I’d been watching and listening for a good mesmerizing minute to the second selection in this “Brilliant Cover Songs” series when I tapped the pause button and went back to the beginning to confirm what had suddenly dawned on me just the moment before: Were these guys really creating this seeming symphony of sound without employing any instrument other than their gloriously blended human voices?
Sure enough—the four members of the Dallas-based “Kings Return” only sound like they have the backing of multiple instruments and/or a robust choir as they create a lush musical soundscape powered only by voices that traverse multiple musical genres and what musical cognoscenti call “sonic timbre,” and I call just plain dazzling.
Kings Return is comprised of classically trained musicians whose beginnings trace back to 2016. That’s when bass singer Gabe Kunda roped a few pals into helping him with a college recital and the ad hoc group created such a stir that invitations to reconvene for local gigs soon followed.
Individual lives scattered in the way that they do after college before the final foursome took shape in 2020. Since then, tenors Vaughn Faison and JE McKissic and baritone Jamall Williams have joined with Kunda to make a sustained foray into a music world that has welcomed them with both critical and increasingly commercial success.
You’ll get generous tastes of their range (both vocal and genre) in a few bonus selections below. As to the subject at hand, Kings Return could have done much worse than choose Stevie Wonder’s homage to his musical forebears with “Sir Duke.” The impeccably rendered cover performance you’ll witness here casts further light on the song’s musical inventiveness along with the unqualified sense of joy that Wonder projected in both its music and lyrics.
Let’s give it a listen and view the lyrics before we come back for some closing discussion and bonus tracks.
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“Sir Duke” is of course pioneering jazz composer and bandleader Duke Ellington (1899-1974), whom Wonder cites as “the king of all.” He, along with contemporaries Count Basie, Glenn Miller, Louis (“Satchmo”) Armstrong, and the singer Ella Fitzgerald, were all seminal figures not only in Wonder’s own musical development, but in the “language we all understand.”
This capsulization of music as a universal language, a “world within itself,” finds noble expression under Kings Return’s treatment of “Sir Duke” and everything else the group tackles. When I’m asked what kind of music I like, I usually say something similar to Wonder’s lines: anything that makes me want to “sing, dance and clap (my) hands.”
And daydream, remember, think, weep, grin, glow, tap, reach out.
Jazz, rhythm & blues, gospel, pop, classical—it’s all within the purview of Kings Return. They quite literally embody the whole of music’s universalism by making their voices into instruments, harmonizing to untold depths, simulating an entire rhythm section with snapping fingers, clucking tongues and little bursts of breath, carrying sweet and tender melodic lines with unerring feeling and pitch.
Nothing and nobody competes or preens, everyone joins and cooperates in an exquisite upwelling of joy and honor for the music and musicians who have come before them. Notably in this Stevie Wonder classic, but in many other works by the likes of Simon & Garfunkel, Earth, Wind & Fire, The Bee Gees, Tchaikovsky, Shania Twain, Beyonce, Mary J Blige, and Christmas, gospel and patriotic standards (“God Bless America”).
Every curated choice reaching across genre, country, culture, race and political orientation to that place “in the groove,” where people “can feel it all over.”
Head to heart to toes.
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Stairwell classic…
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Shout-out to longtime reader and friend Dawn Maskill Helman for alerting me to this selection—more suggestions for this and its sister “Brilliant Songs” series always welcome in the Comments box below or to: andrew@andrewhidas.com
Plenty more of Kings Return music can be found on You Tube and the group’s Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/KingsReturnMusic/
Comments? Questions? Suggestions, Objections, Attaboys? Just scroll on down to the Comments section below. No minimum or maximum word counts!
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Deep appreciation to the photographers! Unless otherwise stated, some rights reserved under Creative Commons licensing.
Elizabeth Haslam, whose photos (except for the books) grace the rotating banner at top of page.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lizhaslam/
Library books photo by Larry Rose, all rights reserved, contact: larry@rosefoto.com
Kings Return photo from the public domain
Stevie Wonder in concert by Thomas Hawk, San Francisco, California https://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/
Golly that was fun. Thanks.
Glad to hear it, Jeanette, thank you!
My morning cup of java and raspberry-lime muffin dug being serenaded by the A cappella tunes of the Kings Return. Their songs covered all the bases: Smokey and his friends, Schubert, Simon and Garfunkel, and Stevie’s wonderful homage to the Duke.
I was damn lucky to see Duke Ellington and his band perform at UConn’s Jorgenson Center for the Performing Arts 51 years ago; he passed away just a few months later. That night meant so much to me because I shared it with my parents who introduced me to jazz early on. I heard Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Bunny Berigan, Earl Hines, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Glenn Miller, the Dorseys and Duke Ellington through them. Their singers (Frank Sinatra, Joe Williams, Peggy Lee, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sarah Vaughan) were the frosting on the cake.
After listening to Kings Return’s version of “Sir Duke”, I googled Stevie’s original 1976 cut. It’s interesting to compare them. Stevie used brass and reed instruments to back up his singing and keyboarding. Kings Return took the brass/reed accompaniment in the original and turned it into scatting, one of the distinct features of Duke’s big band sound. It certainly worked.
As a side note, pardon the pun, I’ve always wondered if the A in the line “But you can tell right away at letter A” referred to Duke’s biggest hit “Take the A Train”. I guess I’ll have to ask Stevie the next time I see him.
Thank Dawn for me, too.
You were a lucky young lad, Robert, that was quite a lineup you bore early witness to. My dad liked Hungarian gypsy music but my mom used to tell me about her parents getting dressed to the nines and going to the symphony & opera in Budapest, and she played just enough of it for me to grow up with some exposure to classical music and the crooners, like Nat King Cole especially, for it to have a lasting influence on me. It allowed those genres to find some elbow room amidst the Stones, Buffalo Springfield and all the rest of the ’60s-70’s rock world. And with that additional exposure beyond just the contemporary music of the day, it was not much of a leap to all the riches of jazz.
Good question there at the end; the kind that can often find answers on Reddit or maybe even with a simple Google search. Let me know if you find anything, and I’ll do the same.
No conclusive evidence on the meaning of “A”. However, there were several responses that indicated it might come from “Take the A Train”. Others thought it might refer to the basic song structure of AB (verse-chorus). So, nothing definitive.
Such remarkable, magical work by Kings Return. My regret is that I waited two days to join in. On the other hand, it makes for a lively Tuesday afternoon in the library. Other patrons glancing over at me rockin as they work on other matters. Many thanks for this uplifting post and for introducing my to Kings Return. (Surely Dawn has brought them to my attention, and I have somehow forgotten, though they are hardly forgettable!)