RESOURCES:
TRANSCRIPTION:
John Bommarito: Music from Olivia Van Goor on The Song Break on 891 WEMU. Taken from the record, “Don't Be Mad at Me,” that is “Over the Rainbow.” Speaking of Olivia, as I promised, the beloved member of the Michigan jazz scene is joining me in the studio today. Hello, Olivia. Good to see you.
Olivia Van Goor: Good to see you!
John Bommarito: I’m finally meeting you in person. I didn't get a chance to see your performance at the 5:01 Jazz Series this year. I was busy that night for some reason, but we were honored to have you and had a great response from it.
Olivia Van Goor: It was so fun. One of my favorite concerts last year.
John Bommarito: Really? Why? What was so different about it?
Olivia Van Goor: Everyone there was interested and listening and appreciative.
John Bommarito: It's kind of like a listening room.
Olivia Van Goor: Yes. I don't get that many opportunities to have a fully engaged audience to that level where the excitement and the enthusiasm was quite palpable.
John Bommarito: Awesome! Well, maybe we'll have to do that again. So, where are you from? Where did you grow up?
Olivia Van Goor: Well, I grew up in Ohio, and I was born in Grand Rapids. So, Michigan is where I started, and then my family moved to Ohio when I was like five. Northeast Ohio. It's the cool part. It's like, right in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
John Bommarito: Not the place where they hate Michigan so much.
Olivia Van Goor: Yeah, well, they do there. And, but I grew up thinking that we were going to move back to Michigan very soon, and then it ended up being my whole childhood. So, I went to college in Columbus, and I moved back when my parents moved to Milford when I was still in college. And then I decided once I graduated and I kinda got to know the Michigan music scene, I liked it. I was just playing it by ear. I got a little job teaching at a music school, and then I was just going to play everything out. But I graduated in 2019, so my summer of playing everything out then went into just a lockdown. So, plenty of time to practice. Yeah, you remember that.
John Bommarito: Yeah, there were a couple of years that seemed to be missing from my brain.
Olivia Van Goor: So, it was, obviously, so unfortunate for many reasons. And I felt like it was a big hurdle. But then I look back and I think about the timing of being unsure about how to pursue music, needing the time to really find mentors. Finding the mentors, and then feeling like I was behind in my learning because I didn't really know that much about this, about jazz music, and I didn't know what I didn't know until I found the right mentors. Found the right mentors in this area and felt like all I needed left was to practice and to put it into action. Then a lockdown happened, so it wasn't the worst thing in the world for me, and I just studied for a while. I did one on one lessons with Scott Gwinnell. I did an online camp. I did the Geri Allen Jazz Camp online, which was fun. And a couple other things, just trying to take advantage of it.
John Bommarito: Who are your local mentors?
Olivia Van Goor: I mentioned Scott. As far as singers go, I connected with April Teeny when I did Scott's camp and her along with Ellie Martin, who's not Michigan local, but Toledo local, and then gigs in Michigan a lot. She and April were so encouraging and so inspiring. Time went on. I met Paul Keller and I met all of the Ann Arbor folks. I kind of started to branch out around here. And I would say all of my peers are mentors to me in one way or another. I am continually learning so much from… especially the instrumentalists that are willing to extend their hand and information to singers, which there are a lot of them here. A lot of friendly instrumentalists.
John Bommarito: That’s great! Well, we're friends on Facebook. Friends in real life now. This is a silly question, but did Prince influence your favorite color? Because it’s purple, if I'm not correct.
Olivia Van Goor: Yeah, of course it’s purple. No, it was blue when I was a kid, and then I think, I don't remember exactly what, but I feel like something changed where all of a sudden it was cool to like purple. And then I was like, “I do like purple!” And then I grew up more. I really like specifically lavender. And I love lavender, like the smell and the flower. And then I just became like, if I was going to get something in a color, I'll get it in purple. And then it's taken over. As you can see, the water bottle and my phone.
John Bommarito: Darn, I wanted it to be Prince, so that I could convince you to do some Prince covers in a jazz style, but that's okay. Serious questions now. How much time is spent learning new songs versus performing for money versus writing new songs?
