If jazz is dead, as so many fans like to think, somebody forgot to tell the singers, so many of who have lately emerged on the scene. For years, their playbook was simple: record an album of songbook standards with a trio, preferably with some name players, and wait for the phone to ring.
Not Emma Hedrick who will make her BOP STOP debut Thursday. All 10 songs on Newcomer, her debut recording released last Friday, are original compositions. Aside from producer Peter Eldridge who appears on two selections, the biggest name among the 16 musicians credited might belong to Connor Rohrer, 25, whom cognoscenti might recognize as Samara Joy’s pianist at Cain Park last August.
“A lot of people have done the standard sort of interpretation to get into the scene,” Hedrick said on a video call from Indianapolis. ”I love a lot of those records, and I love singing standards as well, but I wanted to say something that only I could say and say it in the way that I could say it.”
Hedrick is no bomb-thrower out to smash barriers in the circumscribed world of jazz singing. If anything, the Carmel, Indiana native is representative of a new generation of jazz singers who, like an increasing number of jazz instrumentalists, are conservatory trained.
That goes double for Hedrick, whose educational experience is intercontinental. Her undergraduate work was done at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami where one of her teachers was BOP STOP director Bryan Kennard. Hey, connections are important.
“Brian was an amazing teacher,” Hedrick said. “He had the 8 a.m. theory class so I think that I was always in a bad mood in that class, but he did so much to get us that foundation and always had a great attitude.”
Studying in Europe is an appealing notion for many North American students, but Hedrick’s choice of the Royal Conservatoire, The Hague in the Netherlands, for her master’s degree program was a choice made on practicality. “I was looking for something that would be less expensive than master programs here in the States and to broaden my perspective.”
Check and double check. Hedrick was awarded a Holland Scholarship and graduated with honors. “I did a summer tour with the Jong Metropole Orchestra [the training orchestra for Holland’s premier big band]. We played at the Concertgebouw and in Berlin and did a tour around the Netherlands,” she said. That was an amazing experience.”
The cover photo for Newcomer of Hedrick on a bicycle was taken in Delft (“Vermeer’s hometown,” Hedrick said) and radiates Old World charm. So does Hedrick’s voice, which is higher and lighter than the traditional jazz voice. Her touch is lighter too, adding a pastel coloring of singer-songwriter lilt over the gently swinging rhythms of her charming songs
On her website, Hedrick cites Julie London as a touchstone. The half-forgotten London is an unusual choice, even for a singer who reached the podium at the Ella Fitzgerald Jazz Vocal Competition. “I like that some of her music is really understated, so I think sometimes she gets looked over,” Hedrick said, “but I love that, and the elegance in her voice too.”
The elegance extends to her touring band of pianist Ellie Pruneau, Gavin Gray on bass and drummer Greg Niemi, all of whom are active on the Indianapolis scene. Saxophonist Shane McCandless, a State College, Pennsylvania native, was a classmate at Frost and is Hedrick’s fiancé.
When two musicians get married, the question of a wedding band—the musical kind— is inevitable. Hedrick and McCandless have a novel solution. “We’re hoping to just put together some big band charts and have everyone read it because the best musicians we know are coming,” Hedrick said. We’re telling them bring their instruments. There’s a lot of vocalists coming too. So we’ll switch everyone out and get them a chance to sing.”
Emma Hedrick Quintet Thursday, August 7, 7 p.m., BOP STOP, 2920 Detroit Ave., Cleveland, Tickets $15, available here.
For the most complete listing of jazz and jazz-adjacent events., look to Jim Szabo’s essential, weekly Northeast Ohio jazz calendar , Better yet, subscribe.
NOTE: This article was written by a real human being. No artificial intelligence or generative language models were used in its creation.
Don’t comply in advance,
jc
