Actress, singer and vocal instructor, Sue Anne Gershenzon, has practiced proactive continuous improvement throughout her career in both acting and singing, the latter of which has been her focus for the last several decades. That effort to always become a better musician is illustrated in her pursuit to more keenly understand the demands of Contemporary Commercial Music, CCM, studying with and obtaining a Level 3 Certification with Jeanie LoVetri to teach Somatic Voicework™ The LoVetri Method. Gershenzon has continued vocal study with David L. Jones, and Maria Argyros. She’s also a student of The Alexander Technique and the Feldenkrais Method, which inform her teaching of healthy singing and voice preservation. Gershenzon is making her jazz vocal debut album with the recently released You Must Believe in Spring.
NiteLife Exhange (NLE) asks Sue Anne Gershenzon (SAG) Six Questions:
***Editor’s note: this is an especially candid and heartfelt interview. Gershenzon spares no detail about her life and the circumstances around the creation of her debut album, You Must Believe in Spring. We hope you’ll find her thoughts inspirational and healing.
NLE: You Must Believe in Spring is your debut album. What was the main factor at this point in your career that you decided to record it? What’s the journey from inception to release been like?
SAG: The CD represents my journey of the past 25 years. I knew I had a story to tell and I felt compelled to tell it. It is that simple. I began to actively work on it in 2016 which was a pivotal crisis point in my life. I sold my home in Manhattan and didn’t know the direction my life was going to take after that. I was leaving the city I loved dearly, the home I loved dearly, my neighbors and friends, my community, the streets and the shopkeepers I loved. It seemed my whole world had completely fallen apart. Since I was a child, music has always been a source of salvation to me. Whenever I was at a loss I would turn to a song to soothe my soul. I had always wanted to have a record of my voice, but was never in a position to be able to produce. Well, I no longer had a home, but I finally had the funds to produce a record, so I went for it. I felt as if I had lost everything, and working toward the CD represented the rebuilding of my life.
The journey from inception to release… wow that was quite a journey, and I really had no idea as to what I was getting myself into. I have been a performer my whole life, not a recording artist so it was all new to me. However, it began with getting together with my wonderful co-producer/ arranger on the CD, Glafkos Kontemeniotis once a week for a couple hours to sing whatever had to come out of me that day, whatever song I needed to speak through that week. That was really all we did for well over a year. I would bring in a song, we would work through it, improvise with it, put it aside to gestate, try another one and keep cycling back again. As time went on, an arrangement would take shape, the form, the changing of meters within some songs, the instruments. Glafkos would hear strings in this one, just bass, drums and trombone solo for another one. This was a long organic process and it was always in the effort to express the truths I wanted to convey through each song. Every song was different. I had very definite ideas about several of the songs and Glafkos brilliantly brought my vision to musical form. One of those examples is Fool on the Hill. I wanted the listener to see the exterior of this stoic person, musically enter into the inner workings of his mind and then come back out again to view the superficial. There is so much in there. Other arrangements were totally his visions and I had to fit myself into them. We never set a goal date. We just kept working on each song until it felt whole and complete. . This is where the love of it was, the creative gratification…seeking the truth in each moment of each song. It all organically evolved over a period of time.
At one point we set all the tunes out on the floor and I chose my favorites for the CD. The arrangements for the instruments were then completed and we went into the recording studio with some of the best musicians in the business. Joel Frahm with 5 brilliant Sax solos, Ryan Keberle on Trombone, Sean Smith on Bass, Dave Meade on Drums, Brandon Vasquez on Trumpet, Bashiri Johnson on Percussion, and a trio of strings. What a wonderful day that was for me. It definitely ranks up there as one of the happiest days of my life.
Then began the vocal overdubs at Skillman Studios in Williamsburg. I think that took a whole year because it was not easy for the studio engineer, Wei Wang, and both Glafkos and my schedules to coincide. That was also a huge learning experience for me. As I mentioned, I was not accustomed to being in the recording studio. It was like having a microscope on my vocal cords. I found it pretty nerve-wracking and I did several songs over until I felt comfortable in this medium.
