MUSIC CLIP - OSCAR PETERSON, “MOONGLOW”
Welcome to Afterglow, a show of vocal jazz and popular song from the Great American Songbook, I’m your host, Mark Chilla.
It’s that time of year again. The 65th annual Grammy Awards are on Sunday, February 5th, and this week on the show, I’ll be doing my annual preview of some of the vocal jazz nominees in various categories. We’ll preview some of the nominees for Best Jazz Vocal album, which includes some familiar Afterglow favorites like Samara Joy and Cecile McLorin Salvant. Plus, we’ll hear some jazz singers who show up in other categories, like best jazz instrumental album and best traditional pop album.
It’s a 2023 Grammy Award Preview, coming up next on Afterglow
MUSIC - TERRI LYNN CARRINGTON, FEAT. SAMARA JOY, “TWO HEARTS (LAWNS)”
Singer Samara Joy with the song “Two Hearts (Lawns),” written by pianist Carla Bley and drummer Terri Lyne Carrington. That comes from Carrington’s album New Standards, Vol. 1, an album featuring all songs by women jazz songwriters, and a nominee for the Best Jazz Instrumental Album Grammy Award. We’ll hear more from Samara Joy later this hour.
MUSIC CLIP - TERRI LYNE CARRINGTON, “IMA”
Mark Chilla here on Afterglow. On this show, it’s our annual preview of some of the vocal jazz nominees for the upcoming Grammy Awards.
The nominees for the Best Jazz Vocal Album this year are all veterans to the category, with one notable exception, which I’ll get to later. But first, I’ll start with who I imagine is the frontrunner in this category, the marvelous Cecile McLorin Salvant.
I’m not the only one to sing Salvant’s praises. This is her fifth nomination in this particular category, and she’s won the award three times already, the last time in 2019 for her album The Window. Salvant also won this past year’s DownBeat Readers Poll for Best Female Vocalist. Her latest album Ghost Song features a combination of originals and offbeat covers, all exploring themes of ghosts and nostalgia. Salvant described the album as a reflection of her “weirdness” and her “personality as an eclectic curator.” And parts of the album are weird—but in a good way! A fascinatingly curious way.
Here’s one of the less-weird songs on the album. It’s a cover of a song written by Sting in 2001 for the soundtrack for the film Kate and Leopold. This is Cecile McLorin Salvant with “Until,” on Afterglow.
MUSIC - CECILE MCLORIN SALVANT, “UNTIL”
Cecile McLorin Salvant with the song “Until,” written by Sting. That comes from her Grammy-nominated album Ghost Song. Her band there, who seemed to be channeling a bit of Chick Corea and Return to Forever, features Sullivan Fortner on piano, Alexa Tarantino on flute, James Chirillo on banjo, and Keita Ogawa on percussion.
The next nominee for the Best Jazz Vocal album Grammy I want to feature this hour is the Baylor Project, aka the husband and wife duo of vocalist Jean Baylor and drummer and arranger Marcus Baylor. This is their third nomination in this category, and their album is a live album called The Evening recorded at the New York City design studio APPARATUS. The duo exhibits an incredibly warm and inviting atmosphere on the record, evoking jazz, gospel, and R&B.
Here’s part of their set closer. This is the Baylor Project with “Love Makes Me Sing,” on Afterglow
MUSIC - BAYLOR PROJECT, “LOVE MAKES ME SING”
The Baylor Project live in New York City with “Love Makes Me Sing,” a track from their album The Evening, one of the nominees in the Best Jazz Vocal album category for this year’s Grammy Awards.
The biggest outlier in this category this year is the album Fifty from the legendary jazz vocal group The Manhattan Transfer. Not only is this the only album from a vocal group, rather than a solo singer, it’s also an album that self-consciously looks back instead of forward in jazz, reflecting on the now fifty-year legacy of the Manhattan Transfer on vocal jazz music. Here, they’ve taken many of their beloved arrangements and reworked them for Orchestra, featuring the West German Broadcasting Radio Orchestra.
Here is a track from that album now, a song which the group originally recorded a cappella on their 1995 album Tonin’. This is the Manhattan Transfer with “God Only Knows,” on Afterglow.
MUSIC - MANHATTAN TRANSFER, “GOD ONLY KNOWS”
The vocal group Manhattan Transfer, celebrating their 50-year career on their latest Grammy-Award winning album Fifty. That was their cover of the Beach Boys song “God Only Knows.”
The only artist nominated in the Best Jazz Vocal album category that has not been nominated for a Grammy before is singer Samara Joy. At the young age of 23, Joy has universally been praised as the most promising new voice in jazz, winning several plaudits already, and possessing a rich voice that is mature beyond her years. There’s even a chance she may walk away with an upset victory this year.
Here’s a track from her major label debut album Linger Awhile. Here is Samara Joy with the jazz standard “I’m Confessin’ (That I Love You),” on Afterglow.
MUSIC - SAMARA JOY, “I’M CONFESSIN’ (THAT I LOVE YOU)”
The young Samara Joy, a first-time Grammy nominee, with the standard “I’m Confessin’ (That I Love You),” from her album Linger Awhile.
