title |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes) |
Remarks | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
DE | AT | CH | UK | US | |||
1984 | The Voice | - |
AT14 (2 weeks) AT |
- | - | - |
Producer: Linda Goldstein
|
1987 | Spontaneous inventions | - | - | - | - |
US103 (19 weeks) US |
Producers: Bobby McFerrin, Linda Goldstein
|
1988 | Simple pleasures |
DE13 (18 weeks) DE |
AT8 (8 weeks) AT |
CH14th
gold
(8 weeks)CH |
UK92 (1 week) UK |
US5
platinum
(55 weeks)US |
Producer: Linda Goldstein
|
1990 | Medicine Music | - | - | - | - |
US146 (22 weeks) US |
Producers: Bobby McFerrin, Linda Goldstein
|
1992 | Hush | - | - | - | - |
US93
gold
(18 weeks)US |
with Yo-Yo Ma
producers: Bobby McFerrin, Steven Epstein |
2004 | Concert for Europe - The Schönbrunn Concert | - |
AT19th
gold
(10 weeks)AT |
- | - | - |
with the Vienna Philharmonic
|
More albums
- 1982: Bobby McFerrin
- 1983: Sorrow Is Not Forever-Love Is Vocal Summit ( Lauren Newton , Urszula Dudziak , Jeanne Lee and Jay Clayton )
- 1984: Tangents ( Chico Freeman feat.Bobby McFerrin)
- 1988: Bobby's Thing
- 1988: Lady Fair
- 1988: How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin & How the Camel Got His Hump (with Rudyard Kipling and Jack Nicholson )
- 1989: The Many Faces of Bird (with Richie Cole , Lee Konitz , James Moody and Bud Shank )
- 1992: Play (with Chick Corea )
- 1992: Live (with Herbie Hancock )
- 1993: Somewhere Over the Rainbow
- 1995: Paper Music (with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra)
- 1995: Bang! Zoom (with Yellow Jackets, Paul Jackson and the brass section of Tower of Power )
- 1995: Kenneth Feld Presents the Wizard of Oz on Ice (Unknown Artist feat.Bobby McFerrin)
- 1996: The Mozart Sessions (with Chick Corea and The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra)
- 1997: Circlesongs
- 2001: Mouth Music
- 2002: Beyond Words
- 2010: Vocabularies
- 2013: Spirityouall
Compilations
- 1993: Don't Worry, Be Happy
- 1996: The Best of Bobby McFerrin
- 1997: Jazz Masters
- 2004: Bobby McFerrin (Promo)
- 2007: The Collection
- 2011: Essential
- 2011: 4 albums (box with 4 CDs)
Singles
year | Title album |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes) |
Remarks | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
DE | AT | CH | UK | US | |||
1988 |
Don't Worry, Be Happy Simple Pleasures |
DE1
platinum
(23 weeks)DE |
AT1 (14 weeks) AT |
CH2 (20 weeks) CH |
UK2
silver
(11 weeks)UK |
US1
gold
(26 weeks)US |
Author: Bobby McFerrin
|
Thinking About Your Body | - | - | - |
UK46 (5 weeks) UK |
- | ||
1989 | Good Lovin ' Simple Pleasures |
DE37 (6 weeks) DE |
- | - | - | - |
Authors: Arthur Resnick, Rudy Clark
Original: Lemme B. Good, 1965 |
More singles
- 1982: Moondance / Jubilee (Promo)
- 1982: You've Really Got a Hold on Me
- 1986: Bobby McFerrin (EP)
- 1986: Thinkin 'About Your Body
- 1990: The Garden
- 1992: Hush Little Baby (with Yo-Yo Ma)
- 1997: Circlesongs
Sideman recordings
- 1980: Journey to the One ( Pharoah Sanders )
- 1982: The Best Is Yet to Come ( Grover Washington, Jr. )
- 1983: The Young Lions (Various); Vocal Summit: Sorrow Is Not Forever - Love Is
- 1984: Tangents ( Chico Freeman )
- 1984: A Night in Copenhagen ( Charles Lloyd Quartet); A Tribute to Thelonious Monk (Diverse)
- 1986: The Sportin 'Life ( Weather Report )
- 1985: Watching My Life Go By (Michael Hedges); Vocalese (The Manhattan Transfer)
