Sheila Jordan and Cameron Brown - Vocal and Bass duo.
Something that can't be said about many singers is true of Sheila Jordan. She doesn't sound like anybody else. Emerging in Detroit in the late 1940s, Jordan fell under the sway of Charlie Parker. That wasn’t unusual for singers. But Sheila found a way into bebop that was unique. Instead of merely singing the horn solos or the melody, she treated the tunes much as a great visual artist uses a block of clay, cutting tantalizing aural sculptures with precision vocal strikes that swoop, shock and delight. The result? Joy.
Reinvention is what she is about, and while her life hasn't been easy – she worked in day jobs for years while raising a child alone – reinvention proved the formula that kept her going. Every musical moment Sheila tackles is new beginning. Jazz is supposed to be like that, of course. But it's easy for musicians to fall into familiar patterns. It's not easy to pour your soul into something as if it's a door just opened for the first time, every time.
Sheila first showed up on record courtesy of George Russell's 1962 The Outer View, on which she stole the show with a 10-minute vocal tour de force on “You Are My Sunshine.” The same year came her debut as a leader, Blue Note's “Portrait of Sheila,” which remains one jazz's great statements by a singer. On interesting choices like “Falling in Love with Love,” “If You Could See Me Now” and “Laugh! Clown! Laugh!” she wrote her own rules about singing. It's impossible to listen to this record without getting goosebumps. Try it.
The final Sunday at this year's festival is a Roy-al family affair featuring NEA Jazz Masters Roy Haynes and Sheila Jordan. Sheila just got her Masters designation; Roy was awarded his in 1995. Though they haven't performed together, because Roy rarely plays with singers (although he had a long stint backing Sarah Vaughan), there are deep ties. The two first met in a Detroit jazz club in the early '50s. “We were both kids,” Sheila says. “He told me I dressed great. He said I like the way you dress because I like to dress up, too.”
When they took separate paths to New York a few years later, Sheila became close friends with Roy's girlfriend, Lee. Shelia was at the time married to Duke Jordan, who was Charlie Parker's pianist. Roy and Lee married, and Sheila and Lee had babies within a week of each other, in 1955. Lee and Roy's first child, Craig, is now a percussionist and will be sitting in with the Roy-alty band at the festival's climax. Sheila's daughter Tracey works in marketing.
At Sunday's concert, Sheila will perform in duet with the towering bassist Cameron Brown. Singing with bass is her preferred mode of performing, and she's been doing it since the '50s. “I started the bass and voice,” she says. “I feel very free with bass. It's open – the silence, the space. I work off that.” Her first bass partner was Steve Swallow, who played on Portrait of Sheila. Next came Harvie Swartz, with whom she duetted for 20 years, traveling the world and recording several albums (the most recent, Yesterdays, is a stunning 1990 date just released on High Tone). When Swartz left to pursue a separate career, Sheila contacted Cameron, and now the two have been performing for about as long. Interestingly, Cameron was Sheila's choice for a bass partner before she started up with Swartz. “I asked Cameron, but he said he was too busy working with George Adams and Danny Richmond. So after Harvey quit, I flashed back to Cameron. We are close friends; I'm the godmother to his oldest daughter. So I asked him and he said, 'Yeah, I'd love to.'” Sheila says that on Sunday the pair will perform numbers by Charlie Parker, Fats Waller, Miles Davis, Lester Young, Billy Holiday and Duke Ellington, among other tunes. Better strap in, people, because Sheila doesn't just sing the words, she sings the instrumental solos, and sometimes makes up her own words on the spot.
As passionate as she is about singing, Sheila's thrown herself with equal force into teaching. (See article on Sheila's Master Vocal Class on the final Saturday of Healdsburg.) Why? “Because I'm not a diva!” Sheila says. “I want to keep this music alive. I'm gonna die one day. Is the music gonna die with me? No! … I want to give singers the jazz fever. Once they get the jazz fever, they don't want to sing anything else.” It's sure worked for her.
Healdsburg Jazz Festival | P.O. Box 266, Healdsburg, CA 95448
T: (707) 433-4633 |