Olivia Van Goor: Wow. Okay, I am trying to make a shift right now, because over the last couple of years I've been doing gigs where, you know, people we're just kind of calling tunes, casual background gigs. I would do gigs with different musicians, and I would want to always learn stuff that they're excited about. So, I'd always be asking other musicians that I'm working with or just hearing people say, “oh, you should learn this song” while we were at a jam session. And then it turned into I was robotically learning songs just because someone else told me that I wanted to. Then I didn't really realize what I actually was learning it for anymore. I couldn't really grasp onto any meaning of some of these songs because I was just learning it, just to learn it, and it felt a little bit too robotic. So lately I've been trying to do less of that. So even if someone asked me, “hey, do you know this song” and they'll say, “you should learn it.” I used to take that super to heart. I'd write it down on my phone and be like, “I have got to learn this song by the next time I see this person.” It paid off in some ways because I think it showed people that I was serious. But then now it's taking up so much of my time and I'm not even connecting with the specific songs anymore. So, with that being said, trying to do more of following my heart in terms of what I like and only learning songs specifically for a show. If I'm doing a show with an orchestra and obviously, they have their certain book, so I'm learning stuff for them, but it's for a show. It's not just to expand…
John Bommarito: Your repertoire for jazz.
Olivia Van Goor: Yeah. Just because I want to know as many songs as possible. I try to learn songs in a lot of different ways. I try to listen to music in a lot of different ways, but even on the hour drive here it was, listening to a track and listening to a song to start memorizing something. And maybe later tonight I'll try to have more intentional following my heart listening for a couple hours or something like that.
John Bommarito: Stuff you just want to listen to.
Olivia Van Goor: Yeah, right. And practice that.
John Bommarito: How about writing new material? Where does that fit in?
Olivia Van Goor: That's still hard. It's hard because I've been struggling with how to keep up with the work, how to feel inspired by learning the music still and learning standards. And then on top of that writing. That's usually the first thing to go, because it just feels like it takes so much energy. So probably right now it's been mostly words that I find inspiration from. So maybe 2 or 3 hours a week total, but hopefully more later.
John Bommarito: I hope it comes. My guest today on The Song Break is Olivia Van Goor and we are chatting about her life and stuff that she's got going on. I noticed sometimes that you don't just play gigs here in Michigan. You go out of the State.
Olivia Van Goor: I do
John Bommarito: Some of our people to stay here. You are finding time to go away. Tell me about your touring outside of the state. We’ll call it touring.
Olivia Van Goor: Sure yeah. Well, I guess if it's out of the state or out of the area, it's a tour.
John Bommarito: Yeah. How often does that happen?
Olivia Van Goor: It happens as much as it happens. In the summer, more often. I learned my lesson with taking gigs even in March, and it not going well because of the snow.
John Bommarito: Sliding off the road is not worth it.
Olivia Van Goor: Yeah, so April to November or December is cool. I have connections with people in Columbus, in Cleveland, in Pittsburgh, and a little bit in Indianapolis or just, Indiana/Chicago area - kind of. But I'm just following, same as any other venue, whoever expresses having interest in having me and I also especially love gigging outside of town because I hire local there. So I've expanded my book of musicians that I can play with, and that's worked out well too, because maybe they are in town, or maybe they needed a singer for something, and then I could kind of work together with people to create a little bit of a tour. So I just did a couple of weekends this past month, and I think I'm going to be in town a lot this summer, but I don't know. Who knows? I haven't booked the next gig for a couple of those venues. I just kind of follow… I've been resisting the cold call grind lately because I've felt a little burnt out, but I feel inspired lately to start reaching out to more venues. But I need to take a break from that because I felt like if I focus too much on the out-of-state people, then I'm not connecting as much as I want to with the local, which is my priority.
John Bommarito: Do you prefer playing, as part of a trio, a quartet?
Olivia Van Goor: Quartet. Full rhythm section. So, I want the chord player, the bass player and the drums. I'm mostly working with pianists, but guitar is great too.
