Photography by Matt Marcinkowski
Jazz singer Anita Jackson is busy. She’s just returned from a weeklong trip to Argentina, where she had the life-changing experience of conducting workshops with a group of gospel choirs. She’s working on her first solo project, which is coming along slower than she’d like, but she’s happy with where it’s headed. And she’s gearing up for her Sheldon Concert Series debut, preparing arrangements for a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald on February 2.
It’s daunting, Jackson admits, even though she’s backed up such greats as Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston, because Fitzgerald was so creative. But Jackson is careful not to try replicating the late singer’s style. “I don’t necessarily like when people just mimic what she does, because there will never be another Ella,” she says, “and so we’ve come up with arrangements that might be something she’d vibe with if she were around today.” Among them: “How High the Moon,” “A-Tisket, A-Tasket,” and “In a Sentimental Mood.”
The “no mimicry” rule is fitting for a tribute to Fitzgerald, who, Jackson says, had a particular ear and approached standards differently than other singers of her time. Back then, new artists were all more or less singing the same standards—it was how you interpreted them that made you an artist.
“She recorded ‘Misty.’ OK, well, you know, a million people recorded ‘Misty,’” Jackson says with a laugh, “but Ella approaches music much differently than the typical vocalist does. Ella approaches music much more like an instrumentalist.” Vocalists, she explains, communicate music and tell stories with lyrics; instrumentalists approach music by interpreting the melody line. Can she demonstrate for a scribe with no ear?
“Look at me / I’m as helpless as a kitten up a tree,” Jackson sings, the words light and sweet. Then, demonstrating how Fitzgerald would color around the melody, she sings it again, with more variation, more soul, really using her voice as an instrument.
Still, you don’t have to be a “quote-unquote musician” to get it, she says, because Fitzgerald’s music speaks to everyone’s heart. “And when it comes from the heart, it’s going to reach a heart—whether that that individual heart can play an instrument or sing the melody.”
Jackson’s most assuredly can.
Don’t miss these other jazz performances at The Sheldon.
How good is Dianne Reeves? She’s a five-time Grammy winner and the first-ever creative chair for jazz for the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She has shared the stage with Wynton Marsalis, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. And she has performed at the White House—more than once. Maybe “good” isn’t the right word. “Jazz Master” might be a better fit—in 2018, the National Endowment for the Arts celebrated her as one at the Kennedy Center, bestowing the highest honor the country can give a jazz artist. Reeves performs as part of the Sheldon’s Rhythm & Jazz program on February 9.
On March 2, Brazilian jazz pianist and Herbie Hancock collaborator Eliane Elias comes to The Sheldon to perform songs from her most recent album, Music from Man of La Mancha. The album—Elias has recorded 26 in her impressive career—includes nine interpretations of songs from the 1965 Broadway musical, commissioned long ago by its creator, the late Mitch Leigh. Don’t miss the chance to catch what one reviewer called her “ruby-cool touch” to the “exquisitely recorded” standard “Dulcinea.”