When we finally finished at Skillman we began the mixing and mastering at Tiki Studios in Glen Cove Long Island. That was another journey in itself, literally! I live in Bronxville and it took nearly three hours of traveling one way to get there. But Fred Guarino the engineer was terrific to work with. The mixing and mastering was relatively quick, only a couple of months compared to the overdubbing, however, again we went over each second of the recording with a fine tooth comb until it was exactly the way we wanted.
The photographs were taken by a friend from high school, Chuck Fishman, who just happens to be a world class photographer. He was wonderful and we had great fun together. The design of the CD was done by my dear friends Janet and Rich Ferrante who had been advertising executives and guided me through that process with beautiful choices.
There were so many wonderfully creative individuals that were a part of this. I was very fortunate to have them lend their talents to the project. One aspect after another fell into place with ease. It took a long time, but the work was pleasurable and something I will always cherish in my memory.
I was in the original company of the Stephen Sondheim musical Sunday in the Park with George. There is a song in it, “Art Isn’t Easy.” Some lyrics are, “Bit by bit putting it together, inch by inch, only way to make a work of art…..every minor detail is a major decision.” How true. And this was definitely a major production, like a Broadway show. As I said, I had no idea of what I was getting myself into. It took over 4 years beginning to end.
NLE: Of the vast repertoire of the American Songbook, how did you finally choose the 11 songs that comprise the CD?
SAG: After Glafkos and I had been working together for quite a while, someone asked me what the CD was about. I wasn’t sure, but Glafkos answered for me. “Your life”. Yes it was the story of my life in many ways. It was mostly the past 25 years as I mentioned earlier, but there are a couple songs that represented a time before. I gravitate to songs I can express my deepest feelings through. As a kid, that was my way of letting off steam. Every song represents a relationship or experience. I see the grouping of songs being book-ended by “With So Little to Be Sure Of” and “You Must Believe in Spring.” Those are my statements, philosophies for life, if you will. In between those songs is my personal journey. I put “I Thought About You” first because I felt it best to begin with an up tempo tune. In my linear story it should be after “Straighten Up and Fly Right.” I will explain that one in a bit. After “With So Little To Be Sure Of” is “So Many Stars.” I loved the music here of Sergio Mendez and the incredible words of Alan and Marilyn Bergman. They melded together so perfectly. Those words represent my searching for the right relationship, and artistically the right venue to express all of myself through. That is an overall theme to me. “Fool on the Hill” feels like my life since I was a child, growing up in a pretty crazy environment, instinctually knowing that things were not right, and no one listening to or caring about a word I might have to say. That is why I locked myself in my room and sang all day. Ha! “When Sunny Gets Blue” I have been singing that one for many years. I was stricken with bipolar illness a week after my mother died when I was very young, and suffered from mood swings until the age of 31 when lithium was discovered. “A Child is Born, Deed I Do” and “Good Morning Heartache” are about my son. The miracle and joy of his birth, my deep love for him, and unfortunately, the many heartaches he brought to me and that he suffered through. He is on the low end of the Autistic Spectrum, and his childhood was one daily crisis after another. “Straighten Up and Fly Right.”
Guess which song helped me work through my feelings for my ex-husband? There is some Trump in there too. This is where “I Thought of You” belongs. After I sold my home in Manhattan I was on the Metro North headed to a small room in my friend’s home. My heart was breaking into pieces and that song popped into my head as I looked out the window speeding away from the city and home I loved. “East of the Sun.” As I have said, this CD was born of great loss and a dissolving of what I felt to be my entire world. But, as my dad used to say to me so often, pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again. I will build up from the ashes of my life, a dream house of love, finding a harmony of life to a lovely tune. And that is actually what I did. I never dreamed when I was going through a hellish marriage and divorce, raising a very challenged child, and selling my home that my life would ever be okay. But it is now. I have a new home that I love, a career that I love, and spent these years doing the thing I love most of all, singing. So, You Must Believe in Spring sums up my story. I find it ironic that my CD of surviving through great challenges has come out at a time when this message sorely needs to be heard.
