wynne interview

Some majestically rebellious divas…and soaring goddesses still live in Philadelphia. Did you know that?

Wynne Alexander…

An analytical romantic and accomplished songwriter/pianist/composer/singer, Wynne Alexander is monumental in her thoughts, lyrics and music. The majesty of her musical power is fortified with intelligence, honest virtuosity and unorthodox originality. The meaningful beauty of her repertoire is nourished with an abundance of culture, education, warmth, striking stage presence and an aura of a woman who attaches her scent to the unseen, the revealed, the sacred and the cursed, the austere and the sensual… It is a repertoire of music, feelings and thoughts that life teases you with, forges your luck with or simply molds you into sequences of life’s puzzling and comforting words and pictures and sends you on the roads of life as a post card.

This is an admirable and a powerful multi-dimensional performer who makes you respect the dignity of words, the divinity of music, the nonchalant confusion of what you don’t understand in your life, and particularly things, forms, shapes and visions so dear to your heart but, unfortunately and gently, avoid you, wait for you, gaze at you as an Olympian Goddess or an Hellenic Oracle priestess who watches you at distance, sometimes protecting you, and some other times, mocking your very existence and the absurdity of your arrogant intellect.

You listen to Wynne Alexander and you begin to search for a definition and a space for yourself, because when really and transparently you center your attention on her music, lyrics and “femina”, you confront life, powerful emotions, musical beauty, intelligent feminine presence, a wild, loving, sweet, rebellious, teasing, exciting and intriguing woman…a woman who coincidentally -or perhaps destined to be there- appeared before you, at that moment of your life, to touch your heart, to squeeze your brains, to lift you up to the highest firmament and makes you touch the face of God or the shadow of your destiny…

This woman “artiste” is powerful…beautiful…deep…down to earth…virtuosa…delightfully half crazy…and larger than life, and you will love her.

WACJ had an exclusive interview with Ms. Alexander. It is illustrative. Intellectually and emotionally animated. It is self-explanatory. Be brave, be yourself, and enter Alexander’s magical, delightful and challenging world…

A visit with Wynne Alexander at her Mount Olympus in Philadelphia…

WACJ: You wrote: “You can’t look at a person and know anything”. Explain this statement to me, please

Wynne: I am very disturbed at many peoples’ attempts from the beginning of time to stereotype people based on race, religion, gender, sexual preference, color of eyes…you name it. It has always disturbed me and after years of thought I figured out why people do it. It’s a way for people who are insecure to try and control their environment by thinking they know who you are by way of this silly sloppy, ineffective, physically-based, shorthand. There is no such shorthand. Each person must be seen individually and judged on their merits. There are no shortcuts in this process and the lessons taught in discernment are well worth it. Also there are many things in this life and this world we cannot control. It’s best to know that and be comfortable with it. I am always interested in knowing my proper place in the true universe.

WACJ: How do you explain the balance between your delicate sophistication and powerful music?

Wynne: Well….I guess I don’t explain it. They both exist within me so I am used to them and manus manum lavat-one hand washes the other and they all work together to form the elements that go into each work and thought and then congeal to form elements of style- (with all do respect to E.B. White).

WACJ: There are a lot of personal thoughts, intimate inner feelings and creative individual thinking in your music. Yet, you are cosmopolitan in the wide selection of tunes, music style and interpretation. How do you unite and blend those enchanting differences?

Wynne: I love all of the music that went into forming me. And I love the strength that comes from mixing the art of cultures. All blending to make a wildly stronger impression. That was the brilliance of Debussy, Ravel, or Gershwin or Ray Charles’ completely original and ironic rendition of America the Beautiful. The mixing of rhythms where they have never been before…so then I listened to the music I love over and over and was exposed to so many different influences while very young because of my father’s love of jazz and R&B and my mother’s people being involved with opera, so then later as a young theory and composition student I was made aware of the apprentice-system of writing “in-the-manner-of” the classical greats and though I left the teachers early I took the tenets to heart and whether it was Swing or R&B or what I consider Modern Art Songs-I said I want to write “one of them, and one like that, and I want one of those” because I want to be able to write a full bouquet and the vase-not just one or two flowers.

WACJ: They said about your music that it has austere sensuality. Where is the austerity and where do we find sensuality in music?

Wynne: Well I can’t speak for others but I think they picked up on my reserve, which is sometimes more evident than not. For many years I did not write of love in the usual manner either…As to the second part of your question, I think that all the music by which I am entranced and attracted is both made of the sensual and exudes sensuality.

WACJ: You wrote this: “I know how intrigued men and women are when they watch me play. When I’m up at the piano- 'attack, attack, attack.” Meaning what?

