Discord With the Music Industry

Being a jazz singer these days isn’t easy, even for one as celebrated in her craft as is Rebecca Parris.

Her infrequent recordings, notably the 1993 “Spring” from MusicMasters Jazz and her 1994 collaboration with vibraphonist Gary Burton for GRP, “It’s Another Day,” have received rave reviews.

She has been championed by such established jazz stars as Burton and singing great Shirley Horn. Still, Parris doesn’t have the exposure of, say, Diana Krall or some of the other emerging singers of the ‘90s.

Speaking by phone this week from her home in Boston, Parris outlined her problems with record companies and the general state of jazz marketing.

“It’s a very iffy business,” she said. “You can’t expect any record label to play fair with you. The situation is very hard today unless you have mucho dinero behind you. . . . Having a publicity budget makes all the difference. Without that support behind you, everything falls through the cracks.”

Part of the problem, said the fortysomething vocalist who plays Steamers tonight through Sunday, is record companies’ fixation on youth.

“I was at a jazz conference once where record company executives were on a panel and I stood up and asked: ‘Why is it that I see you producing young people with famous brothers or dead fathers and then overselling them, calling them the next coming, when you have a wealth of educated, experienced artists out there who are ignored?’ The audience gave me a standing ovation for asking the question.

“And the music business these days is so video oriented, if you don’t look like Heather Locklear, nobody gives you the time of day,” she added. “It’s very dismaying.”

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She sees pop music’s influence on the quality of jazz.

“Look at how drab today’s pop material is,” she said. “It’s people singing with rocks in their mouths. You take a pop singer like Anita Baker or Madonna and fade out all the instrumental parts and get down to the bare song and there’s no song left, not even a full sentence. You do the same thing with someone like Sarah Vaughn and you’re left with coherence, beauty, poetry, emotion, nuance.”

Still, Parris said she’s not discouraged. “I feel very lucky to be able to make a living doing what I want to do.”

Parris knew from early childhood that she was going to sing.

“I come from wonderful parents. My mother says I could sing on pitch when I was 14 months old,” she said. “My father was a church organist and taught French. In the summer, he was involved in theater and I was performing summer stock with him when I was 6.”

Always leery of record companies, she released her first recordings in the ‘80s for Shira Records, a label she ran with two other women. Two of those albums have been reissued recently; a third, “Double Rainbow,” will come out this year. A new album consisting entirely of ballads also is scheduled for release soon.

“My constituency here [in New England] has always wanted me to put out an album of ballads, but I shied away from it,” she said. “The thing with an all-ballad album is the fear that all those slow tunes will put people to sleep.”

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While Parris says she’ll concentrate on standards when she teams here with pianist Bill Cunliffe, bassist Andy Simpkins and drummer Paul Kreibich, she seldom sticks to the great American songbook when she records, often unearthing new material from budding composers.

“Spring,” for instance, is a Brazilian-influenced collection with songs from singer Michael Franks, producer-guitarist John Chiodini, Brazilian composer Dori Caymmi and others.

“Sure, I sing the songbooks, but I’m always looking for new material. But good [songs] are few and far between. You’d be surprised how many people are out there hunting for someone to perform their music. At the moment, I must have 20 or 25 envelopes of music from people who want me to perform their songs.”

While she’s dismayed by some aspects of the music business, she sees plenty of reason for optimism, mostly as a result of her fellow singers.

“It’s hard to replace people like Sarah [Vaughn], Carmen [McRae] or Ella [Fitzgerald]. But I’ve heard some excellent young singers on the BET [Black Entertainment Television] channel recently, and you have some lovely singers out on the West Coast like Cathy [Segal-Garcia] and Stephanie Haynes. Being a singer isn’t easy. But I continue to have my dreams and pursue them.”

* Rebecca Parris opens tonight at Steamers Cafe, 138 W. Commonwealth Ave., Fullerton. 8:30 p.m. Also 8:30 p.m. Saturday and 8 p.m. Sunday. $4 cover, two-drink minimum. (714) 871-8800.