SOUND PROJECTIONS
AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE
EDITOR: KOFI NATAMBU
FALL, 2016
VOLUME THREE NUMBER TWO
AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE
EDITOR: KOFI NATAMBU
FALL, 2016
VOLUME THREE NUMBER TWO
ERIC DOLPHY
Featuring the Musics and Aesthetic Visions of:
BOBBY HUTCHERSON
September 10-16
GEORGE E. LEWIS
September 17-23
JAMES BLOOD ULMER
September 24-30
RACHELLE FERRELL
October 1-7
ANDREW HILL
October 8-14
CARMEN McRAE
(October 15-21)
PRINCE
(October 22-28)
LIANNE LA HAVAS
(October 29-November 4)
ANDRA DAY
(November 5-November 11)
ARCHIE SHEPP
(November 12-18)
WORLD SAXOPHONE QUARTET
(November 19-25)
ART BLAKEY
(November 26-December 2)
http://www.allmusic.com/artist/rachelle-ferrell-mn0000385766/biography
Rachelle Ferrell
(b. May 21, 1964)
Artist Biography by Richard Skelly
Composer, lyricist, arranger, musician, and vocalist Rachelle Ferrell is a recent arrival on the contemporary jazz scene, but her visibility on the pop/urban contemporary scene has boosted her audience's interest in her jazz recordings.
Born and raised in the Philadelphia area, Ferrell got started singing in the second grade at age six. This no doubt contributed to the eventual development of her startling six-and-change octave range. She decided early on, after classical training on violin, that she wanted to try to make her mark musically as an instrumentalist and songwriter. In her mid-teens, her father bought her a piano with the provision that she learn to play to a professional level. Within six months, Ferrell had secured her first professional gig as a pianist/singer. She began performing at 13 as a violinist, and in her mid-teens as a pianist and vocalist. At 18, she enrolled in the Berklee College of Music in Boston to study composition and arranging, where her classmates included Branford Marsalis, Kevin Eubanks, Donald Harrison, and Jeff Watts. She graduated in a year and taught music for a while with Dizzy Gillespie for the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. Through the '980s and into the early '90s, she'd worked with some of the top names in jazz, including Gillespie, Quincy Jones, George Benson, and George Duke.
Ferrell's debut, First Instrument, was released in 1990 in Japan only. Recorded with bassist Tyrone Brown, pianist Eddie Green, and drummer Doug Nally, an all-star cast of accompanists also left their mark on her record. They include trumpeter Terrence Blanchard, pianists Gil Goldstein and Michel Petrucciani, bassists Kenny Davis and Stanley Clarke, tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter, and keyboardist Pete Levin. Her unique take on now-standards like Sam Cooke's "You Send Me," Cole Porter's "What Is This Thing Called Love," and Rodgers & Hart's "My Funny Valentine," captured the hearts and souls of the Japanese jazz-buying public. In 1995, Blue Note/Capitol released her Japanese debut for U.S. audiences, and the response was similarly positive. Her 1992 self-titled U.S. debut, a more urban pop/contemporary album, was released on Capitol Records. Ferrell was signed to a unique two-label contract, recording pop and urban contemporary for Capitol Records and jazz music for Blue Note Records. For four consecutive years in the early '90s, Ferrell put in festival-stopping performances at the Montreux Jazz Festival. Although Ferrell has captured the jazz public's attention as a vocalist, she continues to compose and write songs on piano and violin. Ferrell's work ethic has paid off, and Gillespie's predictions about her becoming a "major force" in the jazz industry came true. Her prolific songwriting abilities and ability to accompany herself on piano seem only to further her natural talent as a vocalist.
"Some people sing songs like they wear clothing, they put it on and take it off," she explains in the biographical notes accompanying First Instrument. "But when one performs four sets a night, six nights a week, that experience affords you the opportunity to present the song from the inside out, to express its essence. In this way, a singer expresses the song in the spirit in which it was written. The songwriter translates emotion into words. The singer's job is to translate the words back into emotion."
Ferrell has made her mark not as a straight-ahead jazz singer and pianist, but as a crossover artist who is equally at home with urban contemporary pop, gospel, classical music, and jazz.
http://articles.philly.com/1993-02-10/entertainment/25956521_1_rachelle-ferrell-jazz-album-quiet-storm
Will It Be Jazz Or R&b? Rachelle Ferrell Is Comfortable With Both. The Yeadon Resident's Marvelous Voice Is Familiar Around Philadelphia And Overseas - And Now America Is Beginning To Hear.
by Kevin L. Carter
February 10, 1993
Philadelphia Inquirer
There are a few things Rachelle Ferrell would like you to know.
She's not a jazz singer. She's not an R&B singer. She is both.
She's far more interested in composing music than performing it.
And her voice? The precise, colorful, 6 1/2-octave gift so many have raved about?
"It's an instrument," she says matter-of-factly.
It's an instrument. And a Mercedes-Benz is a car.
Philadelphians have known about Ferrell for quite a while: She has been singing around here since she was 13 and performing at local churches and sacred-music shows.
And jazz fans in Japan and Europe have been hip to her since 1990, when Ferrell's album First Instrument, a mix of standards and a few originals, was released there.
But it wasn't until last March, when Capitol Records issued her self-titled U.S. debut, that Ferrell, 31, penetrated the American consciousness. Suddenly the Berwyn native and Yeadon resident became an "overnight sensation" in the hybrid pop-R&B-jazz world of black music.
The album is still on the R&B chart, where it peaked at number 34. And she performed her new single, "Welcome to My Love," on The Tonight Show last week. The song, which follows the single " 'Til You Come Back to Me," has been progressing rapidly up the Billboard Hot R&B Singles chart since its release last month.
Ferrell's Capitol work falls into the category occupied by a number of young, black female singers, most notably Anita Baker, who operate in the world of the Quiet Storm. Some believe that Ferrell has been seriously miscast, that using her voice for soft R&B is like using a samurai sword to trim your hedges. Ferrell should be using her talent. Singing jazz.
But the singer herself doesn't agree. It's not the voice, she says, that's important. It's what the voice sings.
"I always get this question, especially in Europe, because the jazz album came out there before the pop album did," an exasperated Ferrell said over lunch in Center City recently.
"They always say, 'Rachelle, if you had to choose between jazz and pop, which would you do?' And my response, once I get over the ridiculousness of the question . . . would always be, 'If you had to choose between your right leg and your left leg, which would you choose?' Immediately they understand what I'm getting at. . . .
"When I write a song, that song dictates to me . . . whether it's going to be swinging and jazzy, or funky. I don't choose that, the song chooses that."
"When people say I should be singing jazz (exclusively), I understand their ignorance," Ferrell said. Those people don't understand her background and musical influences.
"I don't find that my audience is struggling with the same issues" as some critics, Ferrell said. "The audience takes the music at face value. They close their eyes, they listen to the music, they open themselves and they feel something. That's all that matters."
Ferrell isn't one to mince words. Her personal style is much like her performance style: subdued, earnest, direct and tempered by a slightly off- kilter sense of humor.
With her thin-framed glasses and confident yet down-to-earth personality, she can give off the air of the schoolteacher she once was.
One of four children in a family headed by a classical- and jazz-pianist father and gospel-singing mother, Ferrell couldn't help but be surrounded by music while growing up.
"I just grew up with it being in the house all the time," she said.
Ferrell gets her disdain for pigeonholing naturally. Her father, Perry Barnes, now retired after working as a truck driver for Unisys Corp., introduced her to jazz, but never referred to music by categories.
"I didn't find out that the stuff they played when he and his buddies got together was jazz until after I went to college (Berklee College of Music), and that was quite an awakening," she said.
In third grade, Ferrell began to study classical violin, which she continued to do until graduating from Conestoga High School in Berwyn in 1979. She was also being exposed to lots of gospel. The Barneses were frequent churchgoers and belonged to the Second Baptist Church in Wayne. (Her mother, Carrie Barnes, a seamstress, is a member of the Mattie Carter Singers.)
It was at a concert of sacred Christmas music that Ferrell got her first shot at singing professionally. When a vocalist couldn't make the performance, the young musician - on hand to play in a string quartet - was asked to step in. After that, Ferrell said, "the calls for singing came in a lot more frequently than calls for me to play the violin."
After high school, Ferrell went to Berklee, in Boston, to study composition and arranging, but left after two years because of lack of money. She came back to the Philadelphia area and immersed herself in the local jazz scene, playing with area musicians and singing in local clubs such as the Borgia Cafe, the Blue Note Cafe and the Painted Bride Art Center. She also worked as a voice teacher and jazz lecturer with the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and as a voice teacher at Stockton State College in Pomona.
It was at a 1990 Stockton performance that an emissary of Bruce Lundvall, president of Blue Note Records and a Capitol Records executive, took notice of Ferrell, who had been sending tapes to record companies for four years.
