Early Morning Christina Aguilera

So Bob gets up early this morning to go work in his classroom, and I get up with him, cause I'm nice. And I, too, need to accept that pretty soon 6AM will be wakey-wakey time, so this will be 'good for me'.

He leaves, and I pour myself the 2 oz. of coffee (and I'm not kidding) that I allow myself every few days...hear that? That's the sound of health-hysterical pregnant women everywhere fainting and hitting the floor. Friggin' zealots. I'm third trimester and it's pre-7AM! Baby's genetically predisposed to have a coffee addiction anyway. I crash on the couch, and turn on the tube. And of course I don't want to hear about this psycho who may or may not have killed the poor little girl who'd been poured into beauty contest costumes her whole life, and I can't do Katrina Anniversary news this early with my raging hormones, I don't have enough tissues in the house. After the Jesus Freaks and perky exercise people, VH1 seemed an obvious choice.

And here's this Christina Aguilera video - I'm assuming it's her new song, I'm woefully out of the MTV generational loop. "Ain't No Other Man".
My Dad shocked me the other day by mentioning that he bought her new album and really likes it. So I thought perhaps I'd give her a chance before flipping to the Discovery Health channel and crying through "An Adoption Story".
The video starts w/ what may or may not be an authentic blues song, sung Billie-style, and I'm intrigued. Then we break into the actual song with a backbeat, obviously more modern. Christina does one of those "oooh-oh-oho-oh"'s where she moves her jaw to change notes - a big no-no as I understand vocal training, but the girl CAN sing, so whatever. It's a different style.
There's trumpets and trombones. Like, ON the screen and in the music. Ok, you have me. And it's all very prohibition-era chic. Love it.
I'm impressed when any pop music uses actual brass tracks-and actual brass musicians-to thicken their sound. It sounds real to me, anyway (as in, non-synthesized, somebody with chops actually got paid for recording the samples). Good stuff.
I'm watching and contemplating how many pins it's taking to hold the little black hat onto her head while she jerks her blond curls around gloriously to the "break it down" section, when it occurs to me that we haven't seen a white dancer yet except Christina. Seriously. One or two, maybe, depending on how dark your TV set is. It's an all-black jazz club. And their queen bee is a skinny white chick. Interesting. Ok, she's of enough Hispanic origin to claim it, yes. I'm talking sheer appearances here, people.
No please don't get me wrong - I have no issue with that, there WERE all-black jazz clubs, and they were, from what I've been taught, the place to hear the real music of the times. Were there white singers there? Um...I'll have to get back to you on that. Maybe?
And it's not the historical accuracy that strikes me, but rather that if you close your eyes, Christina's 'black', too. You know how you can often tell a person's race by the timbre of their voice? Well she does NOT have the voice a former Mouseketeer. Damn, girl. Not even close.
Nothing breathy or nasal about her, and I VERY much appreciate that. Not that those qualities don't have their time and place. But I wonder if that was intentional:
"Christina sings 'black', let's make it an all-black jazz club". Or the choice of the dancers' ethnicity supposed to appeal to all the suburban middle-class white children (that I teach) who are under the impression that the only cool music is 'urban' (black) music? Or are they making Chistina palatable to the black demographic? Or both?
I did notice that when she actually interacted with a man in the video, HE was white. So I guess we're not going to cross the interracial line, huh? See, that I was a little disappointed about. What, she can dance and party with black women but she can't have a black man?

Eh, I really have to stop over-thinking stuff that's on early-morning VH1. Either way, I like the song, I like the arrangement, I like the video, and although I have no voice aspirations of my own beyond exhibiting a good vocal model for the K-5 set, I'm jealous of that girl's pipes. I actually checked out a live version on youtube, and she does NOT suck.

Right after the video - stylistic coincidence? - they do a news break about Usher jumping into the role of Billy Flynn in" Chicago" on Broadway. Well, Usher's another one that can actually sing. *F you, Brittany* Interesting... I would really like to see that. I think.