Introduction
In today’s society, people spend their free time in various ways. Listening to music and attending musical performances has become a standard way to relax, interact with others, celebrate culture, and learn new things. Jazz music offers exhilarating performances and has captured the attention of many fans, making it a great spot for holidays and leisure time. Jazz music is both relaxing and engaging, drawing listeners into the entertainment.
The genre originated in the United States in the early 20th century, and the people have maintained the jazz culture through live performances in public festivals and personal solo and band compositions of jazz music. Jazz music requires considerable skills, characterized by improvisation, call-and-response patterns, swings, and syncopation. Drums, saxophones, bass guitar, trumpets, violins, and the piano are musical instruments that usually accompany pieces of music. Apart from the features and instruments, jazz music is expressive, featuring emotions such as joy, fear, pain, love, and freedom. This essay reviews a performance by Jazzmeia Horn at the Atlanta Jazz Festival in September 2021.
Background of Jazzmeia Horn
Jazzmeia Horn is a talented and renowned jazz soloist whose performances have thrilled diverse audiences. She is known for her beautiful vocals, improvisation, and scatting, which make her unique jazz style truly distinctive. At the Atlanta Jazz Festival, the jazz vocalist performed songs for nearly an hour, showcasing her unique jazz composition style and captivating the audience. The songs include “Free Your Mind” by Jazzmeia Horn, “Don’t Weep for Me” by Ernie Dawson and Heirline, “East of the Sun” by Keely Smith, “Strive,” and “I Remember You” by Jazzmeia Horn. She performed the solos energetically, incorporating several jazz elements into her vocals and instrumentation, which left the audience enlivened and yearning for more, despite having listened to her for an entire hour.
Jazzmeia’s Performance at the Atlanta Jazz Festival
“Free Your Mind”
Jazzmeia introduced her performance with her composition, “Free Your Mind,” from her album, Love and Liberation. She instructs the instrumentalists on the beat they should start with by snapping her fingers, setting the performance’s mood and tone. The beat is moderately paced and begins with the bass guitar, followed by the piano and the drums in the background. The soloist plays in her familiar singing voice in the piece and follows a smooth melody. She increases the tempo of the music and incorporates the scatting jazz style, which involves improvising vocals to create nonsensical syllables or words that sound like an instrument, rather than singing.
Scatting allows the singer to form her own beat and stretch out her vocal capabilities during live performance. Jazzmeia’s scatting takes a high pitch, increasing the tempo of the songs, where she pauses to allow the free instrumentation to take over. The instruments play harmoniously, creating a relaxing atmosphere where the singer takes over and concludes the piece in a high-low-high pitch and tempo, emphasizing her message of freedom.
“Don’t Weep for Me”
The next song to be performed was Ernie Dawson & Heirline’s “Don’t Weep for Me.” Jazzmeia improvised the music, making it her own in a jazz style. The performance begins with scatting in high pitches, which can be considered shouting or screaming, showcasing the artist’s vocal range. The high-pitched vocal instrumentation is accentuated to rhyme with the bass guitar, complementing each other well to create a steady beat. She enhances the performance by incorporating expressive emotions, which blend sadness and comic expressions, creating a contrasting mix of feelings about the song’s message. The performance concludes with slapping beats from the bass guitar, leaving the audience on edge for the next act.
“East of the Sun”
The third song in the performance is “East of the Sun” by Keely Smith. Like the song’s slow and classical rhythm, Jazzmeia starts the performance with a gentle tone and light instrumental accompaniment from the bass guitarists. The artist conveys the song’s emotions by singing slowly, narrating its message to the audience. Her vocals shift the tone to slightly high pitches, and she employs a repetitive improvisation known as an ostinato in jazz music, using the phrase “west side of the moon” to convey the song’s message throughout the performance (Jazzmeia Horn, Atlanta Jazz Festival, 2021).
Like previous performances, Jazzmeia scats extensively, utilizing varied body movements that alternate rhythmically with the beat, and at other times, contrasting with it. Her unrestricted motion demonstrates jazz culture’s freedom and improvisation, which appeals to the audience and jazz fanatics. At the end of the performance, the music takes a faster beat, which she complements with fast-paced dancing to create an energetic atmosphere.
“Strive”
The fourth song, “Strive,” from her latest album, Dear Love, marks the peak of the performance with a lively and energetic performance from Jazzmeia. The song begins with instrumentation and vocalized scatting, creating a melancholic and evocative tone and mood. The jazz singer moves her body rhythmically in sync with the beat, showcasing her fluid dance motions. The song employs a gliding style, transitioning smoothly from one note to another without a clear definition of the notes in between, creating a contrast to the slow beat. Jazzmeia pauses in between, allowing the bass guitarist to lay down a smooth and then a loud line, where she incorporates her vocals in a high pitch.
The style is engaging and thrilling, shifting the audience’s mood and attention to create an exciting show. The music is presented in high pitches, which leads to shouting and screaming at various points, showcasing the musician’s unique jazz style. She talks between the lyrics, as if conversing with herself or sharing a secret message with the audience.
The most exciting part is her engagement with the audience, which allows them to join in a chorus while clapping as instrumentation. The audience is thrilled to chorus “strive to be free,” which takes a few minutes, livens up the performance, and heightens the festival’s experience (Jazzmeia Horn, Atlanta Jazz Festival, 2021). She ends the songs in high spirits, with the crowd cheering and wanting more.
“I Remember You”
Lastly, Jazzmeia performs “I Remember You” from her album, Love and Liberation, to conclude her outstanding performance. The song begins with a slow rhythm, which quickly escalates to a rapid tempo in the middle and end of the song. The artist improvises scatting to match the rapid tempo of the beats with drum cymbals as the dominant instrument. The ending is exhilarating, with the combined instrumentation of drum cymbals, piano, and bass guitar, creating an enjoyable and invigorating beat and strong rhythm to conclude the performance.
Conclusion
Overall, Jazzmeia’s performance at the 2021 Atlanta Jazz Festival was outstanding. Her energy and liveliness were present in each performance, complemented by her colored outfit and West African head wrap. She enhanced her performance with vibrant movements and improvisation characterized by scatting, fast-moving beats, and high-pitched vocals.
The artist could scat vocally with the bass guitar and drum cymbals, producing effortless music. The songs performed held significant meaning in people’s lives and experiences, creating an awareness and intimate interaction with the audience. Generally, the show was captivating and tightened up the mood at the jazz festival.
Reference
FunkCity.net. (2021). Jazzmeia Horn, Atlanta Jazz Festival, 9-5-21 [Video]. YouTube. Web.