She has been heard singing in French, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, Greek and Croatian. She hums in 30 languages in all, with just enough of an accent to be totally delightful. Singer China Forbes returns to the stage Thursday and Friday at the Montreal International Jazz Festival with the American group Pink Martini, which she founded 30 years ago with her longtime partner, Thomas Lauderdale.
Thomas, for her, is a “musical archaeologist.” He has the final say on the pieces played. He delves into repertoires from around the world to bring back gems, then re-adapts them in the Pink Martini way.
“Usually, we choose music that we like, that we find beautiful and interesting, which can be in all kinds of languages,” the singer says in an interview. For example, we covered What will be, will bea song that is usually very happy, to make a version that gives you goosebumps, in minor, interesting and fun to do. At first, we only did covers. But, if you don’t adapt the songs, it’s uninteresting. So, we turn around a song to make something surprising, beautiful, something that people are not used to hearing. ” The process, which they have maintained over the course of their ten albums, which have sold millions of copies, has not been without causing them some problems.
Our repertoire is so eclectic and touches on so many genres that we can tackle any style or language. It gives us a lot of options and possibilities, and it’s really nice. We’re not locked into a box.
Their most popular song to date, the eponymous song Friendlyon their first album, was inspired, without their knowledge, by the first words of a poem by Guillaume Apollinaire, Hotel, written in 1913, then set to music by François Poulenc. Pink Martini’s version, where China Forbes takes up the refrain “Je ne veux pas travailler”, with alterations, was an immediate success. But the group later had to come to an agreement with Guillaume Apollinaire’s estate to be able to continue playing it.
On the same album, Pink Martini covered the very famous Bolero by Ravel, to adapt it in their own way. Following another dispute, this time with the beneficiaries of Ravel’s estate, the group had to wait for the Bolero becomes public domain, to reissue the piece in the version designed by Thomas Lauderdale in 2018.
A weakness for French
Although she has sung in a thousand languages, China Forbes has a weakness for French, which is the language of one of her ancestors.
“My grandfather grew up in Europe, both in France and Germany. And my father loved his French family and loved speaking French. So I grew up surrounded by the French language,” she says, though the Cambridge, Massachusetts, native gives the interview in English. Thomas Lauderdale also has an affinity for the language of Molière, and spent time living in Paris.
In Montreal, we can therefore expect them to push the French bill a little more than elsewhere.
“Our repertoire is so eclectic and touches on so many genres that we can tackle any style or language. It gives us a lot of options and possibilities, and it’s really nice. We’re not locked into a box,” she says.
In fact, it was over a Puccini aria that the companions first met. “I loved opera and I studied Italian,” she says. “When I met Thomas and we started collaborating, he wanted to come with me. He asked me, ‘What do you want to sing?’ I told him I wanted to sing Puccini. So he went and found some arias, and we played together. It was wonderful. That’s how we started collaborating.”
Even today, Pink Martini persists and signs. Even if its last album dates back several years. “We plan to record another studio album and also symphonic versions,” adds China Forbes.
The suave American is pursuing a solo approach of her own and she recently produced an album of her own, The RoadThe singer also received the Ella-Fitzgerald Prize at the Montreal International Jazz Festival in 2022.
In Montreal this year, China Forbes and Thomas Lauderdale will be accompanied by a violin, a guitar, a double bass, a grand piano, a trumpet, a trombone, a percussionist and a conga player. And it will surely be very, very nice.