Biography of Jazzmeia Horn

Award-winning vocalist Jazzmeia Horn announces her ever-expanding talents with the release of her first big-band effort, Dear Love, a recording that brims with the combination of her assured delivery and spoken world segments, deft arrangements and fiery musical ideas.

While the album functions as a platform for Horn to showcase both her perception of the world and her endlessly unfolding talents, it also granted the composer a setting to expound on personal experiences, shuttling them through a sui generis musical prism.

“‘Where We Are’ really speaks on my history — where my ancestors have been and where we are now,” Horn said about a track filigreed with strings from the new album, which is set for release Sept. 10 on the vocalist’s own Empress Legacy Records. “All of our actions now will determine our future, and all of our actions in the past have determined our present. We know that. Based on what we do now, that's how we create a better future for our children and for future generations. It’s important because not a lot of people think about that. We've got global warming and all these other problems because people want to do what they want to do without thinking about the repercussions.”

Elsewhere on Dear Love, Horn swings on an interpretation of classics “He’s My Guy” and “Lover Come Back to Me”; displays her vocal range and ability to summon the emotional content of her writing on the slinky “Let Us”; contemplates purpose on the subtle and intriguing “NIA”; and closes the album with “Where is Freedom!?,” a tune deeply rooted in a vamp that would have suited Nina Simone.

Horn said the 15-piece Noble Force ensemble she put together for Dear Love revolved around her regular rhythm section — pianist Keith Brown, bassist Eric Wheeler and drummer Anwar Marshall — which had played the tunes collected here in different arrangements while on the road. Saxophonist Bruce Williams’ leadership in the alto section also was indispensable to the album’s full realization.

“Strive,” a stately composition from the record focused upon Horn’s soaring vocal and her ensemble’s plangent horns, finds the bandleader proclaiming determination and power atop a recondite arrangement, expertly navigated by the Noble Force.

“‘Strive’ is my mantra right now, because there's so much going on in the world,” Horn said. “For me personally, I’m a mom, I’m buying a new house, my children are starting school, there's paperwork for everything. The pressure is pressing, and I'm like, ‘OK, strive.’ So many people relate to that idea. When I shared the song with a friend who lives in Texas, she was like, ‘I have bills piled up. I just finished college and my student loans are hanging over my head, and my job is not really doing anything for me.’ She said that listening to that song really helped her to get through the day. And that's what I want for everybody.”

Pianist Sullivan Fortner — who’s earned acclaim as a bandleader, as well as a savvy accompanist — has had a front-row view of Horn’s development as an artist. And while Dear Love arrives as an essential artistic statement from the vocalist, after a decade of friendship with the singer, he hears something very familiar.

“She’s always had a very strong personality, a very strong work ethic, and those things are really shining through,” said the pianist, who served as musical director for Dear Love. “She marches to the beat of her own drum; she does what she wants to do. I would say she hasn’t changed drastically [during the years we’ve known each other], there's just certain things about her that have been enhanced: Her musicality has been enhanced; her knowledge of leading a band has been enhanced; understanding what it is she wants from her musicians; and what she demands of herself.”

The 30-year-old composer initially devised a plan for the recording and delivered the concept to Concord, the imprint that released her pair of previously lauded leader dates. Horn pulled songs from a stack of 50 compositions amassed over time, selected members of her ensemble and looked into the ideal studio setting. But the imprint wasn’t interested, despite the vocalist’s contract calling for a third album.

With experience from her time at the major label, leading her own troupe, as well as previously working with historic European ensembles like Cologne's WDR Big Band and The Netherlands' Metropole Orkest, Dear Love came together with the assuredness of a veteran orchestrator.

“I'm a very hands-on type of artist,” Horn said, discussing her time with Concord and what she’d gleaned during her run with the label. “I knew one day, I wasn't gonna have a record company behind me.”

Forging ahead on her own could have proved difficult, given the demands as a newly minted label head and vizier of the grand enterprise. Parallel efforts to publish a book detailing her vocal technique and helping to produce a documentary that followed the making of Dear Love somehow also slotted into Horn’s schedule.

The album, film and book come on the heels of two widely praised long-players, A Social Call and Love and Liberation, which each garnered Grammy nominations in the Best Jazz Vocal Album category. Assessing a live performance around the time her debut was released, The New York Times noted that “she’s possessed of some distinctive tools, all of which were on display: a pinched, sassy tone in the highest register; a fondness for unguarded duets with her bassist … ; an array of rough, pealing nonverbal sounds that add drama to codas and interludes, hinting at meanings in the music that go beyond what fits on the page.”

The reaction to Horn’s work shouldn’t be a surprise, though. By the time her first album was released, she’d collected top honors at the 2013 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition and the 2015 Thelonious Monk Institute International Jazz Competition.

But Horn’s talents emerged in Dallas, Texas, and blossomed at an arts-focused high school. Through both unfettered determination and inherent skill, the young singer traversed a singular path, raising funds through performance for her eventual matriculation to The New School. Once ensconced in New York, Horn held down a waitstaff position during the first two years of her education, precariously balancing artistic pursuits, the demands of academia and a thankless job.

