Tight (Live Studio Session)

Jazzmeia Horn (vocals), Julius Rodriguez (piano), Endea Owens (double bass) and Henry Conerway III (drums). From the album A Social Call (2017).

Jazzmeia Horn is an American singer and composer who sings music from different genres and jazz standards, but in her second album she has written most of the songs. She started performing in the clubs and music halls of New York, but afterwards she hasn’t stopped touring. Her virtuosity is based on a broad vocal range, advanced technique and excellent diction, great maturity and confidence, and a development of the scat style that has led her where no one had gone before, except for the genius Bobby McFerrin. Scat consists of improvising with the voice without pronouncing words and using it as a musical instrument with meaningless syllables. Horn is firmly rooted in tradition, but transmits her experiences through contemporary messages with more wisdom than her age. Having found her particular form of expression, she has become a rising star in the jazz scene.

Born in the city of Dallas in 1991 and of African descent, she grew up in a spiritual family that was part of the Baptist church choir and band, completely surrounded by a musical environment: her mother was a gospel singer, her father a drummer and her grandmother also played gospel on piano. It was precisely her grandmother, a big jazz lover, who gave her her special name wanting to pass on her legacy. She was also the one who introduced her to chanting, incorporating her at the age of three into the church choir, where after a while she excelled in such a way that she had to be placed in the adults group. Her grandmother was the preacher’s wife, who only allowed her to play in church, but she was sure her granddaughter was destined to be a jazz singer.

Horn’s musical preferences as a teenager were rhythm and blues, soul and pop, and after two years in high school she auditioned at the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas and was accepted. There one of her teachers recommended that she learn to improvise jazz. Listening to Sarah Vaughan her style captivated her and studied her phrasing and way of interpretation, but she also discovered other musicians such as Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin, Nat King Cole, Abbey Lincoln, Betty Carter, Flora Purim, Bobby McFerrin, Rachelle Ferrell and legendaries Miles Davis and John Coltrane.