A Jazz Voice Finds a Mellower Range
This is an inspirational excerpt from a article on Jazz vocalist Sheila Jordan in New York Times . According to Blue Notes she one of the Jazz World’s best kept secrets. Also explore this enlightening feature on NPR .
When the jazz singer Sheila Jordan is in Manhattan, she has ready access to the musicians, clubs and urban energy she has cherished since she moved there nearly 60 years ago to immerse herself in the music she loved.
But when it’s time for Ms. Jordan to learn new music or work on arrangements, she is too conscious of the neighbors around her one-bedroom apartment in Chelsea, her primary residence. So she heads for her farmhouse on the outskirts of Middleburgh, N.Y., west of Albany, where she can sing any time of the day or night without worry.
“When I come up here,” she said, “I feel totally undressed musically. I feel I can try out any kind of idea I have.”
The less-restrained nature of her career in jazz comes out in the stairwell and on the living room walls, where she displays dozens of photographs of the musicians she’s gigged with and befriended, including Charles Mingus, Don Cherry and Sonny Rollins.
Enjoy this heartwarming New York Times Audio slide show
But pride of place goes to the saxophonist Charlie Parker. A poster of him looms over her Yamaha baby grand piano. A 78 recording of “Now’s the Time,” the Parker tune Ms. Jordan discovered on a jukebox in Detroit when she was 14 years old, hangs on the living room wall. “I heard three notes of that tune, and I said, ‘That’s the kind of music I’m going to dedicate my life to,’” she said. “Charlie Parker is the reason I’m singing. ”
By Lisa Phillips © NY.Times
on 04 Jul 2009 at 1:33 pm 1.Michele said …
Music, the last solace when everything else fails…
thank you for talking about her music; it brought a big smile to my face.
“Jazz is an intensified feeling of nonchalance.”
- Françoise Sagan