Jazzmeia Horn at South Jazz Club

Note: Separate ticketing for 10pm set.

With an assured maturity and vocal confidence far beyond her years, the young singer Jazzmeia Horn arrives with her debut recording A Social Call, an album that reveals a talent ready to take its place alongside the best headlining jazz vocalists of today. Scheduled for release on May 12, 2017 via Prestige, a division of Concord Music Group, its ten tracks—performed with an all-star acoustic jazz lineup—bristle with a bracing sense of clarity: clarity in Horn’s voice (itself a strong and remarkably supple instrument); clarity in the heady range of vocal legends who have shaped her (from Sarah Vaughan to Rachelle Ferrell); and clarity in the vital message of social uplift and the glowing optimism she conveys through her music....

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Note: Separate ticketing for 10pm set.

With an assured maturity and vocal confidence far beyond her years, the young singer Jazzmeia Horn arrives with her debut recording A Social Call, an album that reveals a talent ready to take its place alongside the best headlining jazz vocalists of today. Scheduled for release on May 12, 2017 via Prestige, a division of Concord Music Group, its ten tracks—performed with an all-star acoustic jazz lineup—bristle with a bracing sense of clarity: clarity in Horn’s voice (itself a strong and remarkably supple instrument); clarity in the heady range of vocal legends who have shaped her (from Sarah Vaughan to Rachelle Ferrell); and clarity in the vital message of social uplift and the glowing optimism she conveys through her music.

Horn’s marriage of music and message suffuses the variety of selections on A Social Call: fresh takes of evergreen standards (“East of the Sun (West of the Moon)”, “I Remember You”), hard bop anthems (“Afro-Blue,” “Moanin’”), songs of spiritual intent (“Wade in the Water,” “Lift Every Voice and Song”), a couple of melodies associated with another singer of personal influence, Betty Carter (“Tight,” “Social Call”) and R&B nuggets popularized by the likes of Mary J. Blige and the Stylistics (“I’m Goin’ Down,” “People Make the World Go Round”). Some tunes are woven into medleys with Horn first sermonizing on issues of common concern, giving A Social Call the feel of an intimate, live performance.

With the benefit of Horn’s vocal prowess, A Social Call is an album that satisfyingly combines jazz of the classic, small-group variety—when singers had to step up and carry the same musical weight as any other band member—with more modern flavors of gospel and neo-soul. Horn’s palpable understanding of iconic singers of the 1950s and ’60s makes her the ideal candidate for the historic Prestige label, an imprint that helped introduce many jazz vocalists to the world. Even the name of Horn’s album is drawn from that same time period. “Of course Gigi Gryce’s ‘Social Call’ inspired the title,” says Horn.

“But when you think about it, the word ‘social’ has many definitions—you know, let’s go out or let’s stop and have a drink. What I was thinking about relates to society and a lot of things that are going on right now that are not about love or connection. These are not good times. This album is a few things: it’s a call to social responsibility, to know your role in your community. It’s about being inspired by things that happen in your life and being able to touch others. I want to put that light out there—which is why I called it A Social Call and why this album has to come out, now. This is exactly why I’m here.”

It comes as no surprise that a sincere sense of purpose was instilled in Horn from an early age. Born in Dallas in 1991, she grew up in a tightly knit, church-going family filled with musical talent. It was her grandmother, a jazz-loving pianist whose playing was limited to gospel music by her preacher husband, who gave Horn her name. “That was my father’s mother—Harriet Horn—and I guess she knew I was going to be a musical child.” Asked to name the first tune she can recall singing, Horn recalls without hesitation, “’This Little Light of Mine’! I was 3 years old and my granny was standing at the piano, looking at me, saying, ‘You better open your mouth and sing. You better sing loud. Ar-tic-u-late your words.’ I will never forget—she used to always say that. She passed away when I was 12. But she taught me so much.”

Horn found further inspiration in a variety of singers she likes to call “mentors, the ones that have come and gone and the ones that are still here, especially Rachelle Ferrell. She’s definitely somebody that is mentoring me and she doesn’t even know it. There was a season in my life when every morning and every night before bed I was only listening to one thing—a song she wrote called ‘I Forgive You’ and it’s one of the most beautiful tunes on God’s green earth. It was like a hymnal to me, a song and a message I feel everybody in the universe should know.”

Soon Horn was learning from the music by singers she discovered along the way, like Bobby McFerrin (“most of his performances allow people to be involved musically, not just listening”), Abbey Lincoln (“the lesson I learned from her is always take care of your musicians and they’ll take care of you”), and of course Betty Carter. “I really love her spirit and the energy she gave to people through music, and how she was a teacher to many great musicians, some that I’ve studied with and so in a sense, I feel she’s also mentored me.”

In 2009, Horn moved to New York City, trading the closeness and support of family and friends in Dallas for the rich cultural life and musical legacy of New York City, attending The New School’s jazz and contemporary music program. An intense four years of training, performing and being on the scene followed, when she met many of the musicians who appear on A Social Call. “Victor Gould and I have been playing together a long time—he and I met when I first moved to New York. His sister told me about him. I had another pianist I was singing with and the idea with Victor was to get out of my comfort zone, but that didn’t work because I got so comfortable that I fell more in love with his playing.”

Saxophonist Stacy Dillard was another musician Horn met, “around 2011 when we both started playing at [jazz club] Smalls—what amazed me was that I had no sense of my own ability back then, what I could do, but Stacy was one of the first to respect me not as a singer, but a musician, the musician that I am, and help me see that. Way back then I said to him, ‘Stacy, when I record my album can you please play on it?’ He was like, ‘No doubt. That’s not even a question.’”
Horn’s talent grew and began to garner attention. In 2013, she entered and won a Newark-based contest fittingly named for her initial inspiration—the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Competition. Then in 2015, at a gala concert at the Dolby Center in Los Angeles, she won what is arguably the most coveted award a young jazz musician can claim today—one that would lead to her recording A Social Call—winner of the Thelonious Monk Institute International Jazz Competition.
Doors open at 6PM - come early to get the best seats! Tickets are $25 and available via www.ticketfly.com.

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