The last nominee in the Best Jazz Vocal album category for this year’s Grammy Awards is the album Fade To Black by Carmen Lundy. A jazz veteran and multi-instrumentalist, Lundy has been performing for more than 40 years. This is her second nomination in this category, and like her last nomination Modern Ancestors, it features original songs. The songs on this album are all reflections of loss, as well as hope for the future.
Here’s Carmen Lundy with her hymn-inspired original, “Rest In Peace,” on Afterglow.
MUSIC - CARMEN LUNDY, “REST IN PEACE”
Jazz singer Carmen Lundy with her original song “Rest In Peace,” from the album Fade To Black, a nominee for the Best Jazz Vocal Album for the 2023 Grammy Awards.
MUSIC CLIP - STEVE GADD, “WAY BACK HOME”
We’ll have more 2023 vocal jazz Grammy nominees in just a bit. Stay with us.
I’m Mark Chilla, and you’re listening to Afterglow
MUSIC CLIP - MELISSA ALDANA, “THE BLUEST EYE”
MUSIC CLIP - YELLOWJACKETS, “INTRIGUE”
Welcome back to Afterglow, I’m Mark Chilla. We’ve been looking at vocal jazz Grammy nominees this hour, ahead of the 2023 Awards, scheduled for Sunday, February 5th. In just a bit, we’ll hear from one of the nominees in the traditional pop category.
Jazz vocalists don’t only show up in the Best Jazz Vocal album category. Vocalists also make guest appearances on a few jazz instrumental Grammy nominees. Vocalists Dianne Reeves, Samara Joy, Michael Mayo, and Somi all make guest appearances on the album New Standards, Vol. 1, a really cool album led by drummer Terri Lyne Carrington. This album features 11 of the more than 100 jazz compositions published in a recent fake book titled New Standards, featuring jazz tunes written entirely by women composers.
And vocalist Jean Baylor, in addition to being nominated for her work with the Baylor Project, makes a guest appearance on the album Parallel Motion by the jazz quartet Yellowjackets, another nominee for Best Jazz Instrumental Album. Here’s that track now.
This is the Yellowjackets and Jean Baylor with the original tune “If You Believe,” on Afterglow.
MUSIC - YELLOWJACKETS, FEAT. JEAN BAYLOR, “IF YOU BELIEVE”
“If You Believe,” a song written by Russel Ferrante, the pianist for the jazz quartet the Yellowjackets. That was performed there by the Yellowjackets, featuring vocalist Jean Baylor of the Baylor Project, a track off of the Yellowjackets’ album Parallel Motion, a nominee for Best Instrumental Jazz Album.
The Grammys, while being the most dominant music awards in the business, are also often criticized. While much of the criticism is laid at the high profile general categories, some criticism can also be laid at the jazz and traditional pop nominees—I certainly have my own opinions, not all of them positive, on the artists they have nominated or chosen to ignore.
But the Grammys are not the only award game in town. This past November, the first ever Jazz Music Awards ceremony was celebrated in Atlanta. And there was a tie for the Best Vocal Performance, between singer Somi, for her album Zenzile [zen-ZEE-leh]: The Reimagination of Miriam Makeba, and singer Stacey Kent, for her album Songs From Other Places. Notably, neither of these singers were nominated for a Grammy this year for Best Jazz Vocal album.
So, I’d like to feature a track from each now. First up, here is Somi, featuring Grammy winner Gregory Porter, with the song, “Love Tastes Like Strawberries,” on Afterglow
MUSIC - SOMI, “LOVE TASTES LIKE STRAWBERRIES”
MUSIC - STACEY KENT, “MY SHIP”
Jazz singer Stacey Kent with the Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin standard “My Ship,” from her album Songs From Other Places. Before that, we heard jazz singers Somi and Gregory Porter, performing “Love Tastes Like Strawberries,” from her album Zenzile [zen-ZEE-leh]: The Reimagination of Miriam Makeba. Neither of those recent records were nominated for Grammys, but they both won the award for Best Vocal Performance at last year’s inaugural Jazz Music Awards.
The final artist I want to feature this hour comes from the Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album category for the 2023 Grammys. Three of the five nominees this year—Norah Jones, Kelly Clarkson, and Pentatonix—are for their Christmas albums—not really appropriate for this time of year. One of the nominees—Diana Ross—is for her album of original songs that evokes her Motown and disco past, not the kind of traditional jazzy pop I typically feature on Afterglow.
That jazzy traditional pop is central to the album Higher, the latest from Grammy-award winning singer Michael Bublé, and it’s a style that he does best. So to close off this hour, here is Michael Bublé swinging his way through the Duke Ellington standard “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,” on Afterglow.
MUSIC - MICHAEL BUBLÉ, “DON’T GET AROUND MUCH ANYMORE”
Michael Bublé with Duke Ellington’s “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore.” That comes from his album Higher, a nominee in the Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album category for the upcoming Grammy Awards, which airs on February 5th, 2023.
Thanks for tuning in to this Grammy Award preview edition of Afterglow.
MUSIC CLIP - JOSHUA REDMAN, “LONG GONE”
Afterglow is part of the educational mission of Indiana University and produced by WFIU Public Radio in beautiful Bloomington, Indiana. The executive producer is John Bailey.
Playlists for this and other Afterglow programs are available on our website. That’s at indianapublicmedia.org/afterglow.
I’m Mark Chilla, and join me next week for our mix of Vocal Jazz and popular song from the Great American Songbook, here on Afterglow
