優雅如你 Elegant from Twisting Roots by TPO Big Band

Elegant is a Zy the Way song written in November of 2020 while Taiwan was teetering on the edge of a lockdown that would come six months later. The band had asked me to write my interpretation of a pop song as part of our project working with Shijing, lyric poetry collected from the four corners of the Zhou Dynasty in China 3,000 years ago and compiled by philosopher cum cultural progenitor Confucius. The source of inspiration is really a mystery to me, despite my sometimes nostalgic mental cataloging of influences. I “ring fence,” as Henry Rollins so aptly put it, those moments of pure and innocent musical absorption of the human experience. The inspiration for Elegant came directly from a Shijing poem by the name of Handsome, all translations being roughly equal. The song spoke to me because the narrator talked about the excitement of seeing her lover waiting for her every day at the corner of the street — not so unlike a modern love story. Later, in 2022 when Alan Ferber expressed interest in arranging the song for TPO, I knew that he would bring the kind of respect and enthusiasm to the music that Jim and I felt would be needed, and he, along with Arnie Sainz, created an entirely new vision of the song that still got to the core of the music that came from that hallowed place that we all have.
-Written by Matthew Fullen
這首樂曲(原名為《看顧》）是2020年11月，為Zy The Way中庸樂團所創作，當時全世界都陷於新冠疫情的水深火熱中，感謝台灣的防疫措施讓我們還能繼續日常生活。
「詩經計畫」是我與中庸樂團共同的重要創作，以流行、爵士的曲風，來詮釋中華文化的重要文學作品《詩經》。詩經中的篇章，多為西周至春秋時代的詩歌，據說由孔子編纂集大成。裡頭講述民間的日常、人情與社會現況，而三千年後的我們依然有著深刻的共鳴。身為一個與詩經相異文化背景的美國人，音樂靈感的來源至今是個謎，唯一知道的是，我用我自己的人生經驗來與之共舞，從中獲得詮釋養份。
《優雅如你》取自詩經中的「丰」篇，在中庸樂團有歌手演繹，並加入了台語歌詞的版本。這首詩集吸引我的地方在於一份「殷殷期盼」的愛：女孩每日在街角，等待見到愛人的雀躍與緊張，和現代人的愛情故事仍然非常相似。
2022年，優秀的音樂家Alan Ferber將這首作品改編給踢霹歐爵士大樂團，在Alan忠於原創的編曲詮釋下，協同助理Arnie Sainze，保留《優雅如你》的靈魂、同時給與其新面貌，成為一個精彩的大樂團的版本。

Created in May 2020 during the World COVID Pandemic, TPO is an international group of professional musicians based in Taipei that brings the spirit and sound of vintage American jazz into 21st century Taipei.

Facebook