Because her interests lie in more than one kind of music, Ferrell said, she was signed to two deals at the same time - one for jazz, one for R&B. It was important to her, she said, that her first U.S. album be R&B.
"That's how we ended up putting (First Instrument (Blue Note)) out in Japan," she said. "I didn't want to be pigeonholed (as a jazz singer) from the beginning, after working so hard for this opportunity. I wanted to have a chance to have my own original music out there.
"(Lundvall) understood my feelings and kept his word. . . . I appreciate and respect him for that."
Despite her vocal talents, Ferrell's primary interest remains composing, and most of the songs on her Capitol release are self-penned.
"If you're a writer, that's what you do. . . . Singing is just a way to express it. That's the thing that most of the people fall out over, but writing is what I'm about. Anyone can sing."
The last couple of years have been extremely busy for the composer. After spending a year in Los Angeles recording Rachelle Ferrell with producer George Duke, Ferrell toured the United States, Europe and Japan.
The trade-off for the international exposure was the loss of time to compose songs. Before she began recording and touring often, Ferrell spent as much as six hours a day writing.
"When you're touring constantly . . . your energies are always going toward things other than creation," she said.
Though she tries to get back to Philadelphia as often as possible, she has had to change her notion of home.
" Home is not necessarily a place anymore because I never stay in one place for more than 15 or 20 minutes," Ferrell said. "That's why I carry my knitting everywhere I go, and the different books I'm reading, when I'm out on the road."
Ferrell doesn't have concrete plans. She's just trying to get her bearings back in Yeadon, where she expects to stay for the foreseeable future. Ferrell said she enjoyed being in California while she worked on her album, but only because of producer Duke.
"California? That's not my kind of place," she said.
So what's next?
"I've got to go home and wash the dishes," she said, laughing.
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/entertainment/music/2016/06/16/love-affair-exists-detroit-rachelle-farrell/86006938/
Love affair’ exists between Detroit, Rachelle Ferrell
by Mekeisha Madden Toby
The Detroit News
June 16, 2016
Listening to Rachelle Ferrell sing George Gershwin’s “Summertime” is like sipping a cold glass of lemonade on a 90-degree day.
Local music lovers can expect this level of refreshment when the incredibly gifted and beloved songstress performs Sunday at the Jazz Spectacular at Freedom Hill Amphitheatre. The talent-packed roster also includes Gerald Albright, Meli’sa Morgan, Kenny Lattimore and Jonathan Butler.
“Detroit and I have been in a passionate love affair for many years,” Ferrell, 52, said during a phone interview Monday promoting the Father’s Day show.
“There’s a very deep, resonating connection. Detroit is a music town, and it’s real easy to tap into Detroiters’ musical intelligence and appreciation for quality music. It’s a mutual love. I have complete freedom when I perform in the city and its surrounding areas. And it’s Father’s Day, too? Come on.”
A classically trained violinist, pianist and Berklee College of Music graduate, Ferrell’s musical inspirations include Johannes Brahms, Carlos Nakai, Andres Segovia and Rage Against the Machine.
Ferrell said she fell in love with Metro Detroit the minute she felt accepted. Despite the Pennsylvania native’s deeply loyal jazz following, which extends to the Caribbean, Japan and Europe, her hard-to-define sound, six-octave range and five albums never garnered her great commercial success or accolades in America.
But the former backup singer for Patti LaBelle and George Duke said her life’s purpose is greater than trophies. Excruciatingly painful back problems threatened to take Ferrell away from the live-concert circuit she cherishes, but physical therapy, as well as a change in diet and footwear, helped her power back.
Currently Ferrell is working on an up-tempo new album titled “Believe (In Something Good).”
“My fans have always supported whatever it was I needed to do or felt compelled or inspired to do musically,” Ferrell said. “They recognize that I’m cut from a different cloth and they wanted to support that. I’m so grateful. As the late, great Bruce Lundvall (Blue Note president) would say, ‘So much music now is so derivative.’
“But love and support for me has allowed me to grow in many different directions to be uniquely myself — a nonconformist. You can’t buy that.”
Which comes back to the love Detroit fans have shown her time and time again. It’s an appreciation that keeps her going.
“Once you get the nod in Detroit, you know you’re OK,” Ferrell said. “They don’t give it to everybody. When you get the nod, you know you’re on point and on purpose.”
http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20120512/PC12/120519874/jazz-and-rb-singer-rachelle-ferrell-stays-true-to-her-identity
Jazz and R&B singer Rachelle Ferrell stays true to her identity
Singer Rachelle Ferrell
performing in 2009.
ATLANTA — Half the wonder of a Rachelle Ferrell performance is watching her face.
She creeps toward a high note and every inch of her skin from brow to
chin contracts in preparation for launch. On a low tone, her jaw seems
to unhinge, the tone so deep she has to make room to accommodate it.
It’s as though she is elastic, twisting, squeezing, chewing each sound
before releasing it in one of the six octaves she can hit.
She’s not worried about preening and trying to be cute like a young pop
or hip-hop star — the style music executives and even her managers
suggested she shoot for at the start of her career.
In her 50s, she has spent the past decade getting comfortable with the
fact that, like her voice, she stretches across genres, arcing toward
jazz, then bending toward R&B, then reaching into the realm that
sounds a lot like gospel. There are even nods to the great torch
singers. When she does get up from the piano to dance, her movements are
spontaneous rather than choreographed. It’s clear the singer-songwriter
is finally following her own script.
“In the early portion of our lives, we’re trying to figure out all the
rules and regulations of carving out your own identity and how to be in
the world,” Ferrell said. “There’s something to be said about growing
older and getting tenure.”
Trained at the Berklee College of Music, Ferrell spent some of her
early career working with Quincy Jones, Dizzy Gillespie and George Duke
and singing backup for Patti LaBelle and Lou Rawls. So from the
beginning, her roots were in two idioms, jazz and contemporary R&B.
But by the mid-1990s after releasing two albums, one pop, the other as
jazz, she felt growing pressure to select one genre over the other.
Would she continue down the path of re-imagining standards like “You
Send Me” and “My Funny Valentine,” alongside jazz trumpeter Terence
Blanchard and saxophonist Wayne Shorter, or follow the path of becoming
the next songstress like Anita Baker?
“In those early days, I was pushed and really pressured to be like
Anita Baker and sing like Whitney Houston,” Ferrell said. “They became
prototypes and the managers and the labels wanted a return on their
investment to guarantee a hit. But my stance was, ‘You signed me for a
reason. Can I just be me?’ ”
Though she struggled with the industry, her voice made a mark with
fans, some of whom saw her as the next Baker, but others who heard a
sound that was robust and could turn a standard into something richly
ambiguous. For years she was a favorite at the Montreux Jazz Festival in
Switzerland.
By 2000, she’d shed the polished, sleek R&B persona that she’d
never been fully comfortable with and released the CD “Individuality:
Can I Be Me?” a series of ballads that were the muddle of jazz, pop and
gospel she felt formed the foundation of her musical identity.
But in some ways, being herself has come at a cost. She can hit a high
note like Mariah Carey or the late Houston, but she doesn’t have the
same broad name recognition. While she draws crowds and is well-regarded
for her songwriting as well as her voice, she has produced only four
albums.
It has been some time since she has had a radio hit like “Welcome to My
Love” or “With Open Arms.” She has, however, continued to perform live,
a form she feels most at home with. One of her most spirited recent
performances was a live show with her friend Baker in Detroit. During a
recent show in Chicago, Jennifer Hudson joined her for a duet.
Ferrell doesn’t have regrets over the trajectory of her career, though
she wishes she’d had the strength and courage that she has now a couple
of decades ago.
“Once you get the hang of it, you can have the autonomy, and you get the courage to sculpt your own life,” Ferrell said.
https://www.allaboutjazz.com/individuality-can-i-be-me-rachelle-ferrell-capitol-records-review-by-aaj-staff.php
Rachelle Ferrell is back, if not with a vengeance, at least with an attitude. An attitude of confidence, perseverance and hope.
Jazz enthusiasts couldn't help but be bowled over by Ferrell's extraordinary technique on her 1995 Blue Note album, First Instrument. And then, nothing. Reports of occasional performances here, irregular publicity there. What happened to her?
We may never know, except that Ferrell has moved from Philadelphia to New Mexico and has attained the peace that many find in the union with nature there. Individuality (Can I Be Me?) , though, hints strongly that Ferrell has gone through some tough times. Not only that, the titles of the tunes imply an identity crisis.
No wonder. Her work on Blue Note was one-of-a-kind, but was it jazz, or was it overcompensation? Was it scat, or was it gimmickry? It seems that her audiences were divided in their reactions, although they agreed on the astounding depth of her talent.
Well, Ferrell's identity seems to dwell within an R&D sensibility. All of the vocal techniques that Ferrell employed earlier—gutturalisms, purrs, peeps, siren-like cranking up of intensity, growls and moans—are appropriate to the material she wrote for Individuality (Can I Be Me?). The coquetry and hurt that seep through her delivery assume consistency with meaning on "I Forgive You". In contrast, Ferrell's irrepressibility sometimes overpowered the wholeness of her expression in the jazz idiom, which depends on group interplay.