Wynne: I was speaking there about the myth that girl players were not as strong as male players which I have still found hard-dying pockets of today. And I was thankfully making the point that even the male audience members who might have had some incorrect preconceived notions, have to put them aside when I sit down to play because I have a tendency to attack the piano or the work at hand. Much of my stuff is very energetic and there is nothing retiring about it and therefore I hope to help retire the myth that girls aren’t strong.

WACJ: You talked about the “great scam in the music industry”. What scam are you referring to?

Wynne:: The scam of only appealing to the lowest common denominator. Only marketing third and fourth rate talents to foolish youngsters with no taste because it’s easier to go to the bank that way. And then monopolizing all of the distribution and promotional outlets in a scam to curl Teddy Roosevelt’s Trust Busting hair and seeing to it that actual talent is kept out of the market place…

WACJ: You think a lot. Should music be a thought or a feeling? A propos, you wrote this: “The majority sets the agenda, then labels and hails the heroes.” What prompted you to say this?

Wynne: Music can be ‘thought’ or ‘feeling’ depending on the comfort and gifts of the composer. Hopefully it is always both creating a current between the brain and the heart and the feeling provokes a thought or a thought compels a feeling and then even a rhythm of exchange can be established one from the other, to the other, to the next. As to the quote that had to do with how minority populations are treated by the majority with whom they live. You site the example I gave in your article but another example, for instance, occurred when I was a broadcast journalist reporting on the Falkland Islands War between Britain and Argentina. I stopped calling it that and began referring to it as the Malvinas War because that was the name of the islands before the British ever got there and just because they got into a position to frame that agenda- doesn’t make them right.

WACJ: Critics focused on your “unique musical background”. What so unique about it?

Wynne: Yeah right--it’s not unique to me…I guess they meant because my mother was an opera singer with a very special voice, very compelling not unlike the great and musical hero, Diva Bidu Sayou. Her audition was over-seen by the famous violinist Efrem Zimbalist who was running the Curtis Institute of Music and he said “ that girl has something special and I want her here.” My grandfather also loved opera studied with Eugene Ormandy played about five instruments earned a doctorate in musicology in a country where English became his sixth language and then there was this love my father had for Rhythm and Blues and Soul music and Dixieland Jazz and he felt strongly about it and took a fledgling little radio station in 1951 and turned it into what is now an American Radio Legend.

WACJ: You were a broadcast journalist. Why didn’t you persevere in journalism? You are bright. You are a fighter. You are inquisitive and you write admirably?

Wynne: Oh I did persevere…The news team I worked with did very special work in a time when the United States was still plagued by racism. Circumstances conspired, the radio station was sold and the new owners thought the fact they were African American made them great radio people and great African Americans-it does not- it’s a state of mind that’s earned and has everything to do with your Heart and nothing to do with the color of your skin. I saw they were phonies and had to leave. I joined the staff of the Chief Justice Robert N.C. Nix Jr. who was the first African American to head a state supreme court in the history of the United states. I was his Information Officer and speechwriter. After about four years of that I got a very clear and compelling signal sitting by the ocean one day that I was not in the right place and I must focus on the writing of words and music-no matter what.

WACJ: Muhammad Ali, B.B. King, Coretta Scott King are your friends. They are great people. Quite an impressive circle! Any particular reason?

Wynne: Well they’re not really Friends- I did some repeated and extensive interviews with them over the years. I had two exclusives with Muhammed Ali, two with Mrs. King and one long one with B.B. My father worked closely with Dr. King and so the Coretta King was a natural and the other two were really part of the job and I was lucky enough to have these really huge folks take a shine to me.

WACJ: You have a dominant personality, a very strong presence, a powerful character, yet, when you wrote to me, the very first thing I felt was this sweetness about you, this spiritual metaphysical tenderness, this eloquent non-physical strength. However, you express your opinions with absolute forceful conviction. I have to think twice before I talk to you. Please, Wynne, pour over me some of the sensuality people discovered in your music. Take me there…

Wynne: God, I don’t know what to say about that. I am deeply grateful for the information and intuition that has been shared with me. And equally grateful for the varied ways and gifts I’ve been given to assess and express humor, knowledge and feelings.

WACJ: You said this: ”I learned about the reality of how good music gets on the air, which doesn’t exist anymore.” I totally agree with you. So, were we go from here?

