AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE
EDITOR: KOFI NATAMBU
SPRING, 2022
VOLUME ELEVEN NUMBER TWO
ROSCOE MITCHELL
Featuring the Musics and Aesthetic Visions of:
MORGAN GUERIN
(March 18-24)
KENNY KIRKLAND
(March 26-APRIL 1)
STACEY DILLARD
(April 2-8)
CHARENÉE WADE
(April 9-15)
JAMAEL DEAN
(April 16-22)
MILES MOSELY
April 23-29)
JONTAVIOUS WILLIS
(April 30-May 7)
UNA MAE CARLISLE
(May 8-14)
JUSTIN BROWN
(May 15-21)
TYLER MITCHELL
(May 22-28)
BENJAMIN BOOKER
(May 29-June 4)
CHRIS BECK
Charenee Wade (b. 1981) is an American jazz, soul and R&B singer, composer, arranger, improvisor, and educator.
Early life
Charenee Wade was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, United States and began singing at the age of 12. She participated in the Betty Carter's Jazz Ahead Program performing her original music at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. She participated in the Dianne Reeves Artists Workshop at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Wade was selected for the JAS Academy Summer Sessions as a young artist in 2007-2009 which was directed by Christian McBride. Her earlier influences in music was Sarah Vaughan and Betty Carter.Wade is an international and national performer. She is well studied in jazz and classical music.[1] She has performed at the Jazz Gallery, Zinc Bar, Lincoln Center's Dizzy Coca-Cola's, Smalls in New York City. Her debut album was Love Walked In which was released in 2010.[2][3] Wade has been a featured singer in many trios, big bands, etc., to a 100-piece Jazz Philharmonic Orchestra.
She has studied with Carmen Lundy, Peter Eldridge, Bob Stewart, Miles Griffith, Lenora Zenzailai Helm, Luciana Souza, Cecil Bridgewater, Pamela Baskin-Watson.
Wade has performed at Festival du Riou, the Montreaux Jazz Festival, and the Ascona New Orleans Jazz Festival. She opened for Herbie Hancock at the Clifford Brown Jazz Festival in 2003. She was on tour with the Oleg Butman Trio performing at various venues in Moscow, and the Province Jazz Festival in Orenburg. In 2004, she performed with Rufus Reid the bassist-composer.
Her second album is a tribute to the work of Gil Scott-Heron, and is titled the “Offering: The Music of Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson”. It was released on the Motéma Music label. The album features Christian McBride, Lakecia Benjamin, Dave Stryker, Stefon Harris, Marcus Miller, Malcolm-Jamal Warner.[4][5]
She has been a guest vocalist on album releases by Tia Fuller, Eric Reed, and the Eyal Vilner Big Band.[6]
2014 - December to January 2015 - Starred alongside Cyrille Aimée, Allan Harris and an eight-piece band including saxophonist Camille Thurman and bassist Mimi Jones in Alex Webb (musician)'s jazz theatre show Cafe Society Swing at New York's 59E59 Theaters, attracting positive reviews including a Critic's Pick from the New York Times.[7]
2015 - October - Special guest vocalist with the Rob Garcia Sextet tribute to the music of Max Roach.
2017 - August - Charlie Parker Jazz Festival with the Lee Konitz Quartet / Terri Lyne Carrington and Social Science / Louis Hayes / Charenee Wade.
Artists who have performed with her band & artists she has performed with; Brandon McCune, Paul Beaudry, Alvester Garnett, Lakecia Benjamin, Nikara Warren, Brandon McCune, bassist Lonnie Plaxico, Alvester Garnett, Brianna Thomas, Catherine Russell.
2017 - October - Wade in Shanghai, China with Camille Thurman Group at the Jazz at Lincoln Center in Shanghai with pianist and composer Helen Sung.