Perhaps "Reflections Of My Heart" stands out as the most melodic and expressive of the tunes on the CD. Ferrell and her younger brother Russ Barnes create a dialog of like-mindedness and belief that certainly should gain attention on the nation's R&B stations.
Rachelle Ferrell has found her own truth, it seems. Yes, she can be herself now. The convergence of self and music has led to the album that Ferrell was destined to make, jazz or no—and one that is congruent with her personality.
Track Listing:
Individuality (Can I Be Me?), Sista, Will You Remember Me?, I Forgive You, I Gotta Go, Why You Wanna Mess It All Up?, Gaia, Run To Me, Reflections Of My Heart, Satisfied, I Can Explain
Personnel:
Rachelle Ferrell, vocals; Jonathan Butler, guitar, vocals; Russ Barnes, vocals; George Duke, keyboards; Jef Lee Johnson, Tony Maiden, guitar; Byron Miller, bass; Lil' John Roberts, drums; Lenny Castro, percussion
http://www.anthologysd.com/press/2010/07/28/rachelle-ferrell-a-new-voice-among-us/
by Marcia Manna
FroggerDogger.com
Whenever my band performed in my hometown of Chicago, my mother would get a front row seat and watch me sing. She referred to me as “her star,” but there would be criticism, too. “Don’t screw your face up like that when you are going for those high notes,” she would advise. “You’ll scare the audience.”
The memory makes me feel a little self-righteous when I watch vocalist Rachelle Ferrell, who will perform one set tonight and two shows tomorrow at Anthology.
While many vocalists learn to camouflage the physical effort it takes to flavor and empower notes, all in the name of looking pretty and poised, Ferrell is different.
She’s what you would call a singer’s singer, a sister who twists and contorts her wide, full mouth to scat, wail and work her six-octave range to full effect.
Ferrell makes her body her instrument and because of her astounding musicality, her stage presence commands respect.
Check out the youtube clip of her performance at comic/actor Bernie Mac’s (aka Bernard Jeffrey McCullough) funeral, a celebrity-filled event in 2008 that attracted more than 5,000 mourners. Ferrell is in the spirit, pounding a white piano and leading a massive gospel choir in an emotional, call-and-response musical tribute.
Sadly, the success she so deserves has eluded her, though like many black American musicians, she has a fierce following in Europe, due in part to her numerous Montreaux Jazz Festival performances.
Born in 1964 and raised near Philadelphia, Ferrell began writing songs, playing piano and performing professionally in her teens. She attended Boston’s Berklee College of Music, co-taught music classes with Dizzy Gillespie for the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and sang backup for recording artists such as Patti LaBelle, Vanessa Williams and George Duke.
Ferrell has a reputation for cooking up an original stew of styles by inserting the creativity of jazz improvisation into blues, R&B and pop formats.
On her 1990 Blue Note release, “First Instrument,” she bastes notes with emotion and tampers with tempo in a way that personalizes familiar standards such as Sam Cooke’s “You Send Me” or Rodgers and Hart’s “My Funny Valentine.”
In 2000, Ferrell switches gears by introducing the Capitol Records release “Individuality, (Can I Be Me?),” a funky, bass-poppin’ R&B album co-produced with George Duke. All of the songs are either written or co-written by Ferrell and here again, she infuses danceable groove numbers with a level of vocal technique that makes you wonder, ‘Who is that?”
“Music makes one feel alive,” Ferrell explained last year in a mediaprofil interview at the Montreaux Jazz Festival. “The privilege of being able to be a musician, to be an artist, comes from the privilege of being able to touch another…I don’t take it lightly. The fact that people come in to embrace me and embrace the music – it compels me to give from a place that I didn’t know I had.”
http://articles.philly.com/2003-03-02/news/25473612_1_rachelle-ferrell-jazz-montreux
Blue Note Records executive
Bruce Lundvall was so stunned when he first heard jazz singer Rachelle Ferrell's demo tape while driving that "I pulled off the road. I listened to it from beginning to end."
"I'd never heard anyone like this in my entire life," said Lundvall, who quickly signed Ferrell, a Berwyn native and 1979 graduate of Conestoga High, to Blue Note Records for jazz and to Capitol Records for R&B in the early 1990s.
In a few months, she was performing at jazz festivals in Switzerland and Japan, where she "completely destroyed the audience," he said. "She has a 6 1/2-octave range," he gushed. "No one has that."
http://prince.org/msg/8/104335
independent and unofficial
Prince fan community site
New Rachelle Ferrell Interview!
PEOPLE OF NOTE: Rachelle Ferrell -- Honoring the Artist Within
by Deardra Shuler
July 30, 2004
There are some people born to an art form. Music is Rachelle Ferrell’s living breath as much as it is her life’s craft and mission. Ferrell is a true artist as is evidenced by her vocal, instrumental and songwriting skills.
Anyone having heard Ms. Ferrell hit the high octaves cannot help but become a fan for life. The warmth that plays out on stage does not disappear offstage. Ms. Ferrell proves to be a warm, spiritual, gracious down-to-earth individual.
Her humanitarian bent has led her to understand that all of us are intrincially woven together as part of the human mosaic and therefore mirrored reflections and caretakers of one another. Ferrell will be appearing in New York at SOBs on August 4th.
Acknowledging the need to help those with AIDS, Ms. Ferrell will be lending her musical talents to aid the kickoff of the Black Lesbian, Gay Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Opening Award Ceremony of “The Pride In The City” event. “Pride in the City” will be a 4-Day Extravaganza Celebration held at the Brooklyn Marriott, located at 333 Adam Street in Brooklyn on Thursday August 5th at 7:00 p.m. The goal of the event is to provide a festive atmosphere while offering testing services directly to the community, instead of having people travel to an office or clinic outside their neighborhood. People of Color in Crisis, Inc., the hosting community-based organization, is hoping that the increased accessibility and ease of this initiative will help them reach their goal of testing 300 community members for HIV.
Rachelle has toured extensively over the years and intends to begin again in October but presently she finds herself in the studio putting the finishing touches on her live CD, “Free, Black and Live.” Her CD is scheduled to be released September, 2004. “I am very, very happy with the way this CD is turning out. It is the culmination of the last ten years. I have included songs from each album I have done and also new songs that I have written,” commented Ferrell.
Ms. Ferrell continues to challenge herself as a performer and thereby admits to seeing a lot of growth and development in her present work. As a songwriter, Ferrell oftentimes seeks out those quiet moments of contemplation and introspection. Those moments have proven to be a springboard for the lyrics that grace her songs.
"Spirituality is at the core and the center of my life and my consciousness and aspirations," claims Rachelle. “It colors my music and everything I do and its perfect with everything, really. I would tend to go so far as to say that we are living in desperate times. Music has always been the balm and panacea that addresses whatever is occurring in whatever time it occurs...historically speaking. Given the fact that it's the universal language, it communicates to us on a level that goes beyond the influence of the intellect and the ego. This is what I believe to be music's highest purpose - to heal, make aware, empower, uplift and inspire ego to heal at our core."
Rachelle recently added the guitar to her instrumental skills. Early on she trained classically on the violin and then as a teen became proficient on the piano which she played at the professional level. She is at ease with that which strikes a chord of versatility within her performances, moving as smoothly and comfortably between jazz, gospel and pop as she does when singing soul, funk and R&B.
“I am comfortable singing it all. I do love it all. I go through phases where I may lean more toward one genre than another,” said Ferrell. “Where I put my attention at any given moment pretty much came about through my growth and development as an artist. It really depends on what the song is and how the song comes through. The song primarily dictates how the song wants to be sung. For a while last summer, I put my attention toward old delta blues while I was learning to play guitar. My radar was tuned into listening to Mississippi Fred McDowell, Big Bill Broonzy and John Hurts. The list goes on. There was this wonderful recording that Fred McDowell was in. You could actually hear that they were in this cabin with a wooden floor. A woman in this recording was sweeping a broom across the wood floor in time to the song that Fred McDowell was playing. It was extraordinary. The blues goes to the essence of black life. Black life is survival and this is what I needed particularly for my survival. I have woven what I learned from that experience into what my music is now,” explained Rachelle.”
There are many stages in an artists life and Rachelle Ferrell knows full well how difficult it can be to keep ones artistic focus when dealing with the record companies.
“I didn’t know that there were separate genres of music until I grew up and got into the record companies where everything was what I would call serious ‘music apartheid’” said the bemused singer. “I learned a lot from being in the corporate world. You can learn from joy and you can learn from pain. I felt pain but what I learned was very, very valuable. At this point in my life, I likened it to when the slaves actually realized they were free. It wasn’t that moment when it was declared but maybe a year or so later, when someone was just riding by and made the announcement and then it hit the slaves that they no longer had to stay on the plantation. I think it was then that they realized that they had their destiny and their lives totally and completely in their own hands. It was that level and kind of scary freedom,” reflected the resilient artist. “That is what I have been experiencing over the last year, which has been wonderful. I recognize that I can do anything I want any time I want and the only restraint placed upon me is the one I place upon myself. That realization has been a wonderful delicious feeling.”
