(Reprinted from the March 2021 issue of Downbeat magazine)
In 2015, singer Gretchen Parlato received her first Grammy nomination—a crowning glory to a decade of career triumphs—and then nearly dropped out of sight. Through the nine neo-Brazilian compositions on Flor, her debut album for Edition Records due out March 5, Parlato speaks to the personal transformation that inspired this career hiatus.
The Flor project began as an inkling back in 2014, when Parlato joined guitarist Marcel Camargo—a friend and collaborator since their days as ethnomusicology students at UCLA—on his fully orchestrated, self-produced EP Behind Jobim. Parlato was a natural choice as vocalist for the Brazilian jazz recording, not just for her rarified vocal timbre, which lends itself so easily to the genre, but for the specific bond the two musicians had forged over a shared love of Brazil’s sultry song forms and bewitching rhythmic patterns.
Parlato, raised in a family of elite musicians, brought a discerning ear to the project—she’d spent decades immersed in the works of Brazilian composers and often included them in her usual repertoire. And Camargo, who was born in São Paulo, lent a native son’s intuitive understanding of Brazilian idioms to the album’s arrangements. Both agreed then that a project proceeding from this shared interest was in order.
But that Brazilian session with Camargo would be Parlato’s last project before her son Marley was born that year, and Live In NYC (Obliqsound), which gave Parlato that first Grammy nomination, would be her last release as a leader for the next six years.
“When I was pregnant with Marley—and definitely once he was born—a feeling came over me to settle and focus, to shift my mindset to providing as stable an environment as possible for our family,” Parlato explained to Downbeat in a Zoom call from her Los Angeles home with husband Mark Guiliana, also a musician.
Stability on the homefront meant that Parlato had to reprioritize the demands of her working life. So, she vetoed grueling weeks on the road in favor of short, occasional tours with Marley in tow, and she guested on other musicians’ sessions while her own recording career remained on hold.
To understand the magnitude of this departure from the spotlight, consider Parlato’s career trajectory pre-motherhood: The first singer ever accepted into USC’s Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance (now the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz), Parlato performed with jazz greats Hancock, Wayne Shorter, and Terence Blanchard while still a student. She would go on to win the Thelonious Monk International Award for Jazz Vocals in 2004 and subsequently record four celebrated albums as a leader; besides the Grammy nomination, Live in NYC would receive the rare 4.5-star review in Downbeat magazine. She appeared on scores of albums as a featured artist and ranked repeatedly as one of the world’s leading jazz singers in Downbeat critic and reader polls.
Not surprisingly, those early years of Marley’s life were something of “a blur,” Parlato recalled. But as the pressures of new parenthood eased over time, the singer began to muse about the interruption to her artistic life. These musings in turn prompted a wealth of new material that tapped into Parlato’s deep feelings about becoming a mother—melodies with lullaby strains, lyrics about change and acceptance, choruses ringing with joy at newfound wonders.
“Once Marley turned three or four, I could finally pen the lyrics about this precious time,” Parlato said. “I hadn’t given myself time to write about it because it felt very private. Sometimes it’s easier to write about heartbreak, though that’s private, too. But this was good and joyous, so I felt protective about it. It took some time for me to put it into words.”
While these compositions took shape, Parlato was revisiting her earlier notion about a Brazilian-focused group with Camargo. Such an ensemble would afford a natural return both to performing and to the gently swaying songs that had proved foundational to her development as a vocalist.
For the resultant quartet with Camargo—along with drummer-percussionist Léo Costa and cellist Artyom Manukyan—Parlato chose the name Flor, the Portuguese word for “flower.” As both a descriptor for the group’s delicately crafted sound and a metaphor for Parlato’s artistic process, the name holds many meanings.
“The imagery of a flower is so profound to me,” Parlato said. “I was thinking of a plant that is dormant in the winter, where there’s nothing happening. It seems to be gone. That’s how it felt when I took time off for motherhood. I was thinking, where did she go? Where’s the creativity? The album? The touring? I knew it was still there, that it [would] come back again.”