2017 - October - Wade Wade and Camille Thurman Quartet, and with vocalist Sachal Vasandani, Jazz at Lincoln Center Shanghai at The Central in the Bund, Shanghai, China.[8]
Teaching
She teaches workshops and music clinics, and has been a talent judge in music competitions. She is a professor at the Aaron Copland School of Music in New York, and teaches with the Jazzmobile workshop program. She also teaches teenagers at New Jersey Performing Arts Center. She says as an educator, "The goal is to help each individual to acquire the essential skills needed to become well-rounded musician, while nurturing their passion for music. I strongly believe that music has the power to change lives and through self expression, can bring positivity to communities for the betterment of society and culture".[9]
She has also taught at the New Orleans Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong Jazz Camp.[10][11]
Awards
She was first runner up in the 2010 Thelonious Monk competition.
Discography
- 2011 - Love Walked In (Self-Produced)
- 2015 - The Offering : The Music of Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson. On the Motéma Music label. The album features Christian McBride, Lakecia Benjamin, Stefon Harris, Marcus Miller, Malcolm-Jamal Warner.[12]
External links
- Charenee Wade - Offering: The Music of Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson (Behind the Scenes)
- Charenee Wade։ Music on Jazz at Lincoln center
- Charenee Wade On 'Song Travels'
ABOUT CHARENEE WADE...
Charenee Wade is not one to hold back or let fear stand in her way. The first artist ever to enter two Thelonious Monk Vocal competitions, she walked away from the second one in 2010 with instant buzz and second place to her new friend Cecilé McLorin Salvant. Now is the time for Wade’s star to rise. Known for expert vocal improvisational ability and her seriously swinging groove, Wade evokes a classic jazz sound akin to Betty Carter and Sarah Vaughan, two of her musical touchstones. With her Motéma debut, Offering: The Music of Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson (June 23), she pays tribute to another inspiration, the socially conscious poet and musician Gil Scott-Heron, and confirms that she too plans to use her artist platform thoughtfully.
The first full-length album tribute to Scott-Heron and his musical collaborator Brian Jackson by a woman artist, Offering is arresting in just how timely Scott-Heron’s messages are today and how perfectly Wade delivers them through her savvy arrangements and intimate jazz interpretations. While she has earned many accolades – first runner-up in New York’s Jazzmobile Vocal competition; a participant in Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead program; a feature on NPR’s Song Travels; a starring role in the off-Broadway show Café Society and in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Salute to Betty Carter – she may surprise people with this authentic tour de force.
Wade embodies Scott-Heron’s poems deeply and with a pathos that belies her age. Her singing is effortless and inventive on the opening title track, and with her lithe voice floating around the poet’s timeless words, we are invited into her invocation. Indeed “Song of the Wind” feels like a sacred exchange between the past and present and a testament to the peace we’re still seeking today. “A Toast to The People” showcases her excellent storytelling ability and subtle vocal prowess. On “Home Is Where the Hatred Is,” she and the band throw down the gauntlet both in terms of the powerful message and jazz chops on display.
Like Scott-Heron, Wade believes that we are the ones right now who must commit to social consciousness and to just action, as she makes plain in “Ain’t No Such Thing As A Superman,” which she mines for its jazz, blues and soul elements. The call to action continues in the next selection, “Essex/Martin, Grant, Byrd and Till,” as the story and names recited by actor Malcolm-Jamal Warner could be exchanged today with those of Martin, Brown, Garner and sadly, many more. Wade goes into a slow burn on “Western Sunrise” and the poignant track, “The Vulture (Your Soul and Mine).” Her finesse with language, intervals, dynamics and emotive ability is on brilliant display in “Peace Go With You Brother.” The closing song “I Think I’ll Call It Morning” signals that hope is always what drives positive change.
Produced by Grammy-nominated music industry veteran and Sirius XM personality Mark Ruffin, the recording features notable guest stars and a stellar band comprised of Brandon McCune on piano; Dave Stryker on guitar; Lonnie Plaxico on bass; and Alvester Garnett on drums. Wade’s labelmate, saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin, sits in on “Essex/Martin,” as does Marcus Miller on bass clarinet and actor Malcolm-Jamal Warner on spoken word. Another spoken word guest is bassist Christian McBride, who opens “Peace Go With You Brother.” The great vibes player Stefon Harris is featured on six selections. Wade’s first international release follows on the recent publication of a biography on Scott-Heron by Marcus Baram called “Gil Scott-Heron: Pieces of A Man.”
