She performed at top venues all over the world, and packed them to the hilt. (Or rather, some might say all the jazz greats had the pleasure of working with Ella.) She worked with all the jazz greats, from Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Nat King Cole, to Frank Sinatra, Dizzy Gillespie and Benny Goodman. She could sing sultry ballads, sweet jazz and imitate every instrument in an orchestra. ![]() Her voice was flexible, wide-ranging, accurate and ageless. In her lifetime, she won 13 Grammy awards and sold over 40 million albums. And this was just before she referenced that people born in the ‘50s and ‘60s are old, while audience members likely born in the ‘40s exchanged glances.Dubbed “The First Lady of Song,” Ella Fitzgerald was the most popular female jazz singer in the United States for more than half a century. Even in a presumably jazz-seasoned audience, it was a bit too much for the room to master and embrace. It didn’t help that in “East Of the Sun (And West Of the Moon),” the men’s part came in on a half beat, a couple of beats after the women’s part. Still, even with her vibrant presence, Horn struggled to get the older-trending Spoleto audience to sing along during two different songs. Horn is clearly the band leader - all eyes follow her as she moves about the stage, contorting her face to match the sounds she’s creating. She thanked her band for letting her “float and be free, musically,” a perfect description of her role. Likewise, introducing each member of the band five times (including twice in the final number), seemed like a crutch. Near the show’s conclusion, she admitted to a “brain fart” while trying to remember the closing song she wanted to play. Her presence was relaxed, perhaps even to a fault. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts alum Erykah Badu. Her African dress and head-tie - complemented by matching Ankh earrings and a pendant on her microphone - recalled her fellow Booker T. ![]() Throughout her set, Horn remained loose and expressive. It was meaningful and well intentioned, and all over the place. The closing medley of “Lift Every Voice and Sing/Moanin’” revisited her activist intentions, referencing guns in schools, police brutality, Flint, Michigan’s water crisis (twice), and “spraying our neighborhoods with chemicals and drones.” If she’d lost any listeners with that litany, she brought them back by referencing the Emanuel massacre just across the street, improvising a message to Charleston that concluded by encouraging listeners to consider the less fortunate while eating their dinner. The song then cited a laundry list of the planet’s ills, from private prisons to nuclear waste to GMO seeds. To introduce the concert’s third song, “People Make the World Go Round,” she made the case that sometimes feeling hatred is the only way to express love. She’s not here to make us comfortable, and even teased audience members about falling asleep before her lone ballad.Īt 27-years-old, Horn is using her platform to create awareness and spread hope. Some notes come off as shrill, grating screams, but that’s Horn’s intention. Each scat trance eventually landed on a powerful note, reminding us that she’s far more than a sound effect artist - she’s one of the world’s best jazz singers.Įxperimentation comes with risk, however. She skillfully and innately adjusted its distance from her mouth to modulate volume. Her microphone was more than a conduit as she ran her fingers up and down the cord, mimicking the valves on a horn. ![]() ![]() That meant a whole lot more than just bopping along - Horn’s vocalizations included tribal yells, upper-register squeaks and animal noises that sounded like a stroll around the zoo. Over nearly two hours, she wowed the audience with her rapid-fire vocal improvisations, using her voice as the leading seventh instrument to jam with her talented sextet (including a trio of horns). But everyone in attendance at the Gaillard on Monday night is thinking and talking about Jazzmeia today. Jazzmeia Horn’s debut album garnered a Grammy nomination, yet outside of the jazz community, she’s not a household name.
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