Singing with Bobby McFerrin and Motion

27th January 2025 in Berkeley, California

6th January in Berkeley, California

I spent January 2025 in California.

Every Monday at noon, Bobby McFerrin and his quintet, Motion, perform at the Freight & Salvage Coffee House (a concert hall) in Berkeley, California.

For the past 3.5 years, they’ve been performing every Monday, recording in the studio every Wednesday, and rehearsing every Thursday. At this point I think it makes these guys the most practiced, experienced, resourced vocal improvisation ensemble in the world.

Alongside Bobby is Bryan Dyer, David Worm, Destani Wolf, and Tammy Brown.

They have a mic on stage where folks from the audience can get up, and they often get everyone singing.

So. Me.

I went for the first time in December 2023. I walked in a little late and they were mid-song. David Worm recognised me, pointed at me and beaconed me up on stage. A bit confused, I obeyed. I found myself on stage with them, and my voice and Bobby’s started to find one another in a kind of meeting of patterns the way Christopher and I would find each other in Elements pieces like 2 lines articulating the harmonic progression in a Bach quintet.

I met Bobby there for a few marvellous moments, but then felt out of my depths and turned to the audience, to an easier place for me, a big loud uplifting song that broght the odd tear.

Back then, Robin was 9 months old and having him had wrecked my voice and my vocal practice. I was way out of shape vocally, but those few moments of meeting stayed with me all year and I got my voice back into shape; saw 2 voice rehab specialists, and got to work.

Bobby has parkinsons pretty bad at this point; he moves slowly. Yet his artistic and musical potency is still extremely high octane. Something about it blows me away, just like it does millions of others.

My friend Pablo, back in 2023 had said, ‘you could have had a seat on the stage! Sometimes visiting improvisers join the band!’ My mind was pretty blown. Very tentatively, the next time I saw David Worm, I asked him if that was a possibility. ‘Maybe…’ he said. ‘Here’s my number. Keep in touch.’

So a year went by, and this time, I was practiced, warmed up, arrived early, and settled in. I didn’t get offered a seat in the band. I did get invited to a rehearsal, and I went to 3 shows. Here are some things I noticed….

<entering CVI geek realm>

1. There was basically no belting. They all mostly never went above mf. So this gentleness, speed and agility stood out to me and it’s something I’ve been exploring in my own practice. It’s challenging! Masterful.
2. There were hardly any lyrics. Some, occasionally; especially when Tammy, Destiny or David soloed. But not really from Bobby. So their collaboration and Bobby’s musicality and musical attention was directed a lot towards rhythm melody and harmony. Which I loved.
3. Bobby kept a lot of control. The form they were mostly using, as far as I could tell, was a kind of seated 5 person circle song, or — for students — like a Village and Elder where the elder gives out more than 1 part, moving between soloing and part making. So, in a circle song the leader stands in the center and gives the parts clearly from there to chunks of people. With Motion, Bobby sat in the center and improvised until he found a part, a “morsel” of music he loved, and someone in the group would pick it up and hold it pretty steady. A few parts would come out during a piece and the group riffed on them. Dave mostly went to percussion. Brian mostly offered baselines. Bobby went between patterns and solos.
4. There was a settledness, an order, a clearness to the music that way.
5. Bobby talked about Really Liking his ‘morsels’ of music, with a big satisfied grin. Like they’re “tasty”. Like you could “eat them”.
6. They also talked about the “Deep listening and subtle conversation that’s happening”. At the beginning of their collaboration, they worked a lot with “unisong” — singing one part together in a real blend. At one point in the rehearsal I harmonised on a pattern with Destiny, and she looked at me and said, “sing with me.” I quit my harmony and tried to sing in unison with her and got a real appreciation for how much more sophisticated her part was than I’d originally fully heard.
7. Bobby talked about a quality of effortlessness in “fine music making. The effortless sounds are always the best, and the hardest.”
8. The chops man, wow the chops. So this is all, culturally, developed out of several genres but a lot of jazz. Jazz as an American artform, so American music culture has absorbed it across a lof of other genres; and it really values chops very highly. So their chops are all Way High. I’m noticing what Bobby does with Rhythm; how much precision, variation, rigour, play, speed — wow! I’m going towards that now in my own practice and all I will say is, I feel a long way behind him. But I’m inspired.

For me, I realise how far my work has gone, in my teaching, collaborations and my own practice, towards lyrics, self expression, healing, and relative musical simplicity. Since having Robin, I’ve lost some inspiration in this frame.

It was feckin refreshing to have the personal, intimate and vulnerable mostly put aside, the musicality centered, and the years of work together under masterful leadership to sculpt a really fine way of working together.

Yes there’s a loss of wildness

Yes you can feel the difference from a true shared leadership

But there’s a value in this.

I came back to the UK and met with the Devon Singers Collective — the folks I improvise with locally. It’s Anna Ling, Taz Babiker, Holly Ebony, Charlotte Mabon, Bella Lilley, Rob Carney and Emily Roblyn.

So we had a play with it and basically took it in turns to play Bobby’s Role.

We feckin loved it. There’s a way with shared leadership CVI that you only sing what would come through your own mind / spirit. By taking it in turns to be the leader, we each got to sing through Taz’s mouth, Anna’s mouth, Bella’s mouth, and each piece of music had a coherence and consistency to “Charlotte right now, Holly right now” — like with each piece we entered a completely different world.

That level of leadership was edgy for each of us psychologically. We ended up calling the form “Dom Tub”. ‘Dom’ for ‘Dominating’ and ‘Tub’ for agreeing that we’d like to spend a whole evening doing it in the hot tub.

But it was musical and settled and calming — it’s calming to just hold a part you’ve been given and not be on the spot all the time to figure out your own part. The solos had space and it was overall very, very beautiful.

So. I’ve come back to the UK, it’s cold grey bleary february, Trump and Musk seem to be trying to dismantle the US government and life isn’t easy.

But, Robin has started nursery, I have stopped breast feeding. The first hour of the working day 4 days a week is now devoted to singing, and a most beautiful practice has unfolded. It hasn’t been like this for years.

At the end of the Motion rehearsal, there was some loose jamming going on, and I found myself back dueting with Bobby. Gosh I loved it. Gosh gosh gosh I loved it.

So I’m back, coming to terms with honouring my own love for chops, my own relationship with something like “jazz” even though it’s not from here (Britain), honouring how much I love improvised duets and wondering who else I can duet with.

Just as I was musing on my love of duets, I got a message from Charlotte Church inviting me to do improvised gigs that become rituals in honour of Mother Earth. Of course I said a Great Big Yes.

Thank you Bobby. Thank you David. Thank you Motion. I’m back in love with improvisation.

Watch this space…………