Raised in a tiny town in Pennsylvania near the Valley Forge area, Rachelle came from a musically inclined family. Her father played organ, piano, classical, blues and jazz. At age 18, Rachelle enrolled in the Berklee College of Music in Boston to study composition and arranging. Noted for such songs as “Individuality (Can I Be Me?),” “I Know You Love Me,” “Sentimental,” “Welcome to My Love,” “You Don't Know What Love Is,” and “Nothing Has Ever Felt Like This,” Ferrell first debuted and released the song "First Instrument," in Japan in 1990.
“I can’t even begin to describe how well received my music was in Japan. I have toured nationally and internationally and have heard the phrase ‘citizen of the world’. When you travel to different countries, you are able to touch people of different cultures, background and locale basically through the heart chakra. That is when you really get to understand on a cellular level what universality and oneness is,” stated Rachelle.
“I have come to recognize and acknowledge we are living in trying times and one must be resilient and strong and sit back and recognize that this too shall pass. I am deeply and particularly aware of the shift of energy. There used to be a level of warmth, humanity and hospitality in this country that is no longer there. I don’t talk too much about my politics but I would say that I am political. I am political -- but not so much in the microcosm as in the macrocosm."
As author Bell Hooks says, “Love is political.” And, you can’t get more political than love.”
Deardra Shuler is a journalist in the New York City area. She serves as the Entertainment Editor of the Black Star News and free-lances for several minority print and Internet papers. She has a background in concert promotion, theatre, radio and television and is the host of her own talk show, "Topically Yours.
http://www.tickettoentertainment.com/blog/2016/03/02/rachelle-ferrell-returns-home-to-keswick-theatre-new-cd-coming-later-this-year/
For Digital First Media
Rachelle Ferrell is one of the most distinctive voices in jazz. Her 6-octave range and unique vocal phrasing clearly sets her apart from most vocalists. But add to that her instrumental prowess and songwriting capabilities and she is clearly much more than just a great singer. She returns to the Keswick Theatre on March 6.
Ferrell started singing as a young child. She had classical training in violin and then piano. After graduating from Berklee College of Music, she had the opportunity to teach alongside Dizzy Gillespie. She then worked as a backup singer for the likes of Lou Rawls, Patti LaBelle, Vanessa Williams and George Duke.
After about 15 years as a backup singer she launched her solo career. Her debut album “First Instrument” was released in Japan in 1990 (though it was actually released in 1995 in the U.S., subsequent to her eponymous release on Manhattan Records in 1992). “First Instrument” was an album of mostly interpretations of jazz standards with an all-star ensemble including bassists Tyrone Brown and Stanley Clarke, pianist Eddie Green, trumpeter Terence Blanchard and tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter, among others.
IF YOU GO
What: Rachelle Ferrell
When: Concert is 8:00 p.m.; doors open at 7:00 p.m. on Sunday, March 6
Where: Keswick Theatre, 291 N. Keswick Ave., Glenside, PA
Tickets: $39.50 – $59.50 in advance
Ages: All Ages
Info.: Call 215- 572-7650 or visit www.keswicktheatre.com
Artist’s website: www.rachelleferrell.com
Ferrell began to feel more confident about her songwriting and her
subsequent albums featured her original material. She will soon be
releasing “The Art and Soul of Rachelle Ferrell,” an album of all
original music and her first release in 14 years.
Ferrell, who is originally from Berwyn, PA, now lives in southern California. We had the opportunity to speak by phone while she was in New York City for a 4-night Valentines weekend engagement at The Blue Note.
Ferrell considers music her “gift from God.” Yet her road wasn’t an easy one.
“Every artist has, you know, a beginning. And mine was kind of rough,” she said. “People look at me and perceive I’ve always been treated a certain way, and I’ve always been respected for my music… but that was not the case. It wasn’t like I was coddled, taken under someone’s wing, allowed special privileges. I had good mentors, but my family and friends cut me no slack.”
After graduating from Berklee, Ferrell had the opportunity to teach alongside Dizzy Gillespie. She still considers that a significant achievement.
“Working with Dizzy Gillespie was a highlight – obviously, most assuredly, in the moment that it happened. And as time went on, that highlight continued to grow… in retrospect because it was only through the continued growth in my own personal education as a musician, and growth in my awareness of who Dizzy Gillespie was, and what he means to the musical community, and what his contributions have been, and how extraordinary a breakthrough pioneer he was. I didn’t know all that at the time, when I worked with him. I knew the name Dizzy Gillespie, but I didn’t have an appreciation for the magnitude and the comprehensiveness of his gift and his artistry, and his contribution to the planet and to the music world. The older I get, the prouder I am of that moment as a teenager.”
It is perhaps because of her own challenges that Ferrell now wants to continue her art and simultaneously be a mentor and guide for other aspiring musicians.
“The difference is huge right now, between the record industry of the ’90s and the year of 2016,” said Ferrell. “(The industry has) been turned upside down and inside out and any other direction you can think of as a result of the digital world and the World Wide Web coming into being. It’s changed the lay of the land as well as the landscape, and how to traverse that land.
“One piece of my dream is to use myself as a guinea pig and figure it out. The other portion of the dream is about once having established that, to then go about creating a safe haven/repository of information and wisdom and experience. Sort of like a revamping of something that’s long since been done away with in the music industry, and that’s artist development. So it’s a combination of providing opportunities for extraordinary, gifted new artists, unheard artists, (and that) doesn’t necessarily mean young people either. Those who have all the qualities, not to mention the mental fortitude and temperament, to be able to be an artist in the year 2016.”
She added that this would be “with a new business paradigm, dare I say for the New Age, the new millennium, which is about good, clean ethics and morality, principles (and) integrity.”
The music business could certainly use more of all that. And we can all certainly use more Rachelle Ferrell in our lives. Don’t miss your opportunity to see her at Keswick Theatre.
“I always look forward to returning to the Keswick because it’s almost like returning home. It’s a place where my friends and family who knew me when can come out and enjoy the music that they used to complain about to me,” she laughed.
Did you know?:
As a child, Ferrell was a regular at Berwyn Pizza. In order to work out vocal arrangements in the songs she was writing, she had to pay her sister Jackie to sing harmony. “I’d hear a harmony… and I needed another voice. And even way back then we pretty much sang very closely to one another. It was like hearing my own voice singing… but she didn’t want to sing the way I did. So I had to pay her in cheesesteaks. She would bribe me – ‘I’ll sing it 2 times if you buy me a cheesesteak!’”
If you ever have the opportunity to experience the live artistry of Rachelle Ferrell, run towards the light and goodness that is hallmark of a Ferrell performance. Making her first appearance at the Hyatt Regency Summer Concert series in Newport Beach (a fact which boggles the mind), Ferrell dazzled the crowd with her extraordinary vocal abilities and musicianship. But it was her soulful, self-penned, and eloquent lyrics that took center stage.
A masterful wordsmith, Ferrell fluidly moved between octaves as she invited the audience to really listen and experience each and every word.
“I consider myself a wordsmith. When I’m at my best, in perfect alignment, I have the gift to string words together like pearls in a necklace. A loose pearl is one thing but when you get the opportunity to see an exquisite pearl necklace, put together in proper order, the gradients of color, a work of art that you can live with and heal by,” Ferrell said.
Described by many as a precious musical gift, Ferrell has the rare ability to draw and connect with audiences through her unique phrasings and vibrant lyrics that encourage openness to the Creator and the joys of life. Responding to the inevitable question of where do those wonderful lyrics come from, Ferrell said, “The words come from my soul, from the souls, minds, spirits of the people around me…my experiences…their experiences, stories that I hear….”
It is indeed Ferrell’s uncanny ability to use her being as the instrument through which stories flow that slays audiences around the world. Backed by musicians that are spiritually and musically in tune with Ferrell, it is their partnership that makes her show a divine evening of music that defies traditional labels of jazz or R&B; it simply does not matter at a Ferrell concert. “It is a collaboration where we are helping Rachelle to heal or minister through music. We come into this atmosphere as clear as possible so the people can be blessed,” said longtime Ferrell keyboardist and collaborator, Phil Davis.
Trained as a classical violinist, Ferrell can literally do it all. A prolific and poignant songwriter and singer, a pianist and self-taught guitarist, Ferrell cannot remember a time when music was not a part of her life. “Something exploded on the inside of me when I heard jazz. I went on a search for my true musical self. What you hear are the results of what’s living on the inside of me,” Ferrell said.
