HOWARD UNIVERSITY'S AFROBLUE

From NPR's All Things Considered:

Nine music majors at Washington, D.C.'s Howard University are also part of the schools vocal jazz ensemble AfroBlue. Michele Norris talks with the group's director, Connaitre Miller, and listens as the students demonstrate "crunchy" harmonies on a familiar tune, as well as some smooth chords on a cappella versions of "Surrey with a Fringe on Top" and "Sometimes I'm Happy."

Click here to listen.

Okay, go check this out right now; it's well worth the thirteen minutes NPR spent on it--I mean, for a two hour radio news show, it's pretty significant that they used up nearly an eighth of their time on this. That is, AfroBlue is incredible. Okay, I admit I have a bias for this kind of music, a capella vocalese underscored by lush and harmonious scat singing. Actually, I suppose what I heard isn't really vocalese per se, which turns instrumental jazz into verbal singing: these kids appear to be doing good old vocal standards by Cole Porter and the like, but whatever, it's great. I've always loved this stuff. I remember first hearing a capella jazz on Sesame Street when I was a little boy back in the early 70s, and was ultimately able to turn myself on in adult life to such kickass groups as Les Double Six and their successor the Swingle Singers.

I'm thinking that Howard University, a.k.a. "the Black Harvard," has one of the best jazz programs in the country. And that's not surprising, either: I would expect no less of a university music department in the city that birthed Duke Ellington.

Go check out AfroBlue right now.

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