Angela Verbrugge is an ambitious and resilient vocalist based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Incorporating elements of jazz, traditional pop and American Songbook, the singer engages listeners with witty lyrics and an irresistible playfulness, oftentimes evoking memories of love and loss.
On the verge of releasing her debut album The Night We Couldn’t Say Good Night, which comes out Feb. 1, the singer was kind enough to set aside some time to talk inspirations, collaborations and pursuing dreams in the aftermath of three near-death experiences.
Watch the Exclusive Video for The Night We Couldn’t Say Good Night’s title track below and scroll down for our Q&A chat with Verbrugge.
Laurie Fanelli: Can you share some of the overall musical and lyrical themes of your debut album, The Night We Couldn’t Say Good Night?
Angela Verbrugge: The Night We Couldn’t Say Good Night is a very romantic album that explores passion and love without ignoring relationship challenges. I aimed to ground the vibe in a classic 1940s to mid-50s vocal jazz aesthetic while allowing it to have its own voice as a contemporary recording with four brand new tunes. Variety is the spice of life, so I chose a nice mix of swing and Latin grooves and tempos… a song in French and one in Spanish.
For this project, I decided to work with a piano trio as it provides such an incredible range of sonic experiences, from very spacious instrumentation to an incredibly full sound. I’m always amazed at the chemistry of those three instruments and how much rhythmic, harmonic and emotional depth that can be achieved.
LF: Was the beautifully patient and timeless title track inspired by a certain evening in particular?
AV: Wouldn’t you like to know, but isn’t this is supposed to be an interview, not a romance novel? But seriously, thank you for your compliment. You nailed it, I did want to evoke a contemplative and timeless quality for these lyrics and hopefully this pretty bossanova will stand the test of time. I think many of us have had a night when we just don’t want to say good night, a night when we stay up till the wee hours with a new special someone. There truly must be a kind of magic in romance that suppresses sleepiness!
On such a night as the song describes, the romance becomes a delicate dance, there is a passionate yet unfulfilled attraction, an intense curiosity about the other… A singular focus while the rest of the world melts away… The title track evokes a night that I just don’t want to end, because it’s such a rare and precious experience to connect so deeply with another human. New love is one of the most exciting of all human emotions, but it can also have an undertone of trepidation of change. I met my husband on a flight from Vancouver to New York City, and the day I got back, we had a first date that lasted nine hours.
LF: How did you come to collaborate with Ray Gallon to transform his instrumental “That’s the Question” into “I’m Running Late?”
AV: When I started to contemplate the concept for the album, I thought about including original material and also how to highlight each of the band members’ unique talents and strengths. I went to hear Ray’s trio at Small’s Jazz Club in Greenwich Village and they performed some of his original tunes. When he played, “That’s the Question”, the instrumental title of “I’m Running Late,” I could see the audience was really digging it. You could feel a palpable energy in the room take an extra step up. Every time he came to the first part of the melody, I clearly heard “I’m Running Late” in my head.
When I got home, I wrote a few sample sections to send him as I wasn’t sure he would want such a quirky lyric about being late and forgetting your iPhone. (One time, I had written lyrics for a west coast composer’s song and chose to write about infidelity and when the composer sent feedback he told me he had hoped it would be about world peace! Whoops!) In this case, Ray loved the idea, and so I locked myself alone for several days to brainstorm every possible reason for being late. I wrote them on little scraps of paper, and then pieced together the story and the rhyme scheme. It is a challenging song to sing and memorize, and people have drawn favorable comparisons to Annie Ross’ “Twisted.” It was very exciting when JAZZIZ featured it on their New Music Monday selections this week. I’m getting a ton of calls from radio about this tune in particular. Maybe it’s something commuters can relate to, haha…
LF: What was it like collaborating with Gerry Teahan on “How Did I Know This Was the End?”
AV: When I recovered from cancer treatments and made my way to the local jazz jam, I was absolutely terrified. Singing jazz is so different than singing orchestrated musical theatre arrangements like I had in the past. After I sang, a man in his late seventies, a jazz pianist, approached me and said, “You can do this, keep going.” That was how I met and became good friends with Gerry Teahan. I went to hang out at he and his wife’s home; I would sing and he would play piano. Gerry can play anything by ear, and he is one of the rare people on the planet that know an incredible quantity of old swing tunes, novelties and obscure jazz songs. He would put on records and demonstrate musical concepts.
One day, I was telling him about the album and how I hoped to include a nice balance of new music, and I asked, “Gerry, you have such a great ear for standards, did you ever write any songs?” At that point, he brought out the song that became “How Did I Know This Was the End?” I took the chart home and played the melody over and over again on the piano until I heard, “Last night we went out dancing, I introduced him to my friend” and it occurred to me to write a contemporary Tennessee Waltz story. The rest of the lyrics came quickly from that starting point. Gerry suggested a few tweaks and we were off to the races. I’m so excited for him to be in his eighties and getting radio airplay for his composition around the world. JazzTimes is doing an exclusive song premiere of it and readers will find it as the last song on the album.