Being true to her art form was something Ferrell fought to do from the very beginning. “My facial expressions, and appearance were talked about in the beginning by music critics. They said I sang all over the place and didn’t have any respect for the melody,” said Ferrell. “But my greatest achievement and challenge is staying true to myself.”
And on that September night in Newport Beach, the audience loved that she is Rachelle, the instrument, the expressive lyricist, the celebrator of humanity, and the soul-stirring singer who invites you on a musical journey through the deep end of the ocean. “To watch her sing and interpret what’s on the inside of her is amazing, very few artists can do that. She shapes the notes according to what she hears in her head, it’s genius and we get to experience that gift,” said Ferrell guitarist, Billy Odum. “We are vessels, vehicles, and co-creators with the Creator. We have a tacit agreement to show up, be clear and open, ready to align ourselves with light and goodness,” Ferrell said. As the late George Duke, Ferrell’s friend and mentor said, “Rachelle is probably one of the most amazing singers around.”
For more information about Rachelle Ferrell, visit rachelleferrell.com
https://www.allaboutjazz.com/individuality-can-i-be-me-rachelle-ferrell-capitol-records-review-by-aaj-staff.php
Rachelle Ferrell: Individuality (Can I Be Me?)
by
Rachelle Ferrell is back, if not with a vengeance, at least with an attitude. An attitude of confidence, perseverance and hope.
Jazz enthusiasts couldn't help but be bowled over by Ferrell's extraordinary technique on her 1995 Blue Note album, First Instrument. And then, nothing. Reports of occasional performances here, irregular publicity there. What happened to her?
We may never know, except that Ferrell has moved from Philadelphia to New Mexico and has attained the peace that many find in the union with nature there. Individuality (Can I Be Me?) , though, hints strongly that Ferrell has gone through some tough times. Not only that, the titles of the tunes imply an identity crisis.
No wonder. Her work on Blue Note was one-of-a-kind, but was it jazz, or was it overcompensation? Was it scat, or was it gimmickry? It seems that her audiences were divided in their reactions, although they agreed on the astounding depth of her talent.
Well, Ferrell's identity seems to dwell within an R&D sensibility. All of the vocal techniques that Ferrell employed earlier—gutturalisms, purrs, peeps, siren-like cranking up of intensity, growls and moans—are appropriate to the material she wrote for Individuality (Can I Be Me?). The coquetry and hurt that seep through her delivery assume consistency with meaning on "I Forgive You". In contrast, Ferrell's irrepressibility sometimes overpowered the wholeness of her expression in the jazz idiom, which depends on group interplay.
Perhaps "Reflections Of My Heart" stands out as the most melodic and expressive of the tunes on the CD. Ferrell and her younger brother Russ Barnes create a dialog of like-mindedness and belief that certainly should gain attention on the nation's R&B stations.
Rachelle Ferrell has found her own truth, it seems. Yes, she can be herself now. The convergence of self and music has led to the album that Ferrell was destined to make, jazz or no—and one that is congruent with her personality.
Track Listing:
Individuality (Can I Be Me?), Sista, Will You Remember Me?, I Forgive You, I Gotta Go, Why You Wanna Mess It All Up?, Gaia, Run To Me, Reflections Of My Heart, Satisfied, I Can Explain
Personnel:
Rachelle Ferrell, vocals; Jonathan Butler, guitar, vocals; Russ Barnes, vocals; George Duke, keyboards; Jef Lee Johnson, Tony Maiden, guitar; Byron Miller, bass; Lil' John Roberts, drums; Lenny Castro, percussion
Record Label: Capitol Records
| Style: Straight-ahead/Mainstream
http://www.anthologysd.com/press/2010/07/28/rachelle-ferrell-a-new-voice-among-us/
Rachelle Ferrell, a new voice among us
July 28, 2010
by Marcia Manna
FroggerDogger.com
Whenever my band performed in my hometown of Chicago, my mother would get a front row seat and watch me sing. She referred to me as “her star,” but there would be criticism, too. “Don’t screw your face up like that when you are going for those high notes,” she would advise. “You’ll scare the audience.”
The memory makes me feel a little self-righteous when I watch vocalist Rachelle Ferrell, who will perform one set tonight and two shows tomorrow at Anthology.
While many vocalists learn to camouflage the physical effort it takes to flavor and empower notes, all in the name of looking pretty and poised, Ferrell is different.
She’s what you would call a singer’s singer, a sister who twists and contorts her wide, full mouth to scat, wail and work her six-octave range to full effect.
Ferrell makes her body her instrument and because of her astounding musicality, her stage presence commands respect.
Check out the youtube clip of her performance at comic/actor Bernie Mac’s (aka Bernard Jeffrey McCullough) funeral, a celebrity-filled event in 2008 that attracted more than 5,000 mourners. Ferrell is in the spirit, pounding a white piano and leading a massive gospel choir in an emotional, call-and-response musical tribute.
Sadly, the success she so deserves has eluded her, though like many black American musicians, she has a fierce following in Europe, due in part to her numerous Montreaux Jazz Festival performances.
Born in 1964 and raised near Philadelphia, Ferrell began writing songs, playing piano and performing professionally in her teens. She attended Boston’s Berklee College of Music, co-taught music classes with Dizzy Gillespie for the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and sang backup for recording artists such as Patti LaBelle, Vanessa Williams and George Duke.
Ferrell has a reputation for cooking up an original stew of styles by inserting the creativity of jazz improvisation into blues, R&B and pop formats.
On her 1990 Blue Note release, “First Instrument,” she bastes notes with emotion and tampers with tempo in a way that personalizes familiar standards such as Sam Cooke’s “You Send Me” or Rodgers and Hart’s “My Funny Valentine.”
In 2000, Ferrell switches gears by introducing the Capitol Records release “Individuality, (Can I Be Me?),” a funky, bass-poppin’ R&B album co-produced with George Duke. All of the songs are either written or co-written by Ferrell and here again, she infuses danceable groove numbers with a level of vocal technique that makes you wonder, ‘Who is that?”
“Music makes one feel alive,” Ferrell explained last year in a mediaprofil interview at the Montreaux Jazz Festival. “The privilege of being able to be a musician, to be an artist, comes from the privilege of being able to touch another…I don’t take it lightly. The fact that people come in to embrace me and embrace the music – it compels me to give from a place that I didn’t know I had.”
http://articles.philly.com/2003-03-02/news/25473612_1_rachelle-ferrell-jazz-montreux
Master of octaves and genres Jazz and R&B, soul and funk. These are the many sounds of Berwyn native Rachelle Ferrell.
Blue Note Records executive
Bruce Lundvall was so stunned when he first heard jazz singer Rachelle Ferrell's demo tape while driving that "I pulled off the road. I listened to it from beginning to end."
"I'd never heard anyone like this in my entire life," said Lundvall, who quickly signed Ferrell, a Berwyn native and 1979 graduate of Conestoga High, to Blue Note Records for jazz and to Capitol Records for R&B in the early 1990s.
In a few months, she was performing at jazz festivals in Switzerland and Japan, where she "completely destroyed the audience," he said. "She has a 6 1/2-octave range," he gushed. "No one has that."
Her
1992 self-titled CD with Capitol went gold, and Ferrell - a singer who
defies categorization with her range and mastery of jazz and R&B,
soul and funk - continued to tour internationally, learning some
Japanese, French, Italian and Ethiopian to better connect with her
audiences.
Ferrell, who moved to New Mexico in 1996, will perform Saturday at her alma mater to benefit the African-American Student Union's Frank J.L. Johnson Scholarship Fund at Conestoga High School.
"It's a privilege and a joy to be able to come back and help," Ferrell said. "If it weren't for [former Tredyffrin-Easttown music teachers] Margretta Wolfe, Carmen Culp, Paul Vanderslice and the environment they created for me, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now."
Ferrell recalled in a recent phone interview that, as a child in a musically talented family, she began singing with Second Baptist Church choir in Wayne and played the violin.
In her early teens, Ferrell was playing in a violin quartet when Wolfe, her violin teacher, asked her to fill in for a vocalist who was unable to perform at a Christmas concert in Germantown. The response from the audience, she said, made her want to keep singing.
At Conestoga, "I was steeped in music," said Ferrell, who credited Vanderslice, then choral director, among others for "teaching me how to breathe and sing and do what I do."
Culp, her junior high music teacher, said Ferrell "had a natural talent that was phenomenal and she loved to sing. . . . She could reach higher and lower pitches than any other student. . . . She was just a joy to work with."
Ferrell studied composition and arranging at Berklee College of Music in Boston. She spent the next decade performing jazz in Philadelphia clubs and singing top-40 hits at Atlantic City casinos until she got the chance to record. Area venues included the Borgia Cafe in Old City and the Painted Bride Art Center.
Her first recorded jazz CD, First Instrument, was released in Japan in 1990 and five years later in the United States. Live in Montreux came from her jazz festival performances in 1991 and 1997. Her CD Individuality (Can I Be Me?), released in 2000, is "most reflective of who I am as an individual and in the music industry," said Ferrell, who wrote or cowrote the songs.