Parlato’s artistic renaissance began with a few Flor gigs “here and there,” she said, in Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, and New York City. To prepare for them, she turned to Camargo—who’d signed on as musical director—to arrange a mixed repertoire that ventured beyond fresh originals and treasured Brazilian standards into jazz settings of European classical music and surprising refurbishments of American pop songs. These tunes—personalized to Parlato’s minimalist aesthetic—would constitute the group’s program for both its tours and inaugural release.
“There’s always an essence in the original [tune] that should be protected. I try to find that first—it’s the thing that draws me to the material,” Parlato said about her approach to new repertoire. “But as much as I love the original piece, it wouldn’t make sense if I did an exact imitation. So, I use a method where I first deconstruct a song, then reconstruct it.
“The deconstruction comes with finding the purest melody and harmony and structure [of a piece]. I get to that bare-bones state, and then everything that I use in reconstructing it comes from my vision, my story. I try to find that beautiful balance between honoring what the song is and doing something different, so that people can hear it in a new way. Every [element] that I would enhance already exists in the song.”
In listening to “É Preciso Perdoar,” the first track on Flor, one can hear the bits that constitute its essence—the lilting melody, the wistful lyrics, the mesmeric polyrhythm (in this, a partido alto groove, according to Camargo). As Parlato weaves her own English-language text in with the original Portuguese, she amplifies the melancholy threaded throughout the song made famous by João Gilberto in 1973.
This aesthetic choice brings to the fore a truth about Brazilian music: Much of its beauty derives from the whispered, implacable longing it conveys. But mothers’ laments are rarely, if ever, expressed in jazz, Brazilian or otherwise; here, Parlato’s sorrowful lyrics about the passing of her child’s infancy broaches a new topic for musical exploration.
She continues to distinguish herself as a lyricist on “What Does A Lion Say,” a silvery waltz by bassist Chris Morrissey offset with a dark ostinato, sweeping arco cello lines, and acoustic hand percussion. On this gorgeous tune, Parlato also ponders the ephemera of parenthood—this time in wonder at her child’s rapid metamorphosis.
“It hit me the other day, how the image of a flower is the perfect symbol for mindfulness, for being in the moment,” she offered, in discussing the album’s recurring theme. “You have to be appreciative of all the stages of its growth. When it finally blooms it’s a perfect thing that only lasts for a short time, and then it goes into another form. If I try to hold on, I feel the suffering [that comes from] wanting things to stay the same.”
Parlato also contributed her own music to the project—two songs that exult with youthful elation even as they impart sophisticated jazz concepts. She composed the open-hearted “Magnus,” with its tricky 13/8 bass line, from an impromptu lullaby sung by a friend’s preschooler to his soon-to-be-born brother. Parlato brought the real-life Magnus, now a teenager, and his younger siblings, now born, into the studio to record the tune’s twining, layered chorus; this track, with its homey beginnings, offers an object lesson in how a child’s innate creativity, when nurtured, might take on form.
But nowhere on the album is the child’s inner world more clearly sounded than on Parlato’s “Wonderful,” released as the album’s first single in late 2020. Clean and direct, the tune’s repeated hook, backed by the crisp rhythm section, becomes a mantra of self-affirmation as it passes from Parlato to a children’s chorus. The children—all related to the band members in some way—feel no hesitation in asserting their inherent value through extemporaneous spoken word.
“’Wonderful’ is essentially about what [Marley] represents as a child. When we’re young, we feel invincible. We know how amazing we are and we say it all the time,” Parlato said. “But there’s something that happens as we age, where we stop saying it, and maybe stop feeling it. This song is a reminder for adults, too, to know your value and your worth.”
In contrast with these four originals and their purposeful lyrics, two selections on the album show off Parlato’s virtuosity with wordless, straight-toned vocalizing: “Rosa,” by Brazilian choro composer Pixinguinha, and Bach’s “Cello Suite No. 1 BWV 1007 Menuet I II.” Parlato’s voice lies at its most exposed on these tracks, as she doubles Manukyan’s pizzicato cello on the Pixinguinha and sings a cappella for almost two minutes on the Bach. These classical performances—voice intertwined with strings in shifting combinations—are exquisite in their simplicity.
Credit for these deft arrangements goes to Camargo, who not only suggested the pieces to Parlato, but also broached the idea of using cello instead of bass throughout the album. His recommendations proved especially insightful.
