McFerrin’s Spontaneity Revs Crowd Into Harmony

Bobby McFerrin’s concert at Royce Hall on Thursday night--the opening event in the UCLA Performing Arts 1999-2000 season--was titled “Spontaneous Inventions for Audience and Voice.”

And McFerrin wasn’t kidding. He brought the packed house crowd into virtually every number in one way or another. In some cases, he even brought audience members onstage to share the spotlight. At other times, he moved into the auditorium, often between rows, to elicit random responses from attendees.

But complete spontaneity--as the free jazz players of the ‘60s quickly discovered--is an extremely elusive goal. Even the most imaginative artist is bound by certain unconscious patterns, however hard they may try to avoid them. In McFerrin’s case, it is the stylistic patterns in his vocal improvisations that tend to quickly become familiar. Often, for example, he used a kind of invented African-like wordplay, and his vocal lines typically included an exposition in which he sang a high melody line supported by arpeggiated accents outlining the harmony.

Did the familiar patterns matter? Not at all. McFerrin’s musical imagination functions at such a high level that the familiarity of the delivery style becomes virtually irrelevant. When he encouraged the crowd to sing the last note of a series of invented musical phrases, for example, he gradually began to combine his own low harmony with the crowd’s notes to produce a subtle chord progression. When he asked to be joined in a rendering of “Amazing Grace,” harmonic lines spontaneously emerged from the audience. When he drew responses from individuals, he got everything from whoops and shrieks to hip-hop rhythms and blues lines (notably so in a fascinating exchange with blues artist Keb’ Mo’, who happened to be in the audience).

McFerrin was so successful at bringing his listeners into the music that he produced a number of remarkable results. One was an ensemble rendering of the Bach-Gounod “Ave Maria” that occurred when he invited volunteers on stage to sing the melody while he--amazingly--sang the arpeggiated Bach accompaniment. Another was a kind of group “Simon Says” in which he persuaded eight people to set aside their inhibitions and engage in some utterly silly singing and dancing.

But the most remarkable of all was his capacity to entertain and entrance an overflow audience for nearly two hours with no game plan, and no resources other than a microphone and his own immense talent. That was real spontaneity.