Dee Daniels (r.) works with Juliana Loughin on the phrasing in her song "The Glove." Daniels says there's a process of "breakdown and breakthrough" that enriches singers lives outside of music. (KCAW photo/Robert Woolsey)

Dee Daniels (r.) works with Juliana Loughin on the phrasing in her song “The Glove.” Daniels says there’s a process of “breakdown and breakthrough” that enriches singers lives outside of music. (KCAW photo/Robert Woolsey)

The Dee Daniels Vocal Jazz Workshop is underway this week in Sitka (July 18-25). For the last two years, Daniels has interrupted her touring and teaching schedule to live at the Sitka Fine Arts Camp, and coach a half-dozen students of widely-ranging ages and ability.

KCAW’s Robert Woolsey recently stopped by her class and learned how much work it takes to make jazz seem effortless.

 

Students in the Dee Daniels Vocal Jazz Workshop will perform in concert with the Native Jazz Trio, 7 PM Wednesday July 23, in the Rasmuson Building on the Sheldon Jackson Campus.

Juliana Loughin rehearsing…

This is Juliana Loughin, a seventeen-year-old from Vancouver, British Columbia, singing her own composition called “The Glove.”

I’m pretty sure this is an extraordinary rehearsal, but then her teacher, Dee Daniels stops her.

How are you going to phrase that…

Stops her again.

Singing: His love for her, is bigger than himself…

And again, and again.

Dee Daniels recently moved back to Seattle, where she began her career, after living many years in New York.

Dee Daniels recently moved back to Seattle, where she began her career, after living many years in New York.

“I have a whole phase that I go through with the students in storytelling. It’s a point where — I don’t care where I am — when we go into the storytelling phase of a workshop, I call that my Breakdown Breakthrough. Because inevitably, at some point, everybody has a breakdown. Some people cry, some people resist. But I walk them through it. Singing is so personal. We’re using words to express emotions”

Dee Daniels has been working for two days with a half-dozen vocalists, ranging in age from teen to mid-life. And though she’ll offer a full week of lessons, their concert falls on day 3.

“Yesterday we were using the analogy of tunnels. You look at it from the one side, and it’s dark and scary in there. But it is a tunnel, which means there’s light at the other side, just like the side you’re standing in now. So if you can find the courage, and understand that there is the other side, and if you keep walking through it you will get to the other side, and you are totally changed. Not only in singing, but in the other parts of their lives. Because they went to the mountain!”

“My first teacher in voice was George Peckham . He was a master teacher from Seattle. I started with him maybe a year after I got into music professionally, at which time he was 77 years old. The man had a five-octave range, he was still performing. And I only saw him two times at first. But when I went to see George I was so receptive, because I knew I had a lot more than I knew how to access at the time. I could hear it. I could feel it. But it was mostly his concepts that got me opened up. His main one was: It’s the mind that is musical, not the body.”

Daniels is tough, parsing every line. And phrase-by-phrase Juliana is getting it. She’s growing as a singer, and her song — even though she wrote it — is coming to life.

KCAW – Juliana is a better singer than she was 30-minutes ago. She came through something. You stopped her a lot.
Daniels – This is where I know you can go, if you want to go there. And she made that decision: I’m going to walk into the tunnel. And it happens just like that. Because it’s all mental. It’s a choice. She made the choice to do it, and she did. And they all have.