ARTISTRY INC
That the modifier “rising” should no longer be applied to “star” when describing the remarkable vocalist Jazzmeia Horn is apparent throughout her sophomore release, Love and Liberation (Concord). Joined by a band of top-shelf under-35ers that includes fellow Thelonious Monk Competition winners Ben Williams and Jamison Ross, the leader imprints her kaleidoscopic personality on Erykah Badu’s “Green Eyes,” Rachelle Ferrell’s “Reflections of My Heart,” Jon Hendricks’ “No More,” and the Van Heusen-Mercer standard “I Thought About You,” and interprets eight original songs to which she composed the music and wrote the lyrics. Horn claims that each number sounds like a jazz standard, and she isn’t lying.
The 28-year-old Dallas native’s star power was fully on display at a September 9 release concert at Le Poisson Rouge in Greenwich Village, on the 158 Bleecker Street premises that once housed the Village Gate, where such primary Horn influences as Nina Simone, Jon Hendricks, and Betty Carter performed during the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s. Resplendent in a black turban, midriff blouse and flowing pants in matching green-and-gold, and phantasmagorical eye makeup, Horn deployed her wondrous range with minimum restraint and maximum subtlety. She sold the songs with serious-as-your-life soulfulness, and entertained the full house with discursive contextual back stories. She also lived up to her surname in vertiginous improvised exchanges with virtuoso soloists Josh Evans on trumpet and Irwin Hall on alto saxophone, while locking in with a crackling rhythm section—pianist Keith Brown, bassist Williams, drummer Anwar Marshall—whose tempos, grooves, and hits she monitored with