NLE: What’s your favorite track on the album, and why?
SAG: “You Must Believe in Spring.” The music by Michel LeGrand is exquisite, and the lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman are equally exquisite. It is so rich. Glafkos and I loved exploring it. We grew into it together ferreting out every nuance of meaning, and trying to become one with it. I love Glafkos’s improvised solo. It is so beautiful.
That song is the theme of this CD. No matter how bad things can seem, no matter how dark the winter, you must have hope, you must believe in Spring. That applies to my life, and I offer it to others during the current times we are living through. We don’t know what the future will bring, but that doesn’t mean it will be bad. And we cannot give up. We can create our world anew. I sincerely hope I can offer that message to those that hear my story. It is possible to come out the other side of darkness and despair. I have lived it. That is how I know.
NLE: In a long career as a singer in many styles, what have some of the high points been––the moments you most enjoy looking back on?
SAG: The two roles I enjoyed playing the most were Rose Maurrant in Street Scene and Lili in Carnival. I was able to express very deep parts of myself in both of those roles and felt I embodied them successfully. The music of Kurt Weill and Bob Merrill were glorious to sing. I also did a classical concert at the 92 nd Street Y that I was very proud of. And, you know sometimes it is the little moments that mean the most. I played the role of Gutele, the Matriarch in the Off-Broadway production of The Rothchilds. I became close to Sheldon Harnick, and he asked me to sing “Sunrise Sunset” from Fiddler on the Roof with him at a huge event he was being honored at. In the town I grew up in, that song was our national anthem. Not one event occurred without somebody singing that song. I felt it a great honor be asked to sing it with the man who wrote those lyrics. And Sheldon is such a dear sweet man.
NLE: What is it about singing jazz specifically that appeals to you? How does the jazz idiom figure in to your work as a vocal coach?
SAG: What appeals to me most is singing with jazz musicians. It is such a collaborative, spontaneous experience. I have a great love and respect for jazz musicians. You have to be an amazing musician to improvise effortlessly as they do. Jazz musicians seem to live in another realm entirely. It is like they exist with the Gods and pull their melodies down from heaven. It is a great thrill to sing and improvise with them.
As a teacher, I simply teach healthy singing. I feel that if you start with good vocal technique and an understanding of how the instrument properly functions you can sing in any forum and not hurt yourself. There are definitely resonance and registration aspects that are very very different in each style, but the way the instrument basically works is the same. And, if you want to keep you voice for a lifetime, you better know what that is. Some singers sing healthfully naturally, but that is rare. I have strived my whole life to have the technique that would enable me to express any way I choose without restrictions. That is the goal. That is where I try to get all of my students. Another thing I love about the jazz world is that as a singer there is so much room for being an individual. Everyone has their own unique style, way of expressing, and sound, and all of those differences are embraced. The depth of what is conveyed matters the most. I really don’t consider myself a jazz singer. On the CD I am a singer with a jazz back up. I am a Jewish girl from the Midwest. How hip can I be? I certainly have lived through hard times and have had the blues, so I guess that qualifies me for something as long as I stay in rhythm. Ha! There is always more to grow into, and with jazz it is never-ending. I love that too. I have come to accept, however, that I have the voice that God gave me. I sing my heart as truthfully as I can, and that will have to be enough. I hope the jazz world will continue to accept me for what I have to offer.
NLE: What’s next for you? What goals will you be working toward as we head into 2021 and beyond?
SAG: Well, Glafkos and I are getting together again every week to go through songs just like we did before. But this time it is on Zoom. We didn’t sing together for a very long time because of COVID, and if I cannot sing, I feel sick. Hopefully this will be the beginning of another CD, and a second set for when we can finally have our CD release party. And maybe we will tour after that. I am a big hit in Boise, Milwaukee, Arizona and Sidney Australia! Ha! All of the songs I have chosen are again of things I feel I must express, and I will tell you only one song which might be the next title and theme. My dad’s advice, “Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, start all over again!”
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