Jazz musician Fulton living in double time in 2017
New York jazz pianist and singer Champian Fulton is not surprised to be in Saskatoon in December. She seems to end up in cooler climes this time of year — like Yukon and Mongolia.
The Oklahoma native is the daughter of jazz trumpeter and educator Stephen Fulton, which has its perks; one of her father’s friends was the legendary Clark Terry. Her first professional gig was playing at his 75th birthday party. She was 10.
A jazz missionary, Fulton talks about her name, her year and her upcoming show.
Q: Tell me about your unique first name.
A: I wish I had a better story for it. My parents had it in their mind that they would have a son, and they thought Champion was such a good name for a boy. So they thought they’d just change the ‘o’ to an ‘a’ and now it’s a girl’s name.
Q: It’s good for your business,
it’s easy to Google. A: That’s true. I do very well in search engine optimization.
Q: Was there any doubt in your mind that you would become a professional musician?
A: Basically, by the time I was eight or nine, it was all I wanted to do. I got involved very early on and I was very committed.
Q: It’s not an easy way to make a living.
A: I never thought about that, but it’s certainly not an easy craft to pursue. There’s many, many different things and endless progress can be made. It’s a lifelong pursuit. I like that part of it.
Q: Looking back on 2017, what are the highlights?
A: The most amazing thing this year is that I released three CDs, which is the most I’ve ever released in a year. And they were all big, important projects to me. The first one, Speechless, came out in February. It’s a trio album, piano, bass and drums. I wrote all the tunes and it’s an all-instrumental album. Then in March I got called by this record label in Spain to come over and do a series of concerts with Scott Hamilton, the great tenor saxophone player. They wanted to record the very first concert (The Things We Did Last Summer). And then I kind of got this idea that I wanted to make a Christmas record.
Q: How often do you travel?
A: I go to Europe four or five times a year. Two big tours of the States, spring and fall. I spend more than half my time travelling, away from home. I really like it, though. I really love being on the road. It’s my favourite thing because you get to see so many wonderful things and new sights, new people every day. I find that it’s creatively inspiring, it keeps you fresh.
Q: When you’re playing a new place for the first time, how do you handle the uncertainty?
A: That’s fine. To me, I like the newness of it. My most comfortable place is definitely on stages, and stages and the idea of interacting with audiences are the same all over the world. So even though it’s new, it’s very comfortable for me.
Q: Tell me about the show you’ll be doing here.
A: It’ll be a quartet: sax, bass, drums and myself. We’ll definitely do some Christmas music but not an entire holiday show. I love the great American songbook so we’ll be playing a lot of jazz standards. And we’ll probably be trying some new material because we’ll be going into the studio to make a new record the week after we’re in Saskatoon. I
like all my shows to be feel-good, make people have a good time and feel happier than when they came in.
Q: What do you think about the future of jazz? What’s it going to take to keep it growing ?
A: Jazz is the most important thing to me in my life. I want to be an advocate for the music, I want to share the music with people and I think that’s what it takes to keep it alive. I think we just need to keep it in front of people.
Champian Fulton is big on social media and plans to post her show on Facebook Live. Check out
facebook.com/champianfulton