At the same time, he began a wide range of collaborations, winning his first Grammy in for Another Night in Tunisia with the Manhattan Transfer. By , he had taken his unaccompanied improvisations from the Hollywood Bowl to Carnegie Hall and to the premiere concert halls of Europe and Asia, thus solidifying his reputation as a musical phenomenon.
He then released the album Simple Pleasures, which was his homage to the music of the s. A joyous ditty created on the spot in the recording studio became the phenomenal hit "Don't Worry, Be Happy. Instead of seizing upon the deluge of offers for concerts and events brought on by his sudden popularity, he decided to take a sabbatical and to begin a serious study of conducting, including lessons with Leonard Bernstein, Gustav Meier, and Seiji Ozawa. The enthusiasm, infectious joy, and virtuosity that characterize his solo performances have made McFerrin a successful communicator in the classical music world as well.
He then recorded Hush, with friend and famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma, which stayed on the Billboard classical charts for over two years and went gold. By , McFerrin had been named creative director of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and released the album Paper Music, the critically acclaimed collection of classics that marked his first recording as a conductor. In recent years, he has combined his love of improvisation with his conducting skills, extending his vocal journeys to larger groups of singers - whether trained or not.
Speaking of his talent, he says, "I consider myself a healer, using music as a potent force to bring people joy. Link to Wikipedia biography. From Astro-Databank. Jump to: navigation , search. Notable : Awards : Grammy. Navigation menu Personal tools Log in editors only.
Namespaces Page Discussion. Views Read View history. This page was last edited on 23 August , at Content is available under these permissions. Newsweek, October 6, New York Times, November 20, People, September 21, Rolling Stone, March 28, Time, October 17, Cancel or. I teach year olds in a Head Start Program.
I have introduced my students to "Don't Worry, Be Happy" to trigger the idea of ignoring peer behaviors aimed at starting classroom conflicts. Bobby never stopped singing, even during the height of his most intensive period of conducting.
But the real magic was that the audience was part of the creation the whole way. I learned a great deal from him about the art of performance. Originally a more conventional a cappella group, Voicestra — like Bobby himself — evolved over time into a purely improvisational vehicle. Bobby has continued working with the ever-evolving Voicestra since its formation and has recorded with the choral group on occasion as well.
Medicine Music featured Voicestra on two tracks. Some seven years later, Bobby and Voicestra came together again on the Sony Classical Circlesongs album, a meditative masterwork comprised of eight spontaneous improvisations based on African and Middle Eastern traditions and created entirely impromptu. The year also saw Bobby teaming with the jazz fusion outfit the Yellowjackets on Bang! The sophisticated, complex compositions and densely produced, multi-dimensional work shed new light on this uniquely talented artist who, since his arrival on the scene in the s, has continually extended himself into new areas and consistently redefined the potential of the human voice.
McFerrin also continues to tour rigorously throughout the world. He has played everywhere from Russia to Japan, sometimes solo, sometimes with collaborators. No two shows, of course, are ever the same. That idea, the improvised opera, was further explored with a new show called Bobble , whose wordless libretto, using 16 stylistically diverse singers, explores the quandary of the people of the biblical city of Babel. How, it asks, did we communicate before we shared common languages?
The dramatic performance, spontaneously composed and conducted by McFerrin, has played in Moscow, Russia and Basel, Switzerland to ecstatic audience response. At another performance, at Washington, D. He lives it. He sounds, by turns, like a blackbird, a Martian, an operatic soprano, a small child and a bebop trumpet.
More than 20 years later, Bobby still regularly sells out nearly all of his performances. His loyal fans know that, when one becomes a part of his audience, something will happen that has never happened before, and never will again. McFerrin is the rare artist whose continued success is based solely on his daring artistry and immense flexibility. For the humble and modest Bobby McFerrin — a married father of three his oldest son, Taylor, is emerging as a popular performer in his own right who has lived in the Philadelphia area for some years — music-making is a quest, a means of communicating and spreading joy, not a competition or a business.
He operates outside of the star system, his only care for the integrity of the music and his only desire to become a deeper musician.
He can create something out of nothing, the way the alchemists would try to create gold out of lead. So where will this ever-evolving artist go next?
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