Wade gives ample evidence on this remarkable debut as to why she is one of the most exciting, distinctive and bold young musical talents on the rise today. A native of Brooklyn, she began singing at age 12 and fell under the spell of Sarah Vaughan. Wade attended LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts and earned her music degree from Manhattan School of Music. One of four artists selected for the Dianne Reeves Young Artist workshop at Carnegie Hall, she was first runner-up at the 2006 New York City Jazzmobile Vocal Competition, which also featured Gregory Porter, whom Motéma launched into global stardom. The entire jazz industry has passionately embraced Wade including Wynton Marsalis, who features her regularly at Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC); Christian McBride, who mentored her at his Jazz Aspen Academy; and labelmate Rufus Reid, who selected her for his Grammy-nominated album, Quiet Pride: The Elizabeth Catlett Project. Wade has performed with Bobby Sanabria, Aaron Diehl, Oran Etkin, Robert Glasper and MacArthur Fellow and choreographer Kyle Abraham among others and at venues and festivals worldwide including Montreux and Spoleto. This year she is touring in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s national presentation, Ladies Sing the Blues.
A singer, composer, arranger and educator, Wade is a professor at the Aaron Copland School at Queens College and was just recently appointed to Peabody Institute. Following the Monk competition in 2010, she self-released Love Walked In, which earned her the NPR Song Travels feature. With Offering, Wade continues walking in love and using her art to raise our consciousness.
https://www.chareneewade.com/?s=0
Offering: The Music of Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson 2015Audio Premiere: Charenee Wade Covers Gil Scott-Heron’s ‘Ain’t No Such Thing As Superman’ Had Revive been a magazine during the ’70s, then Gil Scott-Heron would have made the front page regularly. The “bluesologist” (as he liked to call himself) was melding music that had elements of soul, jazz, blues, and hip-hop before hip-hop had even existed. Famously known for “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” Gil Scott-Heron revolutionized the way audiences perceived what it meant to be a vocalist by merging spoken word with soul/funk-jazz grooves. “Gil makes you think about what you can do as an artist,” comments Motéma recording artist Charenee Wade. “Most artists today don’t use their platform to shift consciousness like Gil and artists of his day used to do. He inspires me to do my own thing, to not be afraid to say what I want to say.” In tribute to the late artist, Wade dropped her version of GSH’s classic “Ain’t No Such Thing As Superman” from her upcoming Offering: The Music of Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson LP. Wade’s forthcoming Motéma release will be dropping on June 23rd and will feature a host of luminaries including Christian McBride, Malcolm Jamal Warner, Lakecia Benjamin, Stefon Harris, Marcus Miller, and many more. Scroll down to listen to “Ain’t No Such Thing as Superman.” Stay tuned for more on Charenee Wade and Offering. -DanMichael, Revive-Music.com Pre-order Charenee Wade’s ‘Offering: The Music of Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson’ via iTunes
Summer Jazz Workshop:
August 27th, 2pm-4pm
$45 in advanced, $55 at the door
Location: NYC
Sign- Up Now!
Currently Charenee Wade is a professor at the Aaron Copland School of Music, City College, Jazzmobile, NJPAC Jazz for Teens, as well as an active performer, arranger, composer, band leader and clinician. With deep knowledge and experience in Jazz and Classical as well as many other genres such as pop, r&b, and gospel, she has developed an effective approach to vocal technique that can be easily accessible to all ages. "I have worked diligently and steadfastly to facilitate the individual growth of each of my students. The goal is to help each invidual to acquire the essential skills needed to become well-rounded musician, while nuturing their passion for music. I strongly believe that music has the power to change lives and through self expression, can bring positivity to communities for the betterment of society and culture."
Charenee Wade has also taught at in New Orleans Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong Jazz Camp at Loyola College, Brooklyn Charter School, Centrum Jazz Port-Townsend Workshop, and The Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival.
To sign-up for private lessons and/ group classes, please submit request to info.chareneemusic@gmail.com.
Music Review
Review:
Charenée Wade Performs Gil Scott-Heron Works
The defining act of alchemy on “Offering: The Music of Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson” (Motéma), a persuasive new album by the jazz singer Charenée Wade, is her version of “Song of the Wind.” In its original incarnation, released in 1977, the tune has a funk-reggae lilt and an obbligato of tropical birdsong, played on a synthesizer. Ms. Wade sings it with a graver air, slow and brooding and serious.