There was a "lot more personal writing, a great deal more introspection," Lundvall said. "The songs are very, very spiritual."
"Rachelle is one of the brightest and most spiritual people I've ever met," said Lundvall, now CEO and president of Jazz and Classics for EMI. "She has such integrity and artistry. It's not about commerce. . . . She does everything on her own terms."
In Lundvall, Ferrell said, she found someone who believed in what she could do. But, even after her self-titled record went gold, she said she struggled for years in an industry that "wants you to be whoever's No. 1 on the charts." She said she stood her ground for integrity and substance, "adamantly being myself and paying the price."
Her contractual obligation with Capitol now over, she has started her own label, Evolutionary Records.
"Now I have complete freedom," Ferrell said.
"I've written tons of new material in the last two months," said Ferrell, who described the inspiration she sees outside her window in New Mexico: a beautiful mountain vista that looks as though it is sprinkled with confectioners' sugar.
She said she plans to spread her wings, "unclipped and unfettered," writing "music with heart and soul and substance."
"Music is sacred to me," she said. "Music is a vehicle by which we can offer what is uplifting and empowering to each other."
One of the most important aspects of live performances is "connecting with the audience," Ferrell said. "You have to arrive with an open heart. . . . Energy flows back and forth. Everyone becomes uplifted, including myself.
"It's almost like I'm the instrument. They're the musicians."
Said Edan Harari, assistant general manager at the Blue Note jazz club in New York: "It's not a one-way show."
The audience at times claps and sings along, he said.
Kris Ross, director of promotions for the Blues Alley jazz supper club in Washington, D.C., said that Ferrell, who refers to her fans as family, "always talks to the crowd as if she's known them forever. She gives updates on what's going on with her life."
When she takes the stage, Harari said, she "moves the crowd. It's soulful jazz."
When she performs live, he said, "there's no boundaries with her voice. She uses it all the way."
Vanderslice agreed, "You stand back and say: Holy smokes. It's uncanny what she can do."
Ferrell, who moved to New Mexico in 1996, will perform Saturday at her alma mater to benefit the African-American Student Union's Frank J.L. Johnson Scholarship Fund at Conestoga High School.
"It's a privilege and a joy to be able to come back and help," Ferrell said. "If it weren't for [former Tredyffrin-Easttown music teachers] Margretta Wolfe, Carmen Culp, Paul Vanderslice and the environment they created for me, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now."
Ferrell recalled in a recent phone interview that, as a child in a musically talented family, she began singing with Second Baptist Church choir in Wayne and played the violin.
In her early teens, Ferrell was playing in a violin quartet when Wolfe, her violin teacher, asked her to fill in for a vocalist who was unable to perform at a Christmas concert in Germantown. The response from the audience, she said, made her want to keep singing.
At Conestoga, "I was steeped in music," said Ferrell, who credited Vanderslice, then choral director, among others for "teaching me how to breathe and sing and do what I do."
Culp, her junior high music teacher, said Ferrell "had a natural talent that was phenomenal and she loved to sing. . . . She could reach higher and lower pitches than any other student. . . . She was just a joy to work with."
Ferrell studied composition and arranging at Berklee College of Music in Boston. She spent the next decade performing jazz in Philadelphia clubs and singing top-40 hits at Atlantic City casinos until she got the chance to record. Area venues included the Borgia Cafe in Old City and the Painted Bride Art Center.
Her first recorded jazz CD, First Instrument, was released in Japan in 1990 and five years later in the United States. Live in Montreux came from her jazz festival performances in 1991 and 1997. Her CD Individuality (Can I Be Me?), released in 2000, is "most reflective of who I am as an individual and in the music industry," said Ferrell, who wrote or cowrote the songs.
There was a "lot more personal writing, a great deal more introspection," Lundvall said. "The songs are very, very spiritual."
"Rachelle is one of the brightest and most spiritual people I've ever met," said Lundvall, now CEO and president of Jazz and Classics for EMI. "She has such integrity and artistry. It's not about commerce. . . . She does everything on her own terms."
In Lundvall, Ferrell said, she found someone who believed in what she could do. But, even after her self-titled record went gold, she said she struggled for years in an industry that "wants you to be whoever's No. 1 on the charts." She said she stood her ground for integrity and substance, "adamantly being myself and paying the price."
Her contractual obligation with Capitol now over, she has started her own label, Evolutionary Records.
"Now I have complete freedom," Ferrell said.
"I've written tons of new material in the last two months," said Ferrell, who described the inspiration she sees outside her window in New Mexico: a beautiful mountain vista that looks as though it is sprinkled with confectioners' sugar.
She said she plans to spread her wings, "unclipped and unfettered," writing "music with heart and soul and substance."
"Music is sacred to me," she said. "Music is a vehicle by which we can offer what is uplifting and empowering to each other."
One of the most important aspects of live performances is "connecting with the audience," Ferrell said. "You have to arrive with an open heart. . . . Energy flows back and forth. Everyone becomes uplifted, including myself.
"It's almost like I'm the instrument. They're the musicians."
Said Edan Harari, assistant general manager at the Blue Note jazz club in New York: "It's not a one-way show."
The audience at times claps and sings along, he said.
Kris Ross, director of promotions for the Blues Alley jazz supper club in Washington, D.C., said that Ferrell, who refers to her fans as family, "always talks to the crowd as if she's known them forever. She gives updates on what's going on with her life."
When she takes the stage, Harari said, she "moves the crowd. It's soulful jazz."
When she performs live, he said, "there's no boundaries with her voice. She uses it all the way."
Vanderslice agreed, "You stand back and say: Holy smokes. It's uncanny what she can do."
http://prince.org/msg/8/104335
independent and unofficial
Prince fan community site
New Rachelle Ferrell Interview!
PEOPLE OF NOTE: Rachelle Ferrell -- Honoring the Artist Within
by Deardra Shuler
July 30, 2004
There are some people born to an art form. Music is Rachelle Ferrell’s living breath as much as it is her life’s craft and mission. Ferrell is a true artist as is evidenced by her vocal, instrumental and songwriting skills.
Anyone having heard Ms. Ferrell hit the high octaves cannot help but become a fan for life. The warmth that plays out on stage does not disappear offstage. Ms. Ferrell proves to be a warm, spiritual, gracious down-to-earth individual.
Her humanitarian bent has led her to understand that all of us are intrincially woven together as part of the human mosaic and therefore mirrored reflections and caretakers of one another. Ferrell will be appearing in New York at SOBs on August 4th.
Acknowledging the need to help those with AIDS, Ms. Ferrell will be lending her musical talents to aid the kickoff of the Black Lesbian, Gay Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Opening Award Ceremony of “The Pride In The City” event. “Pride in the City” will be a 4-Day Extravaganza Celebration held at the Brooklyn Marriott, located at 333 Adam Street in Brooklyn on Thursday August 5th at 7:00 p.m. The goal of the event is to provide a festive atmosphere while offering testing services directly to the community, instead of having people travel to an office or clinic outside their neighborhood. People of Color in Crisis, Inc., the hosting community-based organization, is hoping that the increased accessibility and ease of this initiative will help them reach their goal of testing 300 community members for HIV.
Rachelle has toured extensively over the years and intends to begin again in October but presently she finds herself in the studio putting the finishing touches on her live CD, “Free, Black and Live.” Her CD is scheduled to be released September, 2004. “I am very, very happy with the way this CD is turning out. It is the culmination of the last ten years. I have included songs from each album I have done and also new songs that I have written,” commented Ferrell.
Ms. Ferrell continues to challenge herself as a performer and thereby admits to seeing a lot of growth and development in her present work. As a songwriter, Ferrell oftentimes seeks out those quiet moments of contemplation and introspection. Those moments have proven to be a springboard for the lyrics that grace her songs.
"Spirituality is at the core and the center of my life and my consciousness and aspirations," claims Rachelle. “It colors my music and everything I do and its perfect with everything, really. I would tend to go so far as to say that we are living in desperate times. Music has always been the balm and panacea that addresses whatever is occurring in whatever time it occurs...historically speaking. Given the fact that it's the universal language, it communicates to us on a level that goes beyond the influence of the intellect and the ego. This is what I believe to be music's highest purpose - to heal, make aware, empower, uplift and inspire ego to heal at our core."
Rachelle recently added the guitar to her instrumental skills. Early on she trained classically on the violin and then as a teen became proficient on the piano which she played at the professional level. She is at ease with that which strikes a chord of versatility within her performances, moving as smoothly and comfortably between jazz, gospel and pop as she does when singing soul, funk and R&B.
