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| Jazzmeia Horn A Social Call Prestige PRS 00112 |
It should be no surprise that twenty-six-year old jazz
vocalist Jazzmeia Horn is one of the most impressive new voices on the music scene
today. In 2013, then twenty-two-year old Horn won the impressive Sarah Vaughan
International Jazz Competition. Then again in 2015 she captured the even more impressive
Thelonious Monk Institute International Jazz Competition, which led to a
recording contract with the historic Prestige label and her debut album A Social Call. While the title references
Gigi Gryce’s composition Social Call – a
song about a one on one interaction between two individual people trying to
find a connection-Horn has expanded the concept of “social” on this album to be
a timely call for social responsibility.
The woman has a beautiful, supple vocal instrument with a
tremendous range and an intonation that has elements of some of her
influences-Sarah Vaughan, Betty Carter and Nancy Wilson. She recorded this
album while she was still pregnant with her daughter. There is a matriarchal strength
to the way she sings some of the songs on the album like the gospel tinged “Lift
Every Voice and Sing/Moanin’,” (which features a steamin’ trumpet solo by Josh
Evans).
I was especially moved by her poignant and spectral rendition of Jimmy
Rowles’ haunting classic “The Peacocks,” a beautiful song that is not an easy to
sing well. Victor Gould should be
singled out for his intuitively sensitive rendition of Rowles shimmering pianistic
beauty and how well he comps Ms. Horn’s performance. Ms. Horn’s high register
inflections at the coda are perhaps the only evidence of her showing some excess
of technique where less is warranted.
The opening tune is a splendidly authentic version of Betty
Carter’s gymnastic “Tight.” It’s especially grand to hear her elastic rapport
with Stacy Dillard’s fluid tenor. She shows equal affinity to the pliable bass
work of Ben Williams on her duet openings of “East of the Sun, West of the Moon”
and on the title tune “Social Call.” Ms. Horn has an easy, unforced scat style
that is instrumental at heart and her unique phrasing emotes a deep
understanding of the meaning of a finely crafted lyric. She clearly has a gift for the art, but scatting is best served in tasteful moderation, so as she gestates her vocal personality I am sure she will become more judicious in its use as she matures. The horn section of Dillard
on tenor, Josh Evans on trumpet and Frank Lacy on trombone is tight, bright and
swinging in the tradition of Cannonball Adderley’s work with Nancy Wilson.
Ms. Horn’s heartening monologue on the intro to the
Stylistic’s “People Make the World Go Round,” her gospel/free-form
vocalizations- in communication with the African drum and percussion work of Jerome
Jennings-that Ms. Horn contribute to “Afro Blue/Eye See You/Wade in the Water," gives the album its’ social context. Ms. Horn’s high register squeaks and
trills remind me of the expressive yodeling work of Leon Thomas and her spoken
word sections conjures up the poetic work of Abbey Lincoln and Nina Simone. There
is no doubt that she has been studying her vocal history in all its splendid
variations. Her voice holds great prospect for the future. Not only has she
absorbed these traditions, she has enough vocal discipline and range to pull off the
most difficult of these techniques and enough personal assurance to make the
end-product sound like her own invention.
Ms. Horn does her own take on the Scherzinger/Mercer pop
classic “I Remember You” and on the soulful “I’m Going Down” originally sung by
Rose Royce, on the influential soundtrack to the movie Car Wash. Ms. Horn and her formidable horn section make this last
one a rousing exclamation point to this wonderful album. I for one will be
looking forward to hearing more from this promising young artist
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