‘Life Is Funny That Way’ by Fay Victor Review: The Timeless Songs of Herbie Nichols
The underappreciated composer of ‘Lady Sings the Blues’ receives a vibrantly contemporary tribute from the versatile jazz vocalist.
By Martin Johnson
March 30, 2024 7:00 am ET
Fay Victor PHOTO: DENEKA PENISTON
Although he wrote the music for one of Billie Holiday’s most renowned songs, “Lady Sings the Blues,” the work of pianist Herbie Nichols (1919-1963) is unduly obscure. He recorded only sporadically, and those albums have not consistently stayed in print. But a handful of exceptional musicians—the trombonist Roswell Rudd (1935-2017), the pianists Misha Mengelberg (also 1935-2017) and Frank Kimbrough (1956-2020), and the bassist Ben Allison—have obsessively championed his legacy over the decades. Ten years ago, vocalist Fay Victor created an ensemble to perform Nichols’s music, and now her group has released its first recording, “Life Is Funny That Way” (Tao Forms, out April 5), presenting his works in an exciting new light.
To contemporary ears, Nichols’s compositions sound vibrant, innovative and timeless. Like those of Thelonious Monk, with which they are often compared, they have an off-kilter rhythmic sensibility—combining meticulous qualities with a nonchalance that enhances their appeal.
Nichols was born in the San Juan Hill area of Manhattan to parents from Trinidad and St. Kitts back when the area was a Caribbean enclave, and it’s easy to hear traces of West Indian stylings in his oeuvre. He played at Minton’s, the Harlem club famous as an incubator for bebop, and although he failed to establish himself there, he did befriend Monk. Nichols made his first recordings as a leader in 1955, but they found neither popular nor critical success, and he spent most of the rest of his life playing in Dixieland bands.
Ms. Victor, who was born in Brooklyn two years after Nichols’s death, shares his Caribbean heritage and discovered his music in the ’90s while living in Holland. On her second recording, “Darker Than Blue” (Timeless, 2001), she recorded Nichols’s “House Party Starting” with lyrics she wrote. She sent a copy to Mengelberg, who encouraged her, and they began a series of collaborations of mostly original music, with a smattering of Nichols. This led to her working with Rudd, who had played with Nichols, and she learned more about the composer-pianist, which inspired her to create more lyrics for his music.
“Life Is Funny That Way” offers a rich portrait of Nichols, and it highlights the contemporary aspects of his music. Ms. Victor’s versatile band includes saxophonist Michaël Attias, pianist Anthony Coleman, bassist Ratzo Harris and drummer Tom Rainey. Their range is a good fit, and her vocals embrace straightforward singing, scat, vocalese and poetic recitation; it’s a style that enables her to explore deeper meanings in songs and broaden their cultural connections. Her influences include both classic jazz singers like Betty Carter and late 20th-century innovators like Jeanne Lee.
The album opens with the title track, which stuns with swaggering confidence, layered improvisations, and a puckish vibe that feels emblematic of the entire Nichols catalog. Ms. Victor also revisits “House Party Starting,” here retitled “Tonight,” and it is highlighted by wry solos and clever interplay by the ensemble. Her take on “Lady Sings the Blues” adds a chapter to the song’s evolution. The composition began as a midtempo instrumental piece, “Serenade,” but Holiday slowed it to a dirge, her lyrics capturing both sorrow and resilience. Ms. Victor slows it still further, making both elements more visceral, and the song becomes bracing.
“Life Is Funny That Way” continues a recent trend of tribute recordings that go beyond the notes on the page and aim to showcase the spirit of the music. It helped me to see how much the humor, punchy melodies and spiky rhythms in Nichols’s music are present in the work of pianists like Kris Davis, Vijay Iyer, Craig Taborn and Micah Thomas.
The album also brought to mind two modern classics, “Carmen Sings Monk” (Novus, 1990) by Carmen McRae and “Change of Season” (Soul Note, 1985) from a collective quintet involving Mengelberg. McRae, a canonical vocalist, made Monk’s life more accessible by applying words to his idiosyncratic music; many of Ms. Victor’s lyrics provide stories for Nichols’s songs that show the enormous dimensions and possibilities of the works, a feat that she and her band also accomplish through their musicianship. This album—combined with the recent release of Mr. Allison’s “Tell the Birds I Said Hello: The Music of Herbie Nichols” (Sonic Camera)—suggests that interest in the great composer and his music is peaking.
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