Wynne: Oh well-when a system gets corrupted you have to throw it out. And the truth is it’s on its way out now. When you analyze the radio market for example going back to the sixties, they’ve been losing listeners every year. People have been programming their own stations ever since the 8-track tape became available and now with the better accessibility to recording equipment for less dollars and the internet and independent sources of quality music and information-- the old sick horse will eventually drop in its tracks and die. They’re in complete turmoil now and the chickens are coming home to roost on their lack of development of worthy talent.

WACJ: There is a lot of truth to what you have said: “when you really have big talent, doors are supposed to crack open for you. That big undeniable talent used to mean something. And unfortunately, I understand that’s just about dead almost everywhere." Does this statement reflect a personal experience?

Wynne: Let’s just say the United States has its problems discerning talent. But hell what do you expect-look who’s president. Christ, there’s hope for every ape in Africa.

WACJ: How do you bring real life to your music? Is your music a personal interpretation of your own feelings, and intimate experiences or an echo of what others usually feel?

Wynne: It depends. I work from life--my own, others. Or I work from complete fantasy. I used to work only from deduction and reasoning, I felt self conscious about anything else—I’ve outgrown that thankfully.

WACJ: How about men? Are they in your lyrics and music? What do you write about them?

WACJ: Who does identify with your lyrics and music? The “Femme” or the “Man”? Do you write for men or for women? May be for yourself, first?

Wynne: All great works have the hall mark of Universality. I strive for that. I write for everyone.

“I fear any symptom indicating the Standard of Excellence has been lowered.”

WACJ: What success means to you, frankly?

Wynne: Well unfortunately in the world of the arts, success means eating by way of your talent. And because the system is ailing-the more talented you are- the more at risk you are. You know it’s a miracle Einstein didn’t end his days as a clerk in that patent office. The majority powers had a vested interest in keeping his theories out because it would have messed up theirs. So once again, and seemingly forever, we have “yesterday’s news” protecting their positions while hindering progress and jeopardizing the future.

WACJ: What was the title of the very song you wrote?

Wynne: My first two songs were instrumentals I was about 8 or 9. The first was a variation on the March of the Wee People and the second was called the Skeleton Dance which my sister Betsy was then inspired to choreograph and will, if you beg her, still perform to this day, during the Winter Season.

Wynne: My first song with lyrics…I’m laughing hysterically…because it was a parody Country and Western song called “Stretch Me Out” which at the age of 11 or twelve I would tell people I had written for my funeral. The lyrics:

Wynne: No I never recorded it yet but you never know. I saved most of my early stuff, a few got lost, but not many.

WACJ: Many talented but unfortunate artists fear a lot of things in life, failure, rejection, financial difficulties, etc…What do you fear most in life?

Wynne: I fear any symptom indicating the Standard of Excellence has been lowered. It is the place and duty of the Arts to lead the society. You cannot do that with lowered and compromised standards. All of mankind’s progress has had it’s inceptions in the Visions of the Artists.

Wynne: That’s hard to say because sometimes a decent showing has been made by someone who won’t have my three choices—so having said that—Guts, pitch and breath.

Wynne: Oh well…An internal orchestra that makes them move every time they hear finished or even music in the making, a great education of all the music that has come before, exceptional taste and an antenna system that has among its other qualities a tuning fork vibration when messages and ideas come in.

Wynne: I haven’t a clue, perhaps humour. Maybe eyes. It would depend on the person.

WACJ: While performing, do you look at your fans, at their faces, exchange expressions with them or you just focus on your artistic performance?

Wynne: I may appear to look, but I’m at work up there and because I play and sing there’s a lot going on. I usually reserve my actual eye contact for times when I’m speaking in between songs.

Wynne: Injustice. Inhumanity.…When people with fascistic or fundamentalist traits and insensibilities wind up in any kind of power position.

Wynne: (in order of appearance-more or less) Mozart, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Puccini, Verdi, Don Covay, Otis Redding, David Bowie, Larry Graham, Hazel Scott, Prince, Brecht, God there are so many, Aretha’s sister Carolyn Franklin, Cole Porter, Harry Warren, Peggy Lee, Strauss, Gershwin, Saint Saens, Satie, Bellini…Fats Waller, Ellington, Leon Russel, Marvin Gaye, Glenn Miller—it’s late and I feel as though I’ve forgotten half my heroes…

Wynne: It’s too early to tell plus I’m reminded I never know what a blessing looks like. There have been occurrences that were terribly upsetting which ended up teaching me great lessons and now I am grateful. But at the time they happened, I thought I was cursed.

Wynne: Yes I’ll be In New York at the Cornelia Street Café in March. We’re always looking for quality venues with visionary proprietors. The Jenkintown Jazz Festival, Jim Thorpe Music Festival. The concert dates are on the website at http://www.WYNNEALEXANDER.com