Finding Her Home In Jazz

I started singing when I was, I wanna say when I was in fifth grade. The first song I sang was definitely in church, but it might have been like, "Oh Happy Day." And then in fifth grade I had my first solo on a Jordin Sparks song, and in middle school I did musical theater and was in plays and was in choir and everything. But I didn't start singing jazz until really the end of high school. There was a band teacher who asked if I would be a part of the band and sing a couple of songs, just for school performances and things like that, so I agreed. I only knew one standard and I didn't even explore further than that, so I guess my introduction was then. But I didn't explore further until I actually got to college and went for jazz studies, which sounds completely opposite, but I was there, and I was immersed in it, and I was surrounded by musicians who loved it, and it made me want to learn more about it. The fact that I'm a born and bred New Yorker and I didn't know about this music in this community, it just made me wanna explore.

I also have my favorites from pop music, both older and contemporary. I'd done a couple of gigs with my dad, doing a string of just different kinds of songs - R&B hits and pop hits and things like that. So, I was definitely familiar with it, but I don't think that it was ever a part of what I wanted to do. It's no disrespect to the genre, but I feel - and I was thinking about this recently - it's like, I feel so at home in jazz and in singing jazz. I feel like I can grow and I can explore because every time I listen to a musician or a singer I feel inspired and I'm like, okay, I can grab what they've done and contributed to the music and sort of add my own thing. But it's still inspiring. It's like, this is the origin of it, this is where it comes from. This is like the essence of jazz. And I'm thinking about Carmen McRae and Sarah Vaughan and musicians that I love, like Phineas Newborn and Wynton Kelly - listening to them, I'm like, this is so inspiring that they were able to basically create this genre, and I feel at home in it.

A New Voice For A New Album

When we went into the studio, I had been on tour for a while. I started going on tour in June or July of 2021, and by the time we went into the studio, it was March of 2022. I don't think we had chosen a label yet at that point - we were still like, okay, we're gonna pay for the album ourselves and then shop it around, and hopefully the advance that we get pays for the album.

But expectations versus reality - well, I knew that I was like, this is the sophomore album and the first one did surprisingly well in the midst of a pandemic. But it was also recorded in October of 2020, and I felt, at least when I listened to it, it's like, I feel like a baby. My voice is underdeveloped compared to what I've been able [to do now]...and it's still developing, but developing on tour and on the road and stuff like that. Like, hearing me singing in October of 2020 versus this album it's like night and day, at least for me.

I mean, [it's been] a lot of gigs in a short time, and a lot of time to learn and to explore and play and add new repertoire. And so, when it came time to go into the studio, I was like, okay, what have I added to the repertoire? What do I want different? And I had been playing with guitar up until that point, and there's still guitar on the album. But I connected with a piano player who was also on the record, and I also invited a couple of my friends from SUNY Purchase, where I graduated from undergrad, to come and arrange. Although they arranged four songs for me, only one horn arrangement made it onto the record. It's with tenor saxophone, trombone, and trumpet.

"Can't Get Out Of This Mood"

I really love the way the story flows and the way it describes being in that feeling of being in love and getting butterflies from seeing a person. But the specific moment that I highlighted is this part of the song:

The thrill should have been all gone by today in the usual way
But it's only your arms I'm out of.

So I was like, this is a perfect romantic kind of thing - it's like, I should be over this… and I think about it like myself as like I'm from the Bronx, I shouldn't be getting feelings like this, but instead it's caught me. There's another song called "It Could Happen To You," and it's like:

Hide your heart from sight, lock your dreams at night
It could happen to you.

So it also made me think of that song.

I feel great about "Can't Get Out Of This Mood" because when I heard it, similar to how I find a lot of songs, I was like, this is so sweet, this is so cool. And the singer who interpreted it, that I heard it from, was Sarah Vaughan, and she captured the vibe of the song so well. Because sometimes, it's like some singers sing a sad song, but then they sing it fast, and it's like this doesn't make any sense. Like I'm torn between the message and the attitude that you put on the song and everything. But she just captured the essence of it so well, and I wanted to try to do that same thing for people and kind of reintroduce the song, but hopefully convey the same feeling that Sarah Vaughan did.