John Bommarito: We discussed, just briefly before we went on the air here, that you've been helping other musicians. Tell me a little about how you are affecting other musicians in their journeys.
Olivia Van Goor: Well, when I first started and I met April and Ellie, a big message that I heard from April specifically that was so inspiring to me was that I had to make it happen if I wanted it to happen. She said I already had the goods, but it's making it actually happen. There's a lot of different avenues that people take. Maybe they go to school in this area and then they find teachers who will get them opportunities or whatnot. But I had a couple of things where I didn't have a lot of friends or family in this area to ensure that I could bring people to a show. So that was kind of out of the question for certain venues. And I also didn't go to school here, so I didn't have that connection,
John Bommarito: “outsider”
Olivia Van Goor: Yeah. Right. Exactly. Well, and it worked out because I found myself able to float around to different groups of people because I didn't necessarily have the one click of, you know, let's say whatever school. The U of M music kids versus, you know, Oakland music kids and stuff. So, I was able to float around, which was really helpful because I learned a lot. But then at the end of the day, I didn't have as many resources as I saw my contemporaries. However, I took that as a challenge and then kind of followed a couple other people's footsteps with how to literally hustle for gigs. And I figured the best way that I could start having people work with me is if I get a gig. if I get work. And then it started to snowball. And I've noticed that part of the problem is that other musicians don't feel as ambitious about promoting themselves. And I may have seen that as a necessity, and some people see it as an option, but then later on they'll regret it and they'll be like, “I need to promote myself more. I need to have these resources. I wish I did that before.” So lately I've been trying to put myself out there as someone who can help other musicians, specifically jazz vocals, because that in itself can be a very isolating place to be. Because if you don't know how to play an instrument or if you don't feel welcome within the other jazz community members, and you think you're, “just a singer,” then you're going to already feel like you can't do it. So, part of my mission, and this is just kind of fallen in this way, I think people saw that my way of branding myself and putting myself out there was working. Then I've gotten questions of how can other people do it? So, I did something for the Michigan Jazz Festival in the winter, and that is on YouTube. So they recorded it and it's all there. And I plan on doing other types of clinics and stuff like that in the future.
John Bommarito: Very cool. If people are interested, just Google Olivia Van Goor. I'm sure you can find exactly how to get involved in that world. If you're listening, and you're one of those people who think “I could use that help,” Olivia is here to help. We’re visiting with Olivia Van Goor on The Song Break, and I noticed that some of the top tier musicians that you play with are people like my friend Bob Mervak, Randy Napoleon, and of course, Paul Keller, who you teamed up with for a new single. Tell me about what you've been working on since Don't Be Mad at Me, which was an August 2023 release.
Olivia Van Goor: Yes. I can't believe it was that long ago! Yeah. It's crazy. Well, Paul and I have worked together for a long time, and part of the reason why I think this was bound to happen is because we started to arrange together, and it started to snowball into kind of having the same ideas and being on the same page in terms of how to arrange a song, that we decided to start trying to write more songs We got together and I think we were trying to write a big band arrangement of an already existing song about spring, and instead he said, “what if we try to write our own song?” I had written lyrics before for songs that he had, or I've written my own lyrics for instrumental jazz songs, and then we do that together. So he knew I could do that. We sat down, I wrote, I came up with a phrase, my old friend spring. I think that was also inspired by the fact that a lot of songs that Paul writes are very about the human experience, about friendship and about nature and how a lot of those things relate and in life and living and those kinds of things. So I came up with that phrase, and we started writing together. I think I wrote a couple lines and he suggested a couple of things here and there. Finally, we had a little bit of something. We took it to the piano. He started playing, I started singing, and then we made a song! So, we released that. It has to have been a couple weeks ago at this point.
John Bommarito: Before spring.
Olivia Van Goor: Before spring. Yeah. And it was a very fast turnaround. We wrote it, we recorded it, and then we wrote a big band chart for it. So, we also do that when I get together with him.
John Bommarito: Cool. What else have you worked on that might make up a full record or at least an EP?