During her first set at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola on Wednesday night, as part of the Coca-Cola Generations in Jazz Festival, Ms. Wade introduced “Song of the Wind” as a reflection on “the wisdom of the ancestors.” Her band played a floating polyrhythmic vamp, and she began to sing, focusing her limber alto in a calmly oratorical cadence. Only at the chorus — as Ms. Wade reached the line “For you alone have been to Africa,” and the musicians shifted into swinging gear — was there a sense of dynamic release. In context it felt radical, and ideally suited to both the singer and the song.
Mr. Scott-Heron, who died in 2011 at 62, was a poet whose message and moment often conspired to hold him up as a prophet, and in his long collaboration with the multi-instrumentalist Mr. Jackson, he made music of lasting potency. His aesthetic drew heavily from jazz, so it’s not entirely a stretch to recast his work in that vein. Still, the degree of difficulty is high. Ms. Wade had to know that much going in.
Her producer on “Offering” was Mark Ruffin, the program director for jazz at SiriusXM Satellite Radio, who also produced a Giacomo Gates album called “The Revolution Will Be Jazz: The Songs of Gil Scott-Heron,” released in 2011 on Savant. Working together, Ms. Wade and Mr. Ruffin found a judicious angle of approach, avoiding material that might seem overfamiliar or time-stamped — no “Whitey on the Moon,” no “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” — and creating arrangements that don’t feel forced.
Wednesday’s set featured the album’s core rhythm section, with Brandon McCune on piano, Lonnie Plaxico on bass and Alvester Garnett on drums. The tenor saxophonist Camille Thurman and the vibraphonist Nikara Warren completed the ensemble, which Ms. Wade led with decisive assurance, setting the tempos and the agenda. At one point in “Home Is Where the Hatred Is,” sensing that the band’s acoustic-funk groove was becoming glib, she goaded Mr. Garnett to thrash harder and got the desired result.
Ms. Wade is a jazz singer of commanding skill, an heir to the legacies of Betty Carter and Carmen McRae. She exercised dynamic restraint in this performance, intent on serving the songs and their half-earnest, half-skeptical perspective. Not every interpretation was a success — “The Vulture (Your Soul and Mine)” registered as too cool, leached of its urgency — but Ms. Wade radiated reverence and authority.
And on “Ain’t No Such Thing as Superman,” she struck a tone of judgment and composure, warning against the false hopes of a savior. Mr. Scott-Heron probably wasn’t thinking of his own cultural eminence when he wrote the song, but that’s how it scanned here: as an indictment, an exhortation, and on some level, a challenge to be accepted.
Fall Under the Spell of ‘Bessie, Billie, & Nina: Pioneering Women in Jazz’ at the Washington Center
Although slavery was abolished by the 13th Amendment in 1865, it was nearly 30 years before the first early ragtime songs opened the door to African American music as we know it today. From Scott Joplin in the 1890s to the boisterous heyday of the 1920s, ragtime and jazz took our country by storm. On Tuesday, March 15, join three top vocalists and their all-female band in celebrating the lives and work of Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday and Nina Simone at Olympia’s Washington Center for the Performing Arts.
“Bessie, Billie, & Nina: Pioneering Women in Jazz” is a national tour showcasing the performances of three timeless jazz greats. Singers Charenée Wade, Vanisha Gould and Tahira Clayton take us on a musical journey which runs from life in the Jim Crow South to the upheavals of the 1960s. The three singers immortalized in this performance conquered decades of repression and racism to give voice to political and social movements nationwide.
Bessie Smith’s first recording was released in 1923, according to Jazz in America. It sold a million copies in only six months. Ten years later, Billie Holiday recorded her first song and Nina Simone’s first album dropped in 1957.
Bringing their soulful sound to life in 2022 are three accomplished contemporary artists with amazing resumes of their own. Charenée Wade is a singer, composer and educator. A professor at the Aaron Copland School at Queens College, she is a regular on Jazz at Lincoln Center and has toured with their national production of “Ladies Sing the Blues.”