Interpreting "'Round Midnight"

I learned the song in school as a part of repertoire class, and I was like, okay, this is a beautiful melody. It's very popular, I listened to Ella sing it, it is gorgeous. But the song resonated with me the most when I heard Carmen McRae on this TV show called Jazz Casual, and she sang it, but she sang it with Jon Hendricks' lyrics - he's a lyricist of vocalese, and he used to write lyrics over solos and things like that. But he wrote alternate lyrics to "'Round Midnight," and I was like, the melody is great on its own but having it combined with those lyrics, it was just so deep. And I noticed that those lyrics aren't often recorded. So if I'm gonna do a version of the most popular song, one of the most recorded standards, I might as well do the lyrics that nobody's heard before, even though they recognize the melody.

Choosing Songs

I only choose songs that I resonate with. But I do know that in the history of being a jazz singer, most times you go into the studio and they choose all the songs for you. So some of my favorite records, they didn't choose their own songs. They were just like, okay, go into the studio, sing these 10 or 15 songs, and they made them all sound amazing.

So at the same time, maybe I can take a song that I don't necessarily resonate with at first. And it's like, how can I make this, if it's already a good song from the start. It's almost like a challenge, 'cause if I don't like the song, like the lyric content or anything like that, then I just won't do it. But if it's a song where it's a solid composition and the lyrics are okay, what can I do, if I can do anything, to make this come to life so it's not just notes on a page.

Playing The Newport Jazz Festival

It was a very sweet moment because it was a long time coming, in that I won the Sarah Vaughan competition, and the Newport Jazz Festival was a part of my winnings. I won the competition in 2019, and I was supposed to play in the summer of 2020, and then it didn't happen. In 2021, it was scaled down a lot, so I didn't go back to perform then. So, two years later, I finally get the chance to perform, and I honestly feel like it's for the best, because I definitely wasn't as mature, and I'm still growing, but I wasn't as mature then in what I wanted to do and in my repertoire and in my voice as I feel like I am now. It definitely all worked out for the best. But it was like, okay, it's finally happening. It's like this thing that was once in the distant future, it's coming up on me. And when we got out of the car and walked over to our little green room, I was like, I can't believe I'm here.

There's something special about being there. And a lot of artists are also on tour and are also doing their own thing, so for us to be able to be gathered like that in one place, it was really, really surreal. Like people I follow on Instagram and have seen from time to time, but never got the chance to meet in person or people I haven't seen in a long time, and I got to see them again there. I was running into so many people at the Newport Jazz Festival, it was ridiculous. But it was great. It was really great.

How She Maintains Her Energy On Tour

It's so intense - that's the way somebody described it earlier the other day. It was like, "How is touring - is it intense?" And I was like, "Intense is the perfect word." But I find that drinking a lot of water and making sure to eat as healthily as possible and getting greens and fresh food whenever possible, as well as maintaining my voice - I bought a mini keyboard and I haul it in a Patagonia backpack so that when I get to the hotel room, I can practice my skills and exercises and stuff like that in order to maintain agility. It's the simple things, like rest, drink water, hydrate, and maintain.

I actually just took a virtual lesson with this classical singer, his name is Michael Trimble, and he's 85 years old, and he's still singing. I mean, he has a very, very powerful voice. And that always fascinated me too. It's like with classical singers, they had to sing over orchestras and they had long careers with the same healthy voice that they started with. So it's like, how do you do that? How do you produce? How do you practice healthy vocal production? I learned a lot from him in that lesson as well about maintaining the voice and hopefully I can apply those same tips so that I can keep on singing.

September 20, 2022

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Photos: Meredith Truax

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