If you listen to Bobby McFerrin’s collected recordings in chronological order, you will find an artist who reinvented his musical approach with each album. Here are his albums just from the 1990’s:
- 1990: Medicine Music. a cappella group vocals with original songs, in collaboration with his Voicestra.
- 1992: Play. Live duo album of jazz standards with Chick Corea.
- 1995: Bang! Zoom. Mostly wordless contemporary jazz with the Yellowjackets.
- 1995: Paper Music. Orchestral repertoire with Bobby conducting and sometimes singing.
- 1996: The Mozart Sessions. A return to music with Chick Corea, but this time interpretations of Mozart piano concertos, with orchestra, singing, and new cadenzas from Corea.
- 1997: Circlesongs. Completely improvised multi-part songs with a group of collaborative singers.
Every album sounds different from the one before (the closest are the two orchestral albums, and they’re still very different in character). But at the same time, every album sounds like Bobby McFerrin. He found a way to express a creative voice that transcends the repertoire, the instrumentation, even the genre.
This is the mark of a great artist. That your indelible stamp is on your art, even as you constantly explore new and different creative pursuits.
Or as Langston Hughes wrote in Theme For English B,
And let that page come out of you—
Then, it will be true.
Let your art come out of you – then it will be express your own perspective, regardless of the details.