When I formed the Tradewinds band in Toronto in the late 1960s, we played frequently at a small bar downtown on Yonge Street (the main drag) called the Bermuda Tavern. It was the only place in the city where you could go to hear a Caribbean band 6 nights a week (the other two musicians were Kelvin Ceballo on drums and Glen Sorzano on guitar, both Trinis) and our clientele was mostly West Indians or friends of West Indians. One of the regulars in the club was a young, good-looking Guyanese named Ted deAbreu (I called him “Brew”) who eventually introduced himself, told me he was a singer, and that he would like to do a couple songs with us. You never know with these things, so I told him to come to a rehearsal and we would see.
In the rehearsal, two things were apparent: the guy had a lovely voice as well as a great personality – he looked and moved like a young Harry Belafonte, smiling, using his hands, very expressive. But the other thing was that Brew sang, as the saying goes, to his own drummer. He would do the Belafonte songs (it was a natural fit) but he would drive the band crazy; he would come in too late or too early, he would pause where he shouldn’t, or sing where he should shut up. At first I thought he wasn’t sure of the words, but it was soon clear that Brew had no sense of timing; he was all over the map. I would stop the band, explain the mistake, he would nod, we would start off again, “Down the way where the nights are gay” and Brew would sing “Down the way” perfectly, then stop dead as if he had forgotten the words. The band would shift and try to sync with him, that would work for another four beats or so, then Brew would shift gears again and either jump ahead of us or have us waiting in suspension. It was like trying to follow a cockroach across the floor; you swing at him and he’s not there. Kelvin would be almost falling off his drums, and Glen, in particular, would be steaming.
We rehearsed for several afternoons with Brew, running a couple songs over and over, stopping and starting, painstakingly, and sometimes at the end of the session it would appear he was getting it. But the next evening in the Bermuda, Brew would come up to the stage, loud applause, crisp Belafonte shirt, big smile, handsome dude, band kicks off, and our boy would wreck the song again. I persisted (the guy had that star quality thing about him) but his timing clock was completely busted – some of the places Brew paused in a song you could drive a truck through. Glen would glare at me and bite his lip.
I bring this up because I have been asked over and over to help develop a young singer or song-writer (it happened this week again), and the truth is that you simply cannot teach talent. I don’t know the physiology of it, but the ability to hear notes obviously varies from person to person (the ultimate is perfect pitch) and either you have it or you don’t, and no amount of practising can create it. My wife, for example, who has many wonderful qualities, is abysmal as a singer. She will launch into a tune bravely, singing out, and raising your hopes with some successful navigation, but then she will suddenly release a note from outer space that has no relation to the song. Not only that, and this is the key, to her there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the note. In her hearing apparatus, it’s right, so there’s absolutely no use in trying to tell her otherwise.
The sense of timing in music is the same; either you have it or you don’t, and trying to teach it is like trying to bend concrete. Brew, for example, when I sang the right timing for a song, would look at me and give me this “I’ve got it” nod, but I could see in his eyes that he heard no difference between my rendition and his. I should stress that he never took offence. He was trying to get it right, and he would go over the thing, but as soon as he seemed to get the timing right in one part of “Jamaica Farewell” he would go to the next phrase and sing it so wrong you would wince.
Pitch and timing in music are aspects you cannot teach. Singers can be taught to breathe properly, or to understand their vocal range, or to improve enunciation, but if you have no “ear sound,” as we refer to it, or no sense of musical time, nobody can help you. In my early years in music in Canada, there was a sax man from St Vincent (an island known for good horn players) who volunteered to do some fills on a demo song I was taping. Warming up in the studio, he sounded fine, nice tone, and when the tape started rolling the first note the Vincy played was full and round and cut like a knife – unfortunately, the note was cutting in the wrong place, a full beat behind where it should have been. Again, efforts to correct failed. He kept saying, “But it sounds right to me.”
It should come as no surprise that in your dealing with these situations you can sometimes get a hostile reaction, and it helps in those scenarios if other musicians are around to confirm your diagnosis. “You’re out of tune.” “You’re out of time.” There is no diplomatic way to put that. My only consolation is that 40 years later, Brew has not made it as a singer, and the sax man from St Vincent is selling insurance in Canada. Mind you, I can still see my dapper Guyanese friend, handsome like Harry, moving like a cat, and catching the ladies – if only the banna could sing in time.
