Sophia Shorai

When: 6/14/08
Where: The Times
Who: Sophia Shorai (voice), Chris Bates (bass), Zacc Harris (guitar), Pete Hennig (drums)

There's been buzz about Sophia Shorai for some time. I think I heard Leigh Kamman rave about her a while back on his radio show The Jazz Image, and Tanner Taylor wants to record with her, and she's versatile, singing jazz standards and pop tunes and Latin classics. She made a Target commercial singing the Beatles' "Hello Goodbye," which I remember hearing. So when I got an email from her "devoted fiance and volunteer" (and sometime performing partner) Jeremy Gordon inviting me to her upcoming gig at the Times, I went.

She's here with a good band. Harris and Hennig are with the Atlantis Quartet, a group we saw earlier this year at the doomed Rosewood Room. I'm always happy to see Chris Bates at his bass.

I like Shorai's voice a lot. It's very pretty, sometimes little-girl, sometimes breathy, sometimes tough, reminiscent of Stacey Kent but not derivative. She sings a nice mix of standards, opening with "It Could Happen to You," a challenging tune with big intervals that probably should come later in a set. "Love Is the Saddest Thing" follows with lots of swing and jazzy phrasing. Then a blues? It's difficult to understand Shorai when she speaks, which isn't entirely her fault, given the setting. The Times is generally noisy, more so on a Saturday night, and even worse when a sudden downpour drives the sidewalk crowd indoors.

"Gee Baby Aren't I Good to You" is sassy, and she opens a flirty "Tea for Two" by singing the verse, which I have seldom heard:

I'm discontented with homes that are rented so I have invented my own.
Darling this place is a lover's oasis where life's weary chase is unknown.
Far from the cry of the city, where flowers pretty caress the streams,
Cozy to hide in, to love side-by-side in. Don't let it abide in my dreams.

The rest we know:

Picture you upon my knee, just tea for two and two for tea...

For this tune Shorai uses her little-girl voice with grown-up phrasing and a feathery vibrato. ("I learned that one from Blossom Dearie," she attempts to tell the yammering crowd.)

"Black Orpheus" is a gently swaying samba, one of the songs on her 2004 CD Wave. On "Don't Get Around Much Anymore," she starts high and nails it, showing off her range (and a bit of a lisp). The set ends with two more standards, "I Wish I Knew Someone to Love Me" and "Do I."

I'd stay to hear more but by now I'm fed up with the Times. The bar also has a dance floor, and normally it's kind of nice to see people get out there and dance, but tonight, in addition to the escalating crowd noise, there's an especially annoying pair of dancers who spend most of the evening directly in front of us. Whenever we try to snap a picture they wiggle into the frame.

Shorai has a Dakota date on July 28 and I've put that on my calendar. The photo above was taken there earlier this year, in May, by whom I don't know; I found it on Shorai's MySpace page.

Arne Fogel

When: 4/9/08
Where: The Times
Who: Arne Fogel (vocals), Tanner Taylor (piano), Keith Boyles (bass), Jendeen Forberg (drums)

Singer Arne Fogel is the topic of this week's MinnPost jazz column. We go to see him at the Times on Wednesday night and meet practically his whole family, including his 91-year-old father and his daughter, Rebecca, who are all seated near the stage. Between verses of songs he is singing, while the band is doing its thing, Fogel often bounds off the stage and runs over to say something to his family. During "Ring-a-Ding-Ding," he brings his daughter up to sing with him.

We hear two wonderful sets and several classic songs: "Old Man River," "Here's to the Losers," "Do I," "The Tender Trap," "Take My Sugar to Tea," "Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone." Fogel is as fun to watch as he is to hear. His performance is loaded with personality, energy, and grand gestures. Taylor, whom we most often hear backing singer Christine Rosholt or fronting his own trio, plays big stridy chords. Forberg wears a tank shirt printed with "Pink Is the New Black" in metallic ink.

Fogel mentors young singers, and lately it's Nancy Harms, who's in the house and takes a solo turn on stage with "It's Almost Like Being in Love" from Brigadoon. Perhaps in a musicals mood, Taylor tosses in a little "Surrey with the Fringe on Top" from Oklahoma. I like Nancy's voice and her broad, open vowels, and her red hat.



Fogel talks a bit about his latest CD, Transistor, a reissue of recordings he made in his 20s with a rock band called Batch. The word "transistor" recalls my phone interview with him earlier this week. What I thought would take maybe ten minutes turned into nearly two hours of conversation. We discovered something we had in common as kids with enforced early bedtimes: We both tucked transistor radios under our pillows and listened into the night through earbuds the size and shape (and hardness) of little acorns.

Fogel has made a career of radio as well as singing (and advertising, and other things). He reflected on this during the interview:

I've always been the vaudeville guy spinning plates. Get one going, tend to another one. I find myself talking to younger singers an awful lot now—a sign of venerability—and one of the main things I tell them is to stay focused. I spent so much time trying to figure out what I wanted to do when I grew up that I grew up before I figured it out.

Photos by John Whiting.