- 1986: Round Midnight (Various); The other Side of Round Midnight (Various); Dialects ( Joe Zawinul )
- 1987: The Just so Storys (Bobby McFerrin and Jack Nicholson)
- 1988: Cocktail (soundtrack); Duets ( Rob Wasserman et al.); Heart's Horizon ( Al Jarreau )
- 1989: Back on the Block ( Quincy Jones ); Strange Angels (Laurie Anderson)
- 1991: The Laziest Gal in Town ( Gal Costa )
- 1992: To Bird with Love (Dizzy Gillespie)
- 1994: Extra Special Edition (Jack DeJohnette)
- 1995: Hand in Hand: Songs of Parenthood (Diverse); The Music of Disney's Cinderella (miscellaneous); Dreamland (The Yellowjackets)
- 1998: In My Life ( George Martin )
- 2003: Little Words ( Béla Fleck ); Rendez-vous in New York (Chick Corea)
- 2004: Magic Hour ( Wynton Marsalis )
Video albums
- 1986: Orpheus returns - TV play by Hessischer Rundfunk, Germany
- 2000: Swinging Bach - live recording in Leipzig (with the Gewandhausorchester , Jiří Stivín and others)
- 2002: Spirits of Music - Bobby McFerrin & Nigel Kennedy (2 DVDs)
- 2004: Spirits of Music, Part 1 - Bobby McFerrin & Nigel Kennedy
- 2005: Spirits of Music, Part 2 - Bobby McFerrin & Nigel Kennedy
- 2005: Live In Montreal
- 2005: Spontaneous Inventions
Grammys
- 1985: Another Night in Tunisia with Jon Hendricks
- Best Vocal Arrangement for two or more voices
- 1985: Another Night in Tunisia with Cheryl Bentyne
- Best Jazz Vocal Performance, male
- 1986: Round Midnight
- Best Jazz Vocal Performance, male
- 1987: What Is This Thing Called Love?
- Best jazz vocal performance
- 1987: The Elephants's Child with Jack Nicholson
- Best Recording for Children
- 1988: Don't Worry, Be Happy
- Record of the year
- Song of the year
- Best Pop Vocal Performance, male
- 1988: Brothers
- Best jazz vocal performance
- 1992: Round Midnight
- Best jazz vocal performance
literature
- Ian Carr , Digby Fairweather , Brian Priestley : Rough Guide Jazz. The ultimate guide to jazz music. 1700 artists and bands from the beginning until today. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 1999, ISBN 3-476-01584-X .
- Leonard Feather , Ira Gitler : The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz. Oxford University Press, New York 1999, ISBN 0-19-532000-X .
- Wolf Kampmann (Ed.), With the assistance of Ekkehard Jost : Reclams Jazzlexikon . Reclam, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-15-010528-5 .
- I have a dream . In: Die Zeit , No. 50/2002; Interview by Ralph Geisenhanslüke with Bobby McFerrin
swell
- ↑ Prof. Bobby McFerrin. Retrieved May 18, 2017 .
- ↑ Innovative beat hobbyist: Taylor McFerrin: Early riser , Deutschlandradio Kultur from June 18, 2014, accessed January 15, 2015
- ↑ Madison McFerrin. Retrieved March 15, 2019 (American English).
- ↑ a b Chart sources: Singles Albums UK Billboard 200
- ↑ Gold / platinum databases: DE AT CH UK US
Web links
- Biography and recognition as NEA Jazz Master
- Bobby McFerrin at Allmusic (English)
- Bobby McFerrin at Discogs (English)
- Official website
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | McFerrin, Bobby |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | McFerrin, Robert Keith |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American musician, vocal artist, and conductor |
DATE OF BIRTH | March 11, 1950 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | New York City , New York |