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Christine Flowers - Jazz & Mini Ninjas |
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Take a white American girl who grew up in North Carolina and Georgia,
and who attended the first integrated school in the state of Georgia,
where many of her fellow students were the children of civil rights
activists, mix that with listening to a healthy dose of Martin Luther
King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy on Sunday mornings and she has now lived in
Paris, France for most of her adult life and what do you get? You get a
terrific Jazz singer named Christine Flowers, who is also a voice
actress, and recently launched her own YouTube channel featuring weekly
ten minute restorative and therapeutic yoga sessions. You also get a
woman who knows who she is, has strong convictions concerning human
rights and who appears to be very comfortable in her own skin.
Looking back Christine Flowers describes herself as, “I really am an
artist and I was a failure at academics. I was so flighty and I was so
daydreamy about other things, music and poetry and all of that stuff.
I didn’t (care) about anything else. I was just allergic to that
stuff. The funny thing is when I finally got out of high school and had
I not graduated out of a performing arts high school (she pauses) all of
my credits were because I was a singer, an actress and a dancer or I
don’t think that I would have graduated.
There were a few years that went by that all I did was act and sing.
Then I decided to go back to university. I realized that I was quite
good at studying and academics. It was a choice and I even got really
interested in physics and astronomy. I found out I was really, really
good at that, but the only thing was, I wasn’t good at math. I got my
head around the theory about it, but I couldn’t go ahead in that
discipline, because I didn’t have the head for mathematics.
Depending on my mood, when you start talking about quantum
physics and everything I go wahhh, (and
then there are non-syllabic utterances of excitement). I really get
into that, but I can’t do the math about it. It just kind of came when
the pressure was off of me, because I was a disaster even in physical
science. I certainly got a good inkling to want to do it when I was
about nineteen or twenty when I went back to university. It was amazing
and I surprised myself. I still surprise myself with some of the books
that I am drawn too.
One of my favorite books is The
Dancing Wu Li Masters and it is about quantum physics.
I think there is some kind of connection between that and music
theory. I am great in music theory, as long as it doesn’t touch on the
mathematical side. I can
spin off of ideas and go what if we can do this? As soon as you start
talking numbers and quantifying it by mathematics I go no and I turn
right off.”
That cerebral prowess combined with gifted aritstry comes through on
in a new mood a tribute to
Oscar Brown, Jr., Christine Flowers’ stylish album that boasts great
song selection from the saucy and sassy “Hazel’s Hips,” to the
sophistication of “Summer In The City,” and the swinging “Mr. Kicks,” as
well as the poignant reminder of the ugliness of racism as expressed in
“Driva’ man.” Flowers’ skills as an actress also giver her the ability
to bring to life “But I Was Cool.
There really were not any musical influences in the home in which
Christine Flowers grew up, but in a very real way music changed the
direction of her life and she explains, “I fell into a bad crowd. It
could have gone really bad, but I just fell into this program, because I
was lazy. I wanted to take an elective program and it was a guitar
program that was headed by the musical director of the Northside School
of the Performing Arts (in Atlanta, Georgia). The school music director
was very dynamic with the kids and in this guitar program he made us
come every week with a study about some kind of composer.
We had to put on a skit and sing, which was horrifying for me. I had
never done that, but I finally got accustomed to it and it turned into
something that I really, really dug. Through that he must have seen some
kind of spark of something and he talked me into the music program. It
was a young music program at that point and it was on the edge of
becoming a performing arts school headed by the state. The students who
were a little bit gifted were able to get into this program and they
were able to concentrate on what they were good at. From the ninth grade
until I graduated I was in this program and he (the music director) was
a very big influence on my life. Had I not run into him I probably would
not have done anything. I probably would have gone down the path of ill
repute (her voice takes on a
dramatic flair) and I would probably have been dead by now.
It
was the model school for integration. It was the first school in the
United States where they bused in the black students. I had the very
good fortune and I am so happy for this and to have gone to the school.
A lot of my classmates were the children of the immediate posse of
Martin Luther King Jr. and Hosea Williams’ children, Ralph Abernathy’s
children and the children of Gladys Knight (of Gladys Knight & the
Pips). It was very, very, very much civil rights oriented. This
particular music teacher Billy Densmore was right in there. We would go
on Sundays as a continuum of the program. You didn’t have to go, but he
had such an infectious passion about everything and especially about
civil rights that on Sunday mornings we would convene in the school
parking lot and he would have a yellow bus waiting for us to bus down to
the southwest part of Atlanta to attend the big Bethel services where
Dr. Abernathy and Dr. King would preach.
For the most part I grew up on Gospel, as my initiation to music.
There were drum kits on the altar and people would play the bass guitar.
The pianist or organist could have played with James Brown. The music
was amazing! It was a party. It was a real big party.”