Olivia Van Goor: I've been resisting the full album endeavor right now and kind of following my heart in terms of little projects that I can do and projects that are for other reasons than one full body of work. So, I mentioned that obviously I grew up in Ohio and I also gig in Cleveland, and I have connections there. I've made friends with a couple of Cleveland musicians. I even did a Valentine's Day show at the Bop Stop in Cleveland. It went over so well that I brought my boyfriend, who's a bass player, Matt Ryan, with me, and we connected with a trumpet player named Tommy Lehman, a pianist named Theron Brown, and a drummer named Zaire Darden. I had known Tommy, but I hadn't met the other two. It was going to be this meeting of us, and I provided music. It was all love themed, obviously, and it was a mixture of songs that I had been doing for a while and some songs that I had been just kind of playing around with. But there was one in particular that really, after we were done, we looked together and we were like, “wow, that was awesome.” It was my arrangement of the song “Close to You”, the Burt Bacharach tune. It went over so well, and we all felt it that I thought in my head, “okay, I’ve got to record this one way or another and it'll be really cool because it would just be another opportunity to maybe record in a different studio, maybe travel to them.” And, so that's what we did. I worked at the Akron Recording Company and we even did a video. So, I just announced it that in I guess at this point, a week in some change, it'll be on the 21st of June that I'm releasing “Close to You”, and it'll also have the video.
John Bommarito: Wow. Well, keep me in the loop on that.
Olivia Van Goor: Yeah. And then on top of that, I think it was so fun to do the video that I wanted to do another video, especially because all my videos at this point are iPhone video, which are they're looking good lately, but there's a certain level and you see it, you can see a thumbnail and you can tell this is a professionally recorded video. And that's what I wanted. And I'm trying to upgrade and beef up my material even more. Like I was talking to you earlier, you know, how can I make this better? How can I make everything better?
John Bommarito: People take you more seriously if you look like you're a serious musician.
Olivia Van Goor: Definitely. Right. And then I thought, “this is fun, I like it.” I just don't think it has to be any more serious than that. And I then thought to myself, “well, what's something else coming up that would be fun to promote? Or how can I incorporate something that I haven't done yet? And I came up with the idea that for in July, the Michigan Jazz Festival, I would record something with the pianist that I'm playing with, which is Scott Gwinnell. We have been working together for a while. I mentioned I took lessons from him, and I kind of went from this being a student and I'm always a student, but now we play together a lot. I have nothing that's just me and piano. So, I thought, “Great, I want to do something.” And then time it for the Michigan Jazz Festival in July. So, I recorded a version of the tune, "We've Got a World That Swings," and it's from the original Nutty Professor movie. And there's not too many recordings of it.
John Bommarito: I remember the movie, actually. Because I'm old enough.
Olivia Van Goor: There's a Mel Torme version that's very cool. And I noticed when I looked on YouTube and tried to find other versions, they're all exactly like his. It's some, you know, people covering it exactly like him, but no one doing their own version of the tune. So that's exactly what we did. And it turned out really well. And we recorded it at 54 Sound in Ferndale. And it was super fun and just another experience of expanding my data on my in my head of how to do this.
John Bommarito: And maybe that becomes a standard. I talk about that on the show sometimes. What makes something a “standard” It's how often does it get covered, in my head. That's how it comes one.
Olivia Van Goor: Absolutely. That's how I talk about even how different songs still have verses that are common. It's like it's just because people really like the Ella Fitzgerald version of “Someone to Watch Over Me.” So people still sing the verse because it just became popular. But no one knows that there's a verse to the song “All of Me” because poor Ruth Etting’s version didn't…you know, had been super popular.
John Bommarito: Well Olivia, it's been a pleasure sharing some time with you, and we're going to play, thus far, your most current single, the one called “My Old Friend, Spring” And I'm sure in a future upcoming show I will have your new single available to play too.
Olivia Van Goor: Yes.
John Bommarito: Thank you for joining me.
Non-commercial, fact based reporting is made possible by your financial support. Make your donation to WEMU today to keep your community NPR station thriving.
Like 89.1 WEMU on Facebook and follow us on Twitter
Contact WEMU News at 734.487.3363 or email us at studio@wemu.org
