Vocalists Julia Dollison and Kerry Marsh Interviewed at AAJ

It's nice when people of similar interest and ambitions come together. Nicer still, when those things form the basis of a personal relationship; a partnership that results in the ultimate collaboration--marriage. For Julia Dollison and Kerry Marsh--singers who are also heavily involved in education, heightened by their successful operation of the jazz vocal program at California State University, Sacramento--their journey is starting to extend more outside of the classroom and into projects for music fans to enjoy.

Enter their new recording Vertical Voices: The Music of Maria Schneider (ArtistShare, 2010), an ambitious undertaking where the sophisticated music of Schneider--one of the most accomplished and important composer/arrangers for jazz orchestra of this era--is used as a basis for intricate vocal interpretation. Backed by Schneider's rhythm section (guitarist Ben Monder, pianist Frank Kimbrough, bassist Jay Anderseon and drummer Clarence Penn), their voices are used to bring out the colors of the music normally brought forth via brass and woodwinds. Dollison and Marsh, using layered recording tracks, are the orchestra.

Veteran AAJ Contributor R.J. DeLuke spoke with Dollison and Marsh - as well as Schneider herself - about the germination, recording and, perhaps most intriguingly, challenges in performing music that uses studio technology and vocal innovation to create something altogether new and refreshingly different.
Complete interview on > http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=36683