As for how those lessons in life and in music imprinted her at a young
age, Christine Flowers says, “I carried it with me and I really hugged
it to my bosom. Until this day I am very influenced by that. I am a Jazz
singer principally and I am a Jazz singer, because I came from Gospel,
Funk and Soul influences.”
When she was fourteen years old Flowers appeared as one of the street
singers in Robert Shaw’s theatrical production of Leonard Bernstein’s
Mass, as Shaw conducted the
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.
She refers to that experience as, “an amazing experience,” and “a major
milestone in my life. I was only fourteen and I was only in the chorus,
but he, Robert Shaw was a major man. God rest his soul. He was a very
fine conductor. He was very revered and respected. It was a great body
of work.”
As
for having designs on a music career Flowers says, “I don’t think that I
ever had that light that went on saying I want to be a star. It was just
something that was organic and I kind of fell into it. I realized this
is what I was made for. I didn’t consider it like a job that anybody
would do. I have never been someone who thought I want to do this,
because I want to be a star. It was just something that I had to do. I
just had to do it, otherwise I would die.”
While still in her
teens, Christine Flowers began working in the music industry in
Nashville, commuting from her home in Atlanta.
“It was serendipitous in a way, because I just kind of happened into it.
Looking back at everything now I think I was really, really lucky. I
don’t think that it happens that easily to kids anymore or maybe it
does, I’m not there anymore. I just tended to get into things that were
very, very interesting and relatively easily. I worked at Opryland (as a
singer and dancer) and I was pretty plugged in. Most of the musicians
there were really highly revered musicians. They needed a day gig, so
they would be there. There
was a horn player who heard me and he was a session player as well, so
he invited me to come with him, because they needed backup singers for
demo work. It wasn’t backup singers for a stage, but I thought ya’ I’ve
never done that before, so I went in and I was able to do the gigs.
One thing led to another and I got called for another studio thing. Then
I got called for another one. I didn’t even know these people, because I
wasn’t in the Country (music scene). I
was more into Gospel, Funk and Soul. I would just walk in and I was this
young ditzy blonde who thought I can do ooh wop doo wop. It’s not that I
did this, but as I think about it now. I did something for a Tammy
Wynette song
I didn’t know these people, they weren’t the people that I listened to,
and so it was just Country music to me. I would just do it. Probably if
I had been star struck it would not have gone down as well as it did. I
was able to concentrate on what I needed to do and not be nervous about
it. I think that is why I was able to get these opportunities. There
were two or three times when I worked with some pretty heavy people (She
sang on the demos for Reba McEntire and Charlie Rich, as well). When
I look back it I go Jesus you were only seventeen years old Christine
and you did that. Not bad.
It really was a wonderful experience. It was an amazing musical
education for me in Nashville. Even though it was very Country oriented
I met musicians that taught me a lot about different genres. It was
before I even started singing Jazz. There were people that I played with
especially the horn players who were totally into Jazz. That is when I
first started my education into Jazz. They turned me onto a lot of
things and a lot of recordings. It was a very effervescent period of
time in Nashville.
I was singing and dancing at Opryland in a show called
I Hear America Singing. There
were probably about twenty different live shows in the park at any given
time. There were a lot of people, especially during the years that I was
there that really made it big time. There was really amazing talent. The
show that I was in marked the beginning of American music up to the time
when we were playing it.”
When Christine Flowers was twenty-two years old she made a pivotal
decision that would forever changed her life. She moved out of the
United States.
“I never really felt in my place when I lived in the United States. I
never felt comfortable. I always felt from a very early age that I
wanted to get out of there. When I had the opportunity I did. I just
remember being in Nashville at one point and being overwhelmed with
everything. I didn’t go directly to France at that point, but I did go
to the Caribbean Islands. I worked on a sailing yacht for about eighteen
months as a cook. That really taught me a lot about my own country,
because I saw it from the outside. That was the time when the Nicaraguan
civil war was going on and the El Salvador war was going on. We went
through the Panama Canal and we stopped in El Salvador and Nicaragua.
I saw firsthand these Central American countries that were supposed to
be really bad countries the way that politicians had made them out to
be. I realized they were just countries of people who wanted to live.
They wanted a life and life chances just as much as anybody.
I got to San Francisco and for some reason I went down to LA and that is
when I enrolled in university. Because I had been so stirred with what I
saw in the Central American countries I enrolled in a lot of political
science classes and international relations classes to try to understand
it. I took those for about a year and halfway through the second year I
just went, no I have to vomit here. This is not at all what is going on
outside of the United States of America. That stirred my interest to
leave. I took out an atlas at one point and I just pointed to a country
and I went I’m going there. It was France. I think I took a semester of
French thinking that will do me.
That will do the trick.
