Bobby McFerrin doesn’t need instruments – he carries an orchestra in his throat and writes symphonies with his audience members.

Last night, the philharmonic demon slinked onto the stage at a nearly packed Goldstein Auditorium and commenced a barrage of strange sounds you’d be hard-pressed to evoke from a synthesizer. The show, beautiful from start to finish, was the result of a musical interaction unseen at other shows, an interplay between audience and conductor that left the crowd awed and speechless.

After returning to the touring circuit following the production of an opera he co-wrote with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner in 2001, McFerrin has been perfecting his improvisational show.

It seems to have worked. His charisma, nearly as impressive as his vocal range, allowed him to work the crowd into his show without cheapening it with corny clap-alongs.

McFerrin opened with a soulful improvisational piece in which he exhibited his chilling ability to ‘sing’ a bass line under a soaring melody, seemingly at the same time. He twisted and stretched his eight-octave sonic palate into a range of sounds, sometimes melodic, sometimes comical, but always astounding to the ears.

The audience bit started innocently enough, with a jazzy, two-note harmony that the crowd sang at certain points during a McFerrin bass line when he raised his hand. He then coaxed the crowd into repeating increasingly complicated scat patterns until they could handle no more.

Eventually, after a round of ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider’ for the kids, he convinced the crowd to sing Gounod’s ‘Ave Maria’ – by themselves – while he sang Bach’s First Prelude. The amazing part of this segment is that the crowd (at least those who knew the tune) sang beautifully on top of McFerrin’s extra-human rendition of what was intended by Bach to be a simple piano piece. Voices from the crowd blended perfectly with McFerrin’s to create a cascading wave of sound in Goldstein Auditorium which brought tears to some audience members’ eyes.

McFerrin also engaged in brief duets with random crowd members, which was amazing to hear. He must have an eye for a good voice, since none of the five were too far off-pitch.

To close out the show, McFerrin performed a whirlwind summary of ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ playing all the parts (impossibly high and low) in a furious musical medley, complete with dancing. It brought down the house.

When musicians try to pull off audience participation, it most often results in a lame sing-along, voices fizzling out halfway through on account of boredom. But McFerrin, with his arsenal of a voice and endearing persona, brought hope back to the idea of improvisation through collaboration.

Colin Dabkowski is a senior magazine and Spanish major. E-mail him at ccdabkow@syr.edu.

Published on April 6, 2004 at 12:00 pm