Trio of top singers comes to Stanford
Concerts feature musical theater, pop and jazz performers
Stanford hasn’t exactly cornered the market on powerhouse vocalists this weekend, but the university should be feeling bullish. Presenting three women in the intimate Bing Studio, Stanford Live hits its midsemester stride with a diverse roster of singers united by abundant star power.
From the world of musical theater and cabaret, Marin Mazzie kicks off the party with two shows Friday. The three-time Tony Award nominee and 2017 Theater Hall of Fame inductee is drawing on material from her 35-year career on stage, a run that includes creating the role of Clara in Stephen Sondheim’s “Passion” and her award-winning turn as Lilli/Katharine in “Kiss Me, Kate.”
On Saturday, Australian power-pop singer Queenie van de Zandt, a veteran musical theater and cabaret performer, brings “Blue: The Songs of Joni Mitchell” to the Bing for two shows. More than a collection of Mitchell’s music, the production focuses on the songwriter’s most confessional pieces, framed by the stories behind her most penetrating lyrics.
Sunday features the rapidly rising Jazzmeia Horn, a gifted 26-year-old jazz singer from Sallamaking her Bay Area debut. The Dallas native has been racking up prestigious awards in recent years, including first place at the 2013 Sarah Vaughan International
Jazz Vocal Competition and top honors at the Thelonious Monk Institute International Jazz Competition in 2015.
The Monk triumph led directly to her 2017 debut album “A Social Call” (Prestige), which was nominated for a Grammy and voted the best jazz vocal debut in the 2017 NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll. Horn may have had an inkling the album would be well received, but she got an unexpected boost from the Winter Olympics when gold medal-winning Russian ice skater Alina Zagitova used her recording of “Afro-Blue” in a routine.
While she wasn’t particularly interested in the Olympics,
Horn admits to getting a thrill knowing that her song was heard by people all over the world. “She was dancing to my voice, my arrangement, my music,” says Horn, who also performs Monday at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center in Santa Cruz. “Everybody started contacting me. Life has been on a very high vibration. A couple of weeks before that, it was performing at the Grammys. So many blessings keep pouring in.”
Hailing from a family brimming with musicians, Horn credits her mother with providing her first vocal inspiration. By the age of 3, she was performing in her church choir, but it
wasn’t until high school in Dallas that a music teacher turned her attention to jazz. “He said, your name’s Jazzmeia, you should at least know about jazz music, even if you’re not interested,” she recalls.
Supplied with a mixtape, she started getting acquainted with Sarah Vaughan and Carmen McRae, Etta Jones, Nat “King” Cole and Eddie Jefferson. As she got interested in singing jazz, she initially imitated Vaughan, bewitched by her sound and sassy attitude. A stint in the Jazz Ahead program founded by the late jazz singer Betty Carter “made me open up, be even more
of myself,” she says.
“I like Nancy Wilson’s storytelling, and Nina Simone’s strength and drive, Betty Carter’s playfulness and joy, Sarah Vaughan’s tone, Carmen’s diction and Shirley Horn’s phrasing. I take bits and pieces from everybody to create my own style and just develop from there.”
By all indications, Horn is growing by leaps and bounds. A dedicated songwriter, she plans to focus on original material on her second album. As a bandleader, she’s attracted an impressive cast of young players since moving to New York in 2009. For her California gigs she’s joined
by drummer Henry Conerway III, bassist Barry Stephenson and pianist Keith Brown, the son of pianist Donald Brown, a former member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and frequent collaborator with alto sax star Kenny Garrett.
With two young daughters, 1 and 3 years old, Horn has her hands full. She was pregnant with her first girl and performing on New Year’s Eve when her water broke, necessitating a quick exit and no encores. She writes her own arrangements, a process she finds “very difficult but so worth it,” she says.
“You write a chart out with exactly what you want the musicians to play, but giving them the freedom to express themselves, too. If you have the musicians to interpret the vibrations and spirit, when you get that moment on the stage, there’s nothing on the planet like it.”