The following years, residing in New York and touring the world, revealed a restless aesthetic development that’s defined Horn’s still-burgeoning career. And while Dear Love might seem to be the work of an avowed veteran, the bandleader still has more of herself, her music and her ideas to explore.

“I tried to figure out how the songs can be in alignment with what's true to me and what's true in my reality as a Black woman, but then also be relatable to anyone who’s not part of my culture,” Horn said. “I went through my list of charts and said, ‘OK, which of these songs really speaks to love in multiple ways — love for my community, love for my culture, love for my partner, love for my children, love for myself.  Which one of these songs is going to speak on all of those different things?’ These songs are love letters to everyone.”

QUOTES FROM THE CRITICS

“On her poised and pugnacious second album,Jazzmeia Hornslips free of lingering comparisons —to Betty Carter, Sarah Vaughan and other jazz-vocal touchstones —by sharpening the angle of attack. Her singing is exuberant, her original songs reveal a sturdy intellect, and her message is nothing less than everything the title implies.”
NPR Music's Top 12 Albums of August

“If nomenclature is destiny, Jazzmeia Horn was indeed born to swing. Maturing in what is proving to be a renaissance period for female jazz singers, Horn—who has won in both the Thelonious Monk and Sarah Vaughan vocal-jazz competitions—holds her own as an assured and spunky interpreter of song.”
The New Yorker

“Love and Liberation cements her as the next big carrier of straight-ahead jazz’s vocal tradition.”
The New York Times“

The album clearly reflects deeper reserves of experience for Horn, who has spent the last couple of years almost perpetually on tour —honing her skills not only as a performer but also as a bandleader, after the example of a prominent role model, Betty Carter.”
WBGO.org

“If there’s a breakout star, it is the charismatic 28-year-old vocalist Jazzmeia Horn, whose given name seems to have preordained her for an improvisational life. She positively ruled the stage at her SFJazz Center performance last month kicking off theSanFrancisco Jazz Festival, scatting with the agility of an Olympic gymnast and delivering ballads with simmering intensity and exquisite precision.”
San Francisco Chronicle

“...one of jazz’s brightest young stars, playing to big crowds in Europe and Asia andearning rave reviews from critics and peers alike...a strong album, cut from the same fabric asA Social Call, with Horn’s hypnotic voice recalling Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan in their prime. It’s also a creative step forward, with Horn writing eight of the songs.”
Dallas Morning News

“For Horn, expressing her truth is a crucial aspect of her artistry and at the crux ofLove and Liberation. The album, she says, is a call to action, a plea for people to be honest with themselves and learn to love who they are. Intrinsically one to dance to her own beat, Horn relishes the opportunity to share her sense of self with listeners, to an even greater extent, on the new album.”
JAZZIZ

“...a supremely gifted jazz singer...” ****1/2AllMusic“It’s a meld of original compositions rooted in community and lived experiences. The standout cover ‘Green Eyes’ is an ode to her fellow Dallas sister Erykah Badu, and ‘No More’is Horn’s testimonial about embracing her beauty as a Black woman.”
Texas Monthly

“Jazzmeia Horn makes a bold move with her muchanticipated sophomore album, Love and Liberation...It’s rare that singers of Horn’s caliber can write as well as they sing but Horn does just that.”
The New York City Jazz Record

“...one of the most talked-about singers tocome on the scene in years.”
Hot House Jazz

“The next coveted award may be coming her way soon. This not only hasGrammy-nominated potential; it could clearly win.”
Glide Magazine

“OnLove and Liberation, Jazzmeia Horn breaks free of the constraints of vocal jazz, offering a mature album of original music that speaks to self-love, self-expression, and perhaps most importantly, the courage to love unconditionally.”
Black Grooves

“One thing’s clear from Jazzmeia Horn’s follow-up to her blockbuster 2017 debut album, the Grammy-nominatedA Social Call: She is no fluke. She is one heck of a powerhouse of a jazz singer —a real jazz singer at that —who has a brilliant future in front of her.”
Toledo Blade

“a major leap forward...Ms. Horn is luminously bright, even radiant, and full of infectious youthful energy.”
The Citiview New York

“Horn and her talented core of sidemen really flip the script on this version, transforming Badu’s mournful dirge about envy and unrequited love into a swinging waltz that features some high-quality piano creativity and Horn’s vocal flights of fancy.”
SoulTracks on “Green Eyes”

“Love and Liberationis an excellent reflection of Jazzmeia Horn’s musical identity as well as an explicit testament to her creative skills.”
Sounds of Timeless Jazz

“in a class by herself...America’smost exciting new hope in jazz vocals, someone who is both bandleader and vocalist and so much more. Deliverance is here.”

Bentley’s Bandstand

“Fans of such legendary jazz singers as Sarah Vaughan, Abbey Lincoln and Betty Carter —and more contemporary standouts including Cassandra Wilson, Cécile McLorin Salvant and neo-soul singer Erykah Badu —will likely discover a lot to love about Jazzmeia Horn.”
Rutland Hera