Jazzmeia Horn makes a bold move with her much-anticipated sophomore album, Love and Liberation (Concord). Of the album’s 12 tracks, eight are originals. It’s rare that singers of Horn’s caliber can write as well as they sing—but Horn does just that. And she does it using a straight-ahead jazz vocabulary; you’d never know that Horn’s newly crafted tunes weren’t written by a Songbook auteur.
On “Free Your Mind,” for instance, the album’s opener, you can hear the bounce of a Cole Porter tune. On “Out the Window,” the infectious swing of a Harold Arlen uptempo. And on “When I Say,” the precocious scatting of Ella Fitzgerald on a Duke Ellington masterpiece. But she also gives listeners some adroitly refashioned covers—Erykah Badu’s “Green Eyes” and Hubert Laws-Jon Hendricks’ “No More.” She waits until the closing tune, though, “I Thought About You,” to show off her seemingly innate dexterity with a standard melody, the skill that has catapulted her career to the top. She will officially release the album at le poisson rouge on Sept. 9, before she joins the Theo Croker Big Brother Big Band as a soloist at JALC on Sept. 23.
Grammy-winning Brazilian singer/pianist Eliane Elias, also a Concord artist, adds an extra layer of romance to her performance on Love Stories, her latest album, which features a full orchestra and all-English texts. Even with the strings, though, her unswerving feel for a bossa groove remains. The album’s heady Brazilian vibe gets a generous boost from her dynamic supporting players, including longtime collaborator Marc Johnson on bass, along with an impressive constellation of other Latin music stars. Elias returns to Birdland on Sept. 17-21.
Like Elias, Brazilian singer Mauche Audet has enjoyed a long career with some of Brazil’s finest musicians; most notably, she sang with Antonio Carlos Jobim’s ensemble, Banda Nova, from 1984 to 1994, in the last decade, the last ensemble, of his life. Her dedication to Jobim continues: last month she joined with drummer Duduka Da Fonseca and pianist Helio Alves to launch Samba Jazz & Tom Jobim (Sunnyside). She sings on about half of the record, her voice lending vigor and personality to these familiar, heart-warming classics.
Singer Patty Waters’ rich, throaty voice can turns any ballad into the saddest story you ever heard. On her album, Live (Blank Forms Editions), recorded with pianist Burton Greene, she sings nine down-tempo tunes, all heartbreakers like “You’ve Changed” and “Lonely Woman” and “Strange Fruit” and “Moon Don’t Come Out Tonight.” The source of the heartbreak—the death of Cecil Taylor, her compatriot in the avant garde, right before she took the stage—gives the recording added poignancy. Recorded Apr. 5, 2018, this album recalls Sing (ESP-Disk) in 1966, her first recording, also with Burton Greene. In the lead-up to this seminal debut, she’d worked with some of the most innovative jazz musicians of the 1960s: Bill Evans, Charles Mingus, Chick Corea, and Herbie Hancock. She dedicates Live, which drops Sept. 20, to Taylor’s memory.
A longtime devotee of Marion Cowings, Japan-based singer Emi Takada has been gigging internationally for several years now; she regularly performs in Tokyo, Jakarta, Houston, and New York. Her most recent album, Why Did I Choose You? (s/p) celebrates the music of Jon Hendricks and Michel Legrand, among others; on it she shares vocals with her mentor. Takada launches the CD at Birdland on Sept. 19.
New York-based jazz singer Stevlana stepped away momentarily from her hot band, The Delancey Five, to turn out Night at the Movies (s/p), a studio album of beloved movie tunes that captured her imagination as a child growing up in Soviet Russia. She sings from these soundtracks at Joe’s Pub on Sept 21.
Catch these if you can: Vocal jazz legend Sheila Jordan and pianist Steve Kuhn take JALC Dizzy’s by storm in “Lessons from Our Masters” on Sept. 5; shining newcomer Cécile McLoren Salvant brings “The Ogresse”, her original song cycle orchestrated for a 13-piece chamber ensemble and the MIVOS string quartet, to JALC’s Rose Theater on Sept. 27-28; and L.A. jazz singer Judy Wexler culls the best songs from 21st century jazz artists/composers (Gregory Porter, Fred Hersch, Alan Broadbent, Luciana Souza, Rene Marie, Larry Goldings, Lorraine Feather, Kurt Elling, and Sinne Eeg) for Crowded Heart (Jewel City Jazz), slated for its New York release at Kitano on Sept. 20.
(Reprinted from the September 2019 issue of The New York City Jazz Record.)