“I am comfortable singing it all. I do love it all. I go through phases where I may lean more toward one genre than another,” said Ferrell. “Where I put my attention at any given moment pretty much came about through my growth and development as an artist. It really depends on what the song is and how the song comes through. The song primarily dictates how the song wants to be sung. For a while last summer, I put my attention toward old delta blues while I was learning to play guitar. My radar was tuned into listening to Mississippi Fred McDowell, Big Bill Broonzy and John Hurts. The list goes on. There was this wonderful recording that Fred McDowell was in. You could actually hear that they were in this cabin with a wooden floor. A woman in this recording was sweeping a broom across the wood floor in time to the song that Fred McDowell was playing. It was extraordinary. The blues goes to the essence of black life. Black life is survival and this is what I needed particularly for my survival. I have woven what I learned from that experience into what my music is now,” explained Rachelle.”
There are many stages in an artists life and Rachelle Ferrell knows full well how difficult it can be to keep ones artistic focus when dealing with the record companies.
“I didn’t know that there were separate genres of music until I grew up and got into the record companies where everything was what I would call serious ‘music apartheid’” said the bemused singer. “I learned a lot from being in the corporate world. You can learn from joy and you can learn from pain. I felt pain but what I learned was very, very valuable. At this point in my life, I likened it to when the slaves actually realized they were free. It wasn’t that moment when it was declared but maybe a year or so later, when someone was just riding by and made the announcement and then it hit the slaves that they no longer had to stay on the plantation. I think it was then that they realized that they had their destiny and their lives totally and completely in their own hands. It was that level and kind of scary freedom,” reflected the resilient artist. “That is what I have been experiencing over the last year, which has been wonderful. I recognize that I can do anything I want any time I want and the only restraint placed upon me is the one I place upon myself. That realization has been a wonderful delicious feeling.”
Raised in a tiny town in Pennsylvania near the Valley Forge area, Rachelle came from a musically inclined family. Her father played organ, piano, classical, blues and jazz. At age 18, Rachelle enrolled in the Berklee College of Music in Boston to study composition and arranging. Noted for such songs as “Individuality (Can I Be Me?),” “I Know You Love Me,” “Sentimental,” “Welcome to My Love,” “You Don't Know What Love Is,” and “Nothing Has Ever Felt Like This,” Ferrell first debuted and released the song "First Instrument," in Japan in 1990.
“I can’t even begin to describe how well received my music was in Japan. I have toured nationally and internationally and have heard the phrase ‘citizen of the world’. When you travel to different countries, you are able to touch people of different cultures, background and locale basically through the heart chakra. That is when you really get to understand on a cellular level what universality and oneness is,” stated Rachelle.
“I have come to recognize and acknowledge we are living in trying times and one must be resilient and strong and sit back and recognize that this too shall pass. I am deeply and particularly aware of the shift of energy. There used to be a level of warmth, humanity and hospitality in this country that is no longer there. I don’t talk too much about my politics but I would say that I am political. I am political -- but not so much in the microcosm as in the macrocosm."
As author Bell Hooks says, “Love is political.” And, you can’t get more political than love.”
Deardra Shuler is a journalist in the New York City area. She serves as the Entertainment Editor of the Black Star News and free-lances for several minority print and Internet papers. She has a background in concert promotion, theatre, radio and television and is the host of her own talk show, "Topically Yours.
http://www.tickettoentertainment.com/blog/2016/03/02/rachelle-ferrell-returns-home-to-keswick-theatre-new-cd-coming-later-this-year/
Rachelle Ferrell returns “home” to Keswick Theatre, new CD coming later this year
STORY WRITTEN BY FERN BRODKIN
For Digital First Media
Rachelle Ferrell is one of the most distinctive voices in jazz. Her 6-octave range and unique vocal phrasing clearly sets her apart from most vocalists. But add to that her instrumental prowess and songwriting capabilities and she is clearly much more than just a great singer. She returns to the Keswick Theatre on March 6.
Ferrell started singing as a young child. She had classical training in violin and then piano. After graduating from Berklee College of Music, she had the opportunity to teach alongside Dizzy Gillespie. She then worked as a backup singer for the likes of Lou Rawls, Patti LaBelle, Vanessa Williams and George Duke.
After about 15 years as a backup singer she launched her solo career. Her debut album “First Instrument” was released in Japan in 1990 (though it was actually released in 1995 in the U.S., subsequent to her eponymous release on Manhattan Records in 1992). “First Instrument” was an album of mostly interpretations of jazz standards with an all-star ensemble including bassists Tyrone Brown and Stanley Clarke, pianist Eddie Green, trumpeter Terence Blanchard and tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter, among others.
IF YOU GO
What: Rachelle Ferrell
When: Concert is 8:00 p.m.; doors open at 7:00 p.m. on Sunday, March 6
Where: Keswick Theatre, 291 N. Keswick Ave., Glenside, PA
Tickets: $39.50 – $59.50 in advance
Ages: All Ages
Info.: Call 215- 572-7650 or visit www.keswicktheatre.com
Artist’s website: www.rachelleferrell.com
Ferrell, who is originally from Berwyn, PA, now lives in southern California. We had the opportunity to speak by phone while she was in New York City for a 4-night Valentines weekend engagement at The Blue Note.
Ferrell considers music her “gift from God.” Yet her road wasn’t an easy one.
“Every artist has, you know, a beginning. And mine was kind of rough,” she said. “People look at me and perceive I’ve always been treated a certain way, and I’ve always been respected for my music… but that was not the case. It wasn’t like I was coddled, taken under someone’s wing, allowed special privileges. I had good mentors, but my family and friends cut me no slack.”
After graduating from Berklee, Ferrell had the opportunity to teach alongside Dizzy Gillespie. She still considers that a significant achievement.
“Working with Dizzy Gillespie was a highlight – obviously, most assuredly, in the moment that it happened. And as time went on, that highlight continued to grow… in retrospect because it was only through the continued growth in my own personal education as a musician, and growth in my awareness of who Dizzy Gillespie was, and what he means to the musical community, and what his contributions have been, and how extraordinary a breakthrough pioneer he was. I didn’t know all that at the time, when I worked with him. I knew the name Dizzy Gillespie, but I didn’t have an appreciation for the magnitude and the comprehensiveness of his gift and his artistry, and his contribution to the planet and to the music world. The older I get, the prouder I am of that moment as a teenager.”
It is perhaps because of her own challenges that Ferrell now wants to continue her art and simultaneously be a mentor and guide for other aspiring musicians.
“The difference is huge right now, between the record industry of the ’90s and the year of 2016,” said Ferrell. “(The industry has) been turned upside down and inside out and any other direction you can think of as a result of the digital world and the World Wide Web coming into being. It’s changed the lay of the land as well as the landscape, and how to traverse that land.
“One piece of my dream is to use myself as a guinea pig and figure it out. The other portion of the dream is about once having established that, to then go about creating a safe haven/repository of information and wisdom and experience. Sort of like a revamping of something that’s long since been done away with in the music industry, and that’s artist development. So it’s a combination of providing opportunities for extraordinary, gifted new artists, unheard artists, (and that) doesn’t necessarily mean young people either. Those who have all the qualities, not to mention the mental fortitude and temperament, to be able to be an artist in the year 2016.”
She added that this would be “with a new business paradigm, dare I say for the New Age, the new millennium, which is about good, clean ethics and morality, principles (and) integrity.”
The music business could certainly use more of all that. And we can all certainly use more Rachelle Ferrell in our lives. Don’t miss your opportunity to see her at Keswick Theatre.
“I always look forward to returning to the Keswick because it’s almost like returning home. It’s a place where my friends and family who knew me when can come out and enjoy the music that they used to complain about to me,” she laughed.
Did you know?:
As a child, Ferrell was a regular at Berwyn Pizza. In order to work out vocal arrangements in the songs she was writing, she had to pay her sister Jackie to sing harmony. “I’d hear a harmony… and I needed another voice. And even way back then we pretty much sang very closely to one another. It was like hearing my own voice singing… but she didn’t want to sing the way I did. So I had to pay her in cheesesteaks. She would bribe me – ‘I’ll sing it 2 times if you buy me a cheesesteak!’”
https://lasentinel.net/the-spiritual-and-lyrical-instrument-that-is-rachelle-ferrell.html
The Spiritual and Lyrical Instrument that is Rachelle Ferrell
RACHELLE FERRELL
If you ever have the opportunity to experience the live artistry of Rachelle Ferrell, run towards the light and goodness that is hallmark of a Ferrell performance. Making her first appearance at the Hyatt Regency Summer Concert series in Newport Beach (a fact which boggles the mind), Ferrell dazzled the crowd with her extraordinary vocal abilities and musicianship. But it was her soulful, self-penned, and eloquent lyrics that took center stage.
A masterful wordsmith, Ferrell fluidly moved between octaves as she invited the audience to really listen and experience each and every word.
“I consider myself a wordsmith. When I’m at my best, in perfect alignment, I have the gift to string words together like pearls in a necklace. A loose pearl is one thing but when you get the opportunity to see an exquisite pearl necklace, put together in proper order, the gradients of color, a work of art that you can live with and heal by,” Ferrell said.
