(Reprinted from the January 2025 issue of New York City Jazz Record. Photo by Tormius.)
This will be my final VoxNews column for New York City Jazz Record, an assignment that I first took on in 2007. The assignment, as I understood it then and understand it now, is to report on the happenings in the vocal jazz world, with an eye to guiding the reader-listener through the many manifestations of this art form. Along the way I learned much more than expected and had quite a lot of fun in the learning. I am proud of what VoxNews has become under my watch, and I would be remiss if I did not also give credit to Tessa Souter, who originated the column, and Katie Bull, who held the VoxNews pen for two years in the early 2010s. I’ve yet to discover any other journalistic enterprise that focuses exclusively on vocal jazz; for this reason, I believe that this column occupies a special place in music journalism.
Lest anyone is fretting: VoxNews isn’t going anywhere. But it will necessarily be different going forward. Before we look forward, though, I’d like to take look back at how jazz singing has evolved since I first started writing about it.
In the early 2000s, jazz standards (newly labeled “traditional pop”) were enjoying a post-rock resurgence in popularity, led by singers like Diana Krall and Michael Bublé. Superstar Norah Jones covered standards as well, always including one or two on her syncretic, chart-busting albums. Suffice it to say that it had been a long while since such self-identified jazz singers had seen this kind of commercial success.
With this success, rising traditional jazz singers found ever more receptive audiences. Singers like Catherine Russell, who had been working as a backup singer for the likes of Madonna, Steely Dan, and David Bowie when she decided to go solo in 2006. In less than a decade she had turned out multiple jazz albums and begun touring internationally as one of our most gifted Songbook interpreters. This year she’s earned her third Grammy nomination, for My Ideal (Dot Time), an intimate take on some less-often-heard standards. Russell appears at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola (Jan. 12).
Likewise, Kurt Elling’s career ratcheted upward in the early 2000s, with a Concord Jazz contract in 2006 that led to his first Grammy win, for Dedicated to You: Kurt Elling Sings the Music of Coltrane and Hartman, a live recording of American Songbook classics. This year’s Grammy nomination (his 15th) is for SuperBlue: The Iridescent Spree (Edition Records). You can hear him at Birdland (Jan. 8-11).
Elling’s Superblue project—a masterful foray into alternative jazz—exemplifies a growing musical trend among jazz vocalists. For many of them, reconfiguring jazz standards is merely a starting point; they also seek to write their own material, taken collectively as the New American Standards.
For multiple Grammy winner Cécile McLorin Salvant—who first stepped out as a jazz singer in 2007—sophisticated jazz originals have been key to her to astonishing professional ascent. Since winning the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition in 2010, Salvant has released seven albums, each a showcase for her eclectic material and riveting performances. In her varied Carnegie Hall Perspectives series last fall, Salvant displayed the breadth of this enormous talent; this month she concertizes at Yale University (Jan. 25).
Notably, Salvant’s experience underscores the importance that vocal competitions now play in launching jazz singers’ careers. Take the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition,inaugurated only in 2012. Since then, this scat-focused challenge has identified scores of phenomenal jazz singers, Jazzmeia Horn (2013) and Samara Joy (2019) among them. Most intriguing, these relative newcomers represent a shift in how today’s jazz singers approach their craft: Though well-versed in the standards of the Vaughan decades, they eagerly participate in formulating innovative, genre-agnostic music. In this, they compose, lead, produce, and handily finesse social media. Through these activities—related to but removed from singing—they harness a creative freedom that is wholly unprecedented.
With this, I hand over the ongoing observation of these fascinating changes to Tessa Souter, a tremendous singer in her own right. As my parting salvo, I would like to thank NYCJR founder and editor, Laurence Donohue-Greene, who has always demonstrated such keen insight into vocal jazz as he works tirelessly in service to our jazz community—he is a true leader in his advocacy for vocal musicians. To you, Laurence, and to my readers during these 15 years as the VoxNews columnist, I extend my most heartfelt appreciation. I will miss you.