LF: I understand that you have had several brushes with death that inspired you to seize the day and pursue music. What strikes me most is the optimism of your music. Can you share a little bit about how your personal journey has shaped your sound?
AV: When I was 23, I came very close to being killed when I was in a head-on collision with a half-ton truck on the highway from Vancouver to Whistler. I remember the last second before the huge crash feeling certain that the impact would kill me and just thinking, “Oh well!” I mean, I absolutely did not want to die, but in that second I felt a strange calm within the terror, essentially just, oh well, nothing to be done now. When I woke up, the car was totaled around me, air bag was inflated, the crumple zones crumpled and the windshield smashed. I had broken both my legs and fractured my lower back, and I was surprised to still be alive. Ten years later, when I had three kids under five, I got a very serious kind of cancer that had started spreading to my lymph nodes. At times, I felt considerable self-pity and worry that the treatments would be ineffectual. I realized a lot of that self-pity was coming from the self-talk of “I might be dying” or “I’m dying.”
At some point, someone pointed out to me, that no matter what, we are all, as humans, in fact “dying.” It’s just a matter of whether it’s sooner or later as I already knew could happen from the car accident. That truly helped me shift my perspective during some dark days from despair to hope, from collapse to being able to put one foot in front of the other. I had to try to stay positive for the sake of the kids but also for my own sanity. So I embraced steps to live healthfully and to find as much meaning as possible. There was never any question that my secret passion was vocal jazz. I always had lyrics going through my head, even when I was working in dotcom, doing permaculture, or marketing jobs. I think having been through these brushes with death helped me to be able to set aside some of my fears and to find courage to go for my passion one baby-step at a time. I have optimism that my story and creative work will resonate with someone else.
LF: How did you approach your reinterpretations of such brilliant artists as George Gershwin, Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie?
AV: The arrangements were a collaborative effort. I had a ton of fantastic songs, mostly from late 1920s to mid 1950s, swimming around in my brain. I’ve been passionate about vocal jazz and traditional pop since I was a teenager when I was in a Cole Porter musical, even though I didn’t sing professionally until a few years ago. My parents were both teachers and were very encouraging. They helped guide me to books and to the library.
I spent my teenage years playing trombone in a big band, sight-reading old songbooks and musical scores at the piano. After I had chosen the songs and loose concepts, I booked several sessions with the great multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer and arranger, Miles Black. Miles laid down several arrangements so we had a strong starting point when I got the rehearsals in Harlem, incidentally a few blocks from Duke Ellington’s old stomping grounds on Sugar Hill. The band contributed many ideas, as did my vocalist mentors, including Karin Plato. I also worked with multi-instrumentalist / arranger / composer Art Khu (musical and life partner of jazz vocalist Jacqui Naylor) who added some brilliant arrangement details.
LF: What musicians are featured in your band and why did you want to collaborate with them specifically?
AV: Not only is Ray an incredible composer, he is one of the best jazz pianists I’ve ever heard. While rooted in bebop and the blues, his playing is very original, heartfelt and swinging. He has played with so many of the jazz greats over his career, Ron Carter, Lionel Hampton; he was mentored by John Lewis and Hank Jones, and he accompanied some of the great vocalists over his career including Joe Williams, Jon Hendricks and Dakota Staton. Ray and I had met at the Vermont Jazz Center through his honorary second mother, the great jazz vocalist Sheila Jordan. That’s also where I met the wonderful Cameron Brown, Sheila’s acclaimed bass-voice duo collaborator, with whom I collaborated on the reimagined Godfather theme on the album, “Speak Softly, Love.” When Cameron asked me if I had an album, and I said no, he offered to play on it and help me produce it if I came to New York. Cameron has such a lengthy list of discography credits — he’s worked with Sheila, with the Don Pullen / George Adams Quartet, Archie Shepp, the Jazz Messengers, Houston Person, Joe Lovano — I knew I was in great hands.
Once the location was set, we were quick to invite Ray aboard. Cameron then called a drummer he admires very much, Anthony Pinciotti, to join us. He had met Anthony touring together in Russia with Sheila. Anthony had just been touring with Stacey Kent and Small’s owner Spike Wilner, but the timing of the session worked out when he was back in town. Anthony is just so perfect and tasteful, passionate yet precise, and such a nice person.
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Verbrugge is currently considering tour schedules and venues for forthcoming live performances in support of her new album The Night We Couldn’t Say Good Night, available for pre-order on iTunes.
Verbrugge encourages fellow musicians — both vocalists and instrumentalists — to perform her original songs. Those interested can license directly through licensing services or contact her directly through her website.
Keep up with the Verbrugge by subscribing to her e-newsletter and following her on Facebook.