Described by many as a precious musical gift, Ferrell has the rare ability to draw and connect with audiences through her unique phrasings and vibrant lyrics that encourage openness to the Creator and the joys of life. Responding to the inevitable question of where do those wonderful lyrics come from, Ferrell said, “The words come from my soul, from the souls, minds, spirits of the people around me…my experiences…their experiences, stories that I hear….”
It is indeed Ferrell’s uncanny ability to use her being as the instrument through which stories flow that slays audiences around the world. Backed by musicians that are spiritually and musically in tune with Ferrell, it is their partnership that makes her show a divine evening of music that defies traditional labels of jazz or R&B; it simply does not matter at a Ferrell concert. “It is a collaboration where we are helping Rachelle to heal or minister through music. We come into this atmosphere as clear as possible so the people can be blessed,” said longtime Ferrell keyboardist and collaborator, Phil Davis.
Trained as a classical violinist, Ferrell can literally do it all. A prolific and poignant songwriter and singer, a pianist and self-taught guitarist, Ferrell cannot remember a time when music was not a part of her life. “Something exploded on the inside of me when I heard jazz. I went on a search for my true musical self. What you hear are the results of what’s living on the inside of me,” Ferrell said.
Being true to her art form was something Ferrell fought to do from the very beginning. “My facial expressions, and appearance were talked about in the beginning by music critics. They said I sang all over the place and didn’t have any respect for the melody,” said Ferrell. “But my greatest achievement and challenge is staying true to myself.”
And on that September night in Newport Beach, the audience loved that she is Rachelle, the instrument, the expressive lyricist, the celebrator of humanity, and the soul-stirring singer who invites you on a musical journey through the deep end of the ocean. “To watch her sing and interpret what’s on the inside of her is amazing, very few artists can do that. She shapes the notes according to what she hears in her head, it’s genius and we get to experience that gift,” said Ferrell guitarist, Billy Odum. “We are vessels, vehicles, and co-creators with the Creator. We have a tacit agreement to show up, be clear and open, ready to align ourselves with light and goodness,” Ferrell said. As the late George Duke, Ferrell’s friend and mentor said, “Rachelle is probably one of the most amazing singers around.”
For more information about Rachelle Ferrell, visit rachelleferrell.com
THE MUSIC OF RACHELLE FERRELL: AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS WITH MS. FERRELL:
Wynton Marsalis and Rachelle Ferrell - Mt. Fuji Jazz Festival (1990)
August 26, 1990
Yamanakako, Yamanashi – Japan
Wynton plays the blues with Rachelle Ferrell at Mt. Fuji Jazz Festival 1990:
https://vimeo.com/73203075
Sidemen:
Rachelle Ferrell--"First Instrument"--full album--1990, 1995:
http://wyntonmarsalis.org/videos/view/wynton-marsalis-and-rachelle-ferrell-mt-fuji-jazz-festival-1990
Wynton Marsalis and Rachelle Ferrell - Mt. Fuji Jazz Festival (1990)
August 26, 1990
Yamanakako, Yamanashi – Japan
Wynton plays the blues with Rachelle Ferrell at Mt. Fuji Jazz Festival 1990:
https://vimeo.com/73203075
Sidemen:
- Rachelle Ferrell – vocals
- Eddie Green – piano
- Tyrone Brown – bass
- Doug Nally – drums
Rachelle Ferrell - "I can explain” (live)—2007
Rachelle Ferrell - Live in Montreux 1997:
Personnel:
Rachelle Ferrell: Vocals
George Duke: Keyboards, vocals
Jonathan Butler: Guitars, vocals
Patti Austin: Vocals
Brian Simpson: Keyboards
Mino Cinelu: Percussion
Larry Kimpel: Bass
Lil John Roberts: Drums
Tracklist:
01 Welcome To My Love
02 Goin' Home
03 Genesis
04 500 Miles To Go
05 With Every Breathe I Take
06 Sarah, Sarah
07 Speak Low
08 Waiting
09 Bus Tours
10 You Don't Know What Love Is
Rachelle Ferrell Estival Jazz Lugano 2008 @@:
Live at The Estival Jazz Lugano in Italy:
Rachelle Ferrel: Vocals
Brandon Coleman: Piano
Raymond McKinely: Bass
Billy Oldum: Guitar
Chris Coleman: Drums
Tracklist:
1. Satisfied 2. Sista 3. I Forgive You 4. My Funny Valentine 5. Autumn Leaves 6. Bye Bye Blackbird 7. Sentimental
Rachelle Ferrell's Electrifying Performance @ BHCP's Season Ending Concert
(Recorded February 10, 2010):
Local Events, Showcases & Celebrity Happenings - Directed, Filmed & Produced by Victor Allen: Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza (BHCP Live!) season ending concert series featured one of the great vocalist and performers of our time, Rachelle Ferrell. Successful in the mainstream R&B, Pop, Gospel, and Classical music scene, she is most noted for her talents as a contemporary jazz singer. Rachelle performs a medley of improvisations with her unique stage and entertainment style unlike any other artist in recent times during the one hour set.
Rachelle Ferrell & Jennifer Hudson, March 3, 2012, Viper Alley, Lincolnshire, Illinois on Stage:
For more pictures and information visit:
www.viper-alley.com and Facebook.com/ViperAlley.
Rachelle Ferrell - "Sista"-- (live):
Rachelle Ferrell - "Sista" live au théâtre antique de Vienne le 12 juillet 2001.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachelle_Ferrell
Rachelle Ferrell
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Rachelle Ferrell | |
|---|---|
Ferrell in a performances on June 6, 2011
|
|
| Background information | |
| Born | May 21, 1964 Berwyn, Pennsylvania |
| Genres | R&B, Pop rock, jazz fusion, neo soul, pop, classical |
| Occupation(s) |
|
| Instruments | Vocals, piano, guitar |
| Years active | 1974–current |
| Labels | Blue Note, Capitol |
| Website | RachelleFerrell.com |
Rachelle Ferrell (born May 21, 1964, Berwyn, Pennsylvania) is an American vocalist and musician.[1] Although she has had some success in the mainstream R&B, pop, gospel, and classical music scene, she is noted for her talents as a contemporary jazz singer.
Contents
Biography
Ferrell began singing at age six, and developed a six octave range by adulthood. Her range also includes the ability to sing in the whistle register.[2] Ferrell's highest notes in "It Only Took A Minute" (1992) have been described as "Minnie Riperton-like wailing."[2][4] She received classical training in violin and the piano at an early age and was performing professionally on both instruments and as a vocalist as a teenager. After enrolling in the Berklee College of Music, and graduating a year later, having learned arrangement and developing her abilities in singing and songwriting, she secured a position teaching music for the New Jersey State Council on the Arts alongside Dizzy Gillespie.[1]From 1975 until 1990, Ferrell sang backup for Lou Rawls, Patti LaBelle, Vanessa Williams, and George Duke. Ferrell's debut, First Instrument, was released in 1990 in Japan, five years prior to its US release. Recorded with bassist Tyrone Brown, pianist Eddie Green and drummer Doug Nally, several famed jazz accompanists also recorded on her album. They include trumpeter Terence Blanchard, pianists Gil Goldstein and Michel Petrucciani, bassists Kenny Davis and Stanley Clarke, tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter and keyboardist Pete Levin. Her take on standards like Sam Cooke's "You Send Me", Cole Porter's "What Is This Thing Called Love?", and Rodgers and Hart's "My Funny Valentine", gained her a substantial Japanese jazz audience.[5]
In 2014, Rachelle Ferrell appeared on a new webseries called "Now What with Kevin E. Taylor," where she was the series season premiere. Ferrell decided, moved by Spirit, to sing her entire interview and at one point, she reduced the host to tears.
Discography
Albums
| Year | Album | Peak positions | Certifications | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| U.S. | U.S. R&B |
U.S. Jazz |
|||
| 1990 | Somethin' Else
|
— | — | — |
|
| 1992 | Rachelle Ferrell
|
161 | 25 | — |
|
| 1995 | First Instrument
|
151 | — | 2 |
|
| 2000 | Individuality (Can I Be Me?)
|
— | — | 1 |
|
| 2002 | Live at Montreux 91–97
|
133 | 17 | 8 |
|
Singles
| Year | Single | Chart positions | Album | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| U.S. | U.S. R&B |
U.S. Adult Contemporary |
|||
| 1992 | "Til You Come Back to Me" | — | 19 | — | Rachelle Ferrell |
| 1993 | "Welcome To My Love" | — | 42 | 25 | |
| "Nothing Has Ever Felt Like This" (featuring Will Downing) | 52 | 72 | — | ||
| "With Open Arms" | — | 68 | — | ||
| 2000 | "Satisfied" | — | — | — | Individuality (Can I Be Me?) |
| "Sista" | — | — | — | ||
| 2001 | "I Can Explain" | — | — | — | |
| "I Forgive You" | — | — | — | ||
References
External links
- Rachelle Ferrell Official Website