“Traditionally, there is no bass in Brazilian music. People play a seven-string guitar, which has one low string,” he noted. “Many of the arrangements I was bringing [to the project] were guitar-bass ideas already, so there was no need for a bass, really. Instead, I thought we could use the chair for someone like Artyom, who can play the cello as a cello, but also the cello as a bass.
“This is nice with Gretchen’s singing, too, because her voice is delicate, intimate. Sometimes you add a bass and the music becomes very big. This [instrumentation] helps her voice to shine more.”
Parlato again sings without lyrics on “Roy Allan”—this time with Brazilian percussionist Airto Moreira, who played most famously on Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew (Columbia Records). Moreira opened the track solo, extemporizing with vocal beats, shakers, whistles, bells, and drums to establish a riveting samba for Parlato’s vocalese. Through overdubs, this jaunty melody expands into a full choral passage at the tune’s apogee, only to diminish gradually into Moreira’s striated improvisation. It’s a breathless ride.
Moreira, who lives in Brazil, has never met Parlato. He recorded his contribution to “Roy Allan” in his own studio and forwarded the track to fellow Brazilian Costa, who has been working with Moreira for a decade or more. Even without meeting her, though, Moreira knows well who Parlato is.
“The first time I heard of Gretchen was through Flora,” Moreira wrote in an email, referring to his wife, jazz fusion singer Flora Purim. “She was on the jury [at the Thelonious Monk Competition in 2004] and couldn’t stop talking about this unpretentious young girl who was improvising without hesitation. Next to Flora was sitting Quincy Jones, and he commented how [Gretchen] just came out of nowhere. The rest is history. Gretchen is now one of the best jazz singers around.”
Though noted for her exceptional soloing skill, Parlato doesn’t use Flor as a vehicle for improvising. She stretches the bounds in other ways, though—through the odd meter on the R&B hit “Sweet Love,” for instance. Such innovation creates a slightly off-kilter feel that leaves the listener unsure of Parlato’s next step, the way an improvisation would; guest artist Gerald Clayton’s sleek comping on Fender Rhodes only adds to the tune’s spontaneous vibe.
“The bulk of the [‘Sweet Love’] arrangement came together when we were in Melbourne and at rehearsal,” said Camargo. “This is something interesting about Gretchen: Whenever she feels that things are starting to settle, maybe a little too much, she’ll throw in something to push us in a different direction. She pushed to take that tune somewhere else. I like that about her because a lot of artists want to stick with what they know. But she wants to find something new.”
For the album’s closing tune, Parlato selected David Bowie’s “No Plan,” the title cut from the rock superstar’s final album, released after his death. Drummer Guiliana, who played on that historic recording, sits in on this intense track, adding to its relentless momentum. Much of the thrill here comes from the effects added in post-production—the echoes, oscillations, and ethereal extrapolations that pay homage to Bowie’s singular eccentricity.
On this tune, Bowie’s lyrics about living with an uncertain future seem to touch Parlato; of all the tracks on the album, she sounds the most vulnerable on this one. It’s easy to imagine, in listening to the lyrics, that where Bowie was contemplating death, Parlato was contemplating birth. Or rebirth. Or simply change, in its many guises.
Flor recorded their self-titled album in Brooklyn in early 2019, two days after a gig at the now-defunct Jazz Standard. The plan was to continue enhancing the album in post-production, and when it was ready, to schedule a tour around its release. The pandemic changed all of that thinking, of course, and in mid-2020, Parlato and her family moved from New York City, where Parlato had spent much of her career, to Los Angeles, where she had grown up.
Fortuitously, independent jazz label Edition Records—home for recording artists Kurt Elling, Chris Potter, and Lionel Loueke—was interested in distributing the album, pandemic or no. Parlato liked the deal on offer, which includes her first vinyl release, and signed on.
“It’s clear that Edition is the kind of label that supports its artists completely,” she said. “It’s a saving grace to be on board.”
As the pandemic rages on, Parlato is content to stay home these days, sharing parental duties with Guiliana, working on her music, and teaching remotely. Sometimes she wonders if it might be possible just to make music at home and let go of performing out. But then she remembers the connection with the audience, how live music feels. So, she remains open to an uncertain future and waits for its possibilities to unfold. Like a flower. DB