I came over here with two hundred dollars in my pocket and with a
semester of French under my belt and I had absolutely no contacts. My
idea was to go to the Sorbonne, with two hundred dollars…ya’ right. At
that point in time you could buy a one way ticket. I had bought a one
way ticket, because I was too poor to buy a round trip ticket. I was
stuck here and so I had to make it. Of course the Sorbonne was out of
the question (she starts to laugh)
because with two hundred dollars you are not going to get in there (she
is still laughing). I was young and I was fearless so it worked.”
As for the on semester of French, “When I got off the plane everyone was
talking so fast that I thought I was in the wrong country. It was awful.
When I heard all of the announcements at Orly where I landed, it was so
fast. I thought I do not know anything. I wandered into Paris and I
think the only thing that I could do for the first six or eight months
was to ask for a baguette and to say thank you. Everybody wanted to
speak English to me, because they wanted to practice their English.
Maybe being (as lazy as) I am I just laid back and said okay we will
just speak English. I never improved in Paris and it wasn’t until I went
to the south where nobody spoke English at that point that I had to
speak French. Within a matter of a few months I was pretty fluent.”
The road to a career in Jazz music in her new home country took a rather
circuitous route.
“That was out of necessity, because I was illegal here. When I got off
the plane I didn’t take the time to sort out my student visa or a visa.
I came over as a tourist, so I was only supposed to stay over here for
three months. Back in the day I
would have to go back and forth to Brussels every three months.
The only thing that I could do under the table was to sing. They
would pay me in cash and there were a lot of American singers here.
When I got here I realized there was nothing that I could do. I would go
around to the Jazz clubs and sit in and they would say oh can you come
back and sing? They would give me a job for a night or two. Finally, I
landed a job at Harry’s American Bar and the guy wanted to hire me five
nights a week, but he said to me you have to be legal. I said how do I
get legal and he said I don’t know and that’s your problem. He said I
will wait for you, but you are going to have to try and get your working
papers in order, because I can’t hire you. I must have walked around on
a daily basis trying to find a way to get legal for at least two months.
I was living with my bass player boyfriend who was French and he would
come back at night and see me on my knees going I don’t know what else
to do. Finally, he said, let’s just get married and let’s not tell
anybody and that way you can get your papers. I said, really? He said
yes, let’s just do it that way. When we got married (she pauses), we got
married in a fever (alluding to
the Johnny Cash and June Carter song). I walked by that town hall
the other day and it brought back a lot of memories. Two weeks later
everything was fine and I got a job. I was legal and everything was
cool. I worked at that place for a couple of years, five nights a week,
singing “Strangers in the Night,” and other stuff like that.
I got tired of that, because it was the same thing every night. (Now
that) I was legal I had a lot more freedom, so I got into groups and did
some theater. That was when things started happening for me.”
In 1994 another career path emerged almost simultaneously with the
release of Flowers’ three CD
Colors and Light. Her quartet shared the same name as the disc. She
describes the songs as being a blend of Jazz Rock, Jazz Funk and Jazz
Fusion, with an element of Pop, so the quartet could make a stronger
impression on the media. The second career path to emerge was that of a
voice actress doing work for clients such as Air France and L’Oréal, and
more recently for Yves Saint Laurent. Flowers also replaced Scarlett
Johansson’s voice to promote Moet & Chandon champagne. Christine Flowers
has also become a notable voice actor for cartoons. At this time she can
be heard in Mini Ninjas, a spinoff from the video game.
She says, “I play the really mean Shoko. I am like a baby Cruella de
Vil from 101 Dalmatians.”
One of the other cartoon characters which Christine Flowers has voice is
Mimi the mermaid from Eliot Kid.
How does one prepare to be the voice of an animated character?
“The only thing I have to go on is the image (most of the time) and I
try to spinoff of that. Usually there is a very precise idea coming from
the production. There is character building as well. I try to do that as
much as I can, but in the experiences I have had the production and the
director, i.e. the writers and the creators have an idea of what they
want already. That is probably why they choose me, because I am probably
already very close to what they have in mind. I have to go for a mix of
what I have come up with and what they want.
The way they do it with Mini Ninjas, which I am now doing, they do
tracking. Eight or ten years ago we had the luxury to be in the same
room with all of the actors and to interact with the actors and that is
fabulous. You are really acting. Nowadays they bring one actor in at a
time and you do your lines in the wilderness (she
starts laughing) and you hope that what you are saying is going to
match up with what the other actor is going to do. Sometimes that works
and sometimes it doesn’t. When I see the image and I hear my voice on it
I can tell and I go hmm, but other times I have nailed it,” she says.
As for how and why Christine Flowers decided to record
in a new mood a tribute to Oscar
Brown, Jr., she explains, “I was already doing some of his tunes in
my sets and I started studying what his thing was and I realized that he
had a big connection with a lot of the other artists whose music I liked
and I did some of their tunes. When I started studying him I realized
that his message was so strong and it resonated so deeply within me that
I just went ya’ this is right on. I was very involved in Abbey Lincoln’s
music as well and their paths seemed to cross a lot. I wasn’t ready to
take on her boat, but his seemed like something that I could tackle at
the time.