Vanisha Gould moved to New York from California in 2015 but is back on the west coast with this touring concert. Composer and band leader, she is known for vibrant performances of original work as well as timeless classics from the Great American Songbook.
Like Gould, Tahira Clayton is an NYC transplant, this time from Dallas, Texas. When not on stage, Clayton teaches at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, the Bloomingdale School of Music and Trinity Wall Street. She is also a teaching artist for Jazz at Lincoln Center (Jazz for Young People) and the Juilliard School.
Together, these powerful voices, under Grammy-winning producer Eli Wolf, celebrate the enduring legacies of music’s iconic women and artists. Wolf has worked with such notables as Nora Jones, Robert Glasper and The Roots. Performances include their classic songs like Bessie Smith’s “Downhearted Blues,” Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit,” and Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam.” Predominantly music, the artists will also give context to these songs and their importance in culture and history.
The show takes place at 7:30 p.m. on March 15 and tickets can be purchased in advance or at the Washington Center’s box office. The Box Office is open from noon until 5:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday or two hours before any event. You can reach them at 360.753.8586 or boxoffice@washingtoncenter.org.
Patrons over 18 must show a photo ID. Follow the Center’s COVID-19 protocol requirements for changes and updates to their guidelines as they are modified in alignment with state and local standards. Please be respectful as restrictions may change at the last minute.
Get into the mood by enjoying past performances before the show. Charenée Wade’s “Ain’t No Such Thing As Superman” is an acoustic gem. Vanisha Gould was featured as part of NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest performing “Donovan,” and Tahira Clayton’s new album Wait, Till Now is available to stream as well.
Historians at the Smithsonian share that: “Describing the African-American influence on American music in all of its glory and variety is an intimidating—if not impossible—task. African American influences are so fundamental to American music that there would be no American music without them…Their work songs, dance tunes, and religious music—and the syncopated, swung, remixed, rocked, and rapped music of their descendants—would become the lingua franca of American music, eventually influencing Americans of all racial and ethnic backgrounds.”
Come hear the most iconic songs of an era, thanks to the Washington Center. Billie, Bessie and Nina may no longer be with us, but their music lives on forever. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to hear their work performed as it should be—live and full of emotion and feeling. It’s a glimpse into a bygone era that still rings true 100 years later.
New York Music Daily
Tag: charenee wade
June 8, 2019
Charenee Wade Brings Her Souful Depth and Powerful Vocals Back to a Favorite Uptown Spot
Charenee Wade is a rarity, a consummate jazz musician and improviser whose instrument just happens to be vocals. She’s also a major interpreter of Gil Scott-Heron: on her 2015 album Offering: The Music of Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson, she reinvented an intriguing mix of mostly relatively obscure songs by the iconic hip-hop godfather and political firebrand. Onstage. she isn’t just a lead singer in front of a backing unit: her voice is an integral part of a central focal point where she and the members of her excellent quartet converge – and sometimes diverge. She’s playing Ginny’s Supper Club on June 22, with sets at 7 and 9 PM. You can get a seat at the bar for $20.
Her late set there back in mid-February had everything you could want from a concert: smart interplay, fiery solos, strong tunes and dynamic vocals. Wade will hover just a hair above or below a note a la Dinah Washington, but with a much more powerful low register. And yet, Wade also showed off similar power, way up the scale, using her vibrato sparingly when she wanted to add some purr to a phrase.
Pianist Oscar Perez fired off several sabretoothed solos, adding unexpected flash during a handful of fleeting crescendos that made up a much bigger picture as a song, and ultimately the set itself, followed an upward tangent. Bassist Paul Beaudry stuck to walking the changes, holding the center with a purist pulse as drummer Darrell Green colored the music with some unexpected charges of his own, including a rapturously intense take on African talking drums.
After a swinging instrumental intro, Wade began the set with a long, uneasily atmospheric, Alice Coltrane-esque tableau. The highlight of the night was an expansive, harrowing take of the Gil Scott-Heron classic Home Is Where the Hatred Is. But Wade didn’t just do the obvious and scat on the “kick it, quiit it” vamp at the end: she brought a knowing desperation to the verses, a searing portrait of someone driven to addiction rather than simply falling into the trap.
