Truth Telling at the Northampton Jazz Workshop
What a pleasure it was hearing Sheila Jordan this week at the Northampton Jazz Workshop. She’s nearly 87, which she makes no secret of, and why should she? Sheila’s a bonafide survivor: of a harsh, Depression-era childhood shuttled between her teenage mother’s digs in Detroit and her grandparents’ home in the coal-mining region of Western Pennsylvania; of a broken marriage to Duke Jordan, the pianist who played in her friend Charlie Parker’s quintet; of her own drug and alcohol dependencies; and of the vagaries of the music business and the hazards of the road.
The diminutive Sheila Jeanette Dawson Jordan stands tall today as a marvel of life, a keeper of the flame, a teller of truths, a witness to the saving grace of this music. She’s got nothing to prove and no one to impress, but she still gives her all to the devoted audiences who turn out for her everywhere she goes, and to the legions of aspiring singers who see their hopes for skill and self-expression embodied in the art of the vocalist who was officially honored as an NEA Jazz Master in 2012.
I first saw Sheila in 1979 when she was the vocal component of the Steve Kuhn Quartet. Then, and through many additional performances over the past 35 years, this self-described Jazz Child has continually moved me to goosebumps, laughs, tears, and wonder. With Parker and Billie Holiday as her “musical gurus,” Sheila claims her uniqueness through a highly personal take on standards, phrasing that brims with tension and release, and with an openness to letting her story come through the music.
When I addressed the Community Music School of Springfield’s Summer Jazz Camp yesterday and emphasized to a group of inner city 15-17 year olds that it’s their stories as much as the technique they’ll develop that will be the measure of their achievement as artists, I said I had Sheila in mind.
On Tuesday night, with sensitive backing from the host Green Street Trio (pianist Paul Arslanian, bassist George Kaye, drummer Jon Fisher), Sheila sang “Hum Drum Blues,” “How Deep Is the Ocean,” “Falling in Love With Love,” “The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.” “Bird Alone,” the autobiographical “Sheila’s Blues,” and “Confirmation.” Trombonist Steve Davis and tenor saxophonist Felipe Salles joined in on “Confirmation,” which was preceded by “The Bird/Tribute.” (It’s the opener on this set by Sheila at the Charlie Parker Festival in Tompkins Square Park, New York City, in 2013. Her trio includes Steve Kuhn, Cameron Brown, and Billy Drummond.)
Sheila’s lyric about how hearing Charlie Parker transformed her life is sung to the tune of Bird’s “Quasimodo,” which he based on the changes of “Embraceable You.” The subtle harmonizing that Davis engaged in with Jordan when he hit the stage at the song’s end struck me as both routine and transcendent, the kind of ritual between players that’s at the heart of the music and that keeps me coming back.
Sheila concluded her set by inviting about ten of her students at this summer’s Jazz in July workshop at UMass to scat a half-chorus apiece on her original, “Workshop.” As Phil Schaap put it several years ago when he introduced her at her 80th birthday celebration as a singer, songwriter, teacher, record collector, and listener, “Sheila Jordan is the complete jazz person.”