The song “Driva’ man,” is so important. If there is a stance that I
really defend it is (against) racism. It is a call that makes me want to
get up and want to do anything.
I remember when I was growing up and I was going to Grant Park Zoo, I
asked my mother who was very complacent, as both my parents were. I am
sure, as most white people were. I don’t think necessarily that she was
stone cold racist, but she was complacent. I remember being at Grant
Park Zoo and seeing the line for colored people and seeing the line for
the white people for the water fountain and I remember asking her why it
was like that. She just
brushed me off and tried to brush it under the carpet.
There were so many different episodes in my childhood, where I just did
not understand why and nobody could tell me about it (you
can hear the frustration in her voice) and it really pissed me off.
It wasn’t until I got to the school with this music director that I got
an education with that. I am so happy that happened. I was in this
bubble in this music program, because we were so privileged. We lived,
slept, ate and sang together. Nobody ever realized that anything outside
of our bubble was any different from what we were living and then when I
got out of it I was like, what is going on? Why are these people so
silly about all of this stuff?
When I heard “Driva’ man,” it just rang really true to me. I remember
one time I was still living in Atlanta and I had to commute back and
forth to Nashville to go to work. I stopped off at a gas station one
time and there was this real redneck guy in those things, those overalls
and he was chewing tobacco. Before I had pulled into the gas station I
had seen this sign on the side of the road and it was really weathered
and rusty. All it said on it was n_ _ _ _ r beware. I thought what in
the fuck is that? This was circa 1978. I was really appalled by it, so I
asked him what is that sign about? He took his time answering me, chewed
his tobacco a little bit and he finally spit it out. (She
starts imitating the man and does a good job of pretending to chew
tobacco too) He said well those n_ _ _ _ rs know if they ain’t out
of this county after dark, their asses are ours. I almost fell down,
because I thought this was over. When I heard this song I realized it
wasn’t twenty years earlier and that it was still going on. I knew it
was still going on in different parts of the country.
I had a black drummer who is very political and I asked John, what do
you think, do you think that I can carry this song (Driva’ man)? He
looked out into space for a long time, before he answered me and he
said, yes I think you can. It was really scary to me and I am glad that
I did it and I am glad I decided to carry it, because the message is
really important.
I love “Hazel’s Hips,” because it is so sassy and the last one “A Tree
In Me,” which has an incredible message as well. Those are my three
favorite (songs from the album).”
Christine Flowers does an outstanding job with each of the twelve songs
on this album and her musicians are superb. When the album was released
it garnered praise from every quarter, including Jazz singer Maggie
Brown, daughter of Oscar Brown, Jr.
Christine Flowers may not live in America anymore, but her music, her
voice, her phrasing is definitely something that American Jazz
aficionados should acquaint themselves with, because if you do not, then
you are not as clever as you think you are when it comes to knowing
everything that you should know about the gifted Jazz artists who are
out there.
In addition to her creative endeavors Flowers is a certified instructor
in restorative and therapeutic yoga, conducting classes and workshops in
Paris and recently launching her YouTube channel featuring weekly
instructional episodes.
I got into yoga six years ago, so very late in my life. It was in the
midst of my mother dying and my best friend dying and it was my best
friend who had been nagging me about it for years. I was like nah,
that’s for old people. I will do that when I am old. She ended up
getting very sick with cancer. She lived in New York, so we didn’t see
each other very often, but we were very close. We ended up having to
Skype a lot. She knew she was dying. One time the screen opened up and
she was radiant. She was
going through her second or third round of chemo I think. I was blown
away, because she looked absolutely stunning. I said Trisha there are
moonbeams coming out of you.
She said Chrissy baby that’s the yoga and the meditation. That
minute I went I am going to have to get me some of this.
The next day I went to my first
yoga class and I have been practicing since on a daily basis ever since.
It has literally changed my life. It has changed my personality and I
never wanted this. (She laughs
lightly) I wasn’t looking for this at all. That is what I find so
amazing about it, because whether you are lookiing for it or not, if you
practice it does have an affect on you and a very profound affect.
It is not a
religion, so you don’t have to talk about it. It is something very
silent and very personal and that is why I like it, because I hate
religion. It is something very humble and it is something very humbling.
It means a lot to me.
Please
visit the website for Christine Flowers and her YouTube
channel
Yoga Flower.Paris
#ChristineFlowers #ParisJazz #JazzMusicFrance #ChristineFlowersVoiceOver #ChristineFlowersVoiceActor #ChristineFlowersJazzSinger #RivetingRiffsMagazine
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