It was Singles Appreciation Night, she told the crowd, so her standards and ballads had a sardonic undercurrent that was sometimes subtle, as in her delicate take of You Taught My Heart to Sing, and then much more overtly cynical as the set picked up steam. They brought a misty, mystical ambience back with a late-70s Scott-Heron tune referencing African spirits blowing on the breeze, Green supplying a dusky, mysterious, shamanistic intro. They finally closed the set with a brief, emphatic segment from John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme. It’s a good bet Wade and her band will mix up the classic and the cutting edge this time around too.
September 26, 2016
Three of the World’s Great Jazz Voices Sing the Blues
One of the year’s funnest concerts was back at the end of July at Metrotech Park in downtown Brooklyn, where three of New York’s most distinctive jazz vocalists – Catherine Russell, Brianna Thomas and Charenee Wade – sang a lascivious and occasionally heartwrenching mix of blues and early swing tunes. Daycamp kids, retirees, office workers on their lunchbreaks and others playing hooky from work (guess who) hung around and grinned in unison when Russell sang the story of what happened when Miss Liza Johnson’s ex finds out that she’s changed the lock on her front door. “He pushed it in and turned it round,” she paused, “And took it out,” she explained. “They just don’t write ’em like that anymore,” she grinned afterward.
Wade made her entrance with a pulsing take of Lil Johnson’s My Stove’s in Good Condition and its litany of Freudian metaphors, which got the crowd going just like it was 1929. Matt Munisteri, playing banjo, took a rustic, coyly otherworldly solo, dancing and then frenetically buzzing, pinning the needle in the red as he would do often despite the day’s early hour. Thomas did a similar tune, working its innuendos for all they were worth. And the split second Wade launched into “I hate to see that evening sun go down,”a siren echoed down Jay Street. Not much has changed in that way since 1929 either. That was the point of the show, that the blues is no less relevant or amusing now than it was almost a hundred years ago when most of the songs in the setwere written.
The band – Munisteri, Mark Shane on piano, Tal Ronen on bass, Mark McLean drums, Jon-Erik Kellso on trumpet, John Allred on trombone and Mark Lopeman on tenor and soprano sax – opened counterintuitively with a slow, moody blues number that sounded like the prototype for Ellington’s Black and Tan Fantasy, Munisteri’s beehive of a tremolo-picked banjo solo at the center. They went to the repertoire of Russell’s pianist dad Luis for an ebullient take of Going to Town, a jaunty early swing tune from 1930 with brief dixieland-flavored solos all around. The rest of the set mined the catalog of perennial favorites like Ethel Waters, Ida Cox, Jessie Mae Hemphill, Alberta Hunter and Bessie Smith, with a bouncy take of bouncy take of Fats Waller’s Crazy ‘Bout My Baby to shake things up.
The show’s most riveting number was a hushed piano-and-vocal duo take of Ethel Waters’ Supper Time. Thomas took care to emphasize that it was the grim account of a woman explaining to her kids that their dad wasn’t coming home anymore since he’d been lynched. Shane’s piano matched Thomas’ understated anguish through austere gospel-flavored passages, occasionally reaching into the macabre. Then she picked up the pace just a little with a pensive take of the Bessie Smith classic I Ain’t Got Nobody, fueled by Shane’s striding lefthand and Kellso’s energetically shivery, melismatic lines.
Russell let her vibrato linger throughout maybe the night’s most innuendo-fueled number, Margaret Johnson’s Who’ll Chop Your Suey When I’m Gone (sample lyric: “Who’ll clam your chowder?”), the horns as exuberantly droll as the vocals. The three women didn’t do much in the way of harmonies until the end of the set, which would have been fun to see: Wade with her no-nonsense alto, Russell with her purist mezzo-soprano and Thomas’s alternately airy and fiery higher register. How does all this relate to what’s happening in New York right now, a couple of months after this apparently one-off collaboration was over? Russell has a new album out – which hasn’t made it over the transom here yet. Stay tuned!
July 7, 2015
Charenee Wade Tackles the Impossible Challenge of Covering Gil Scott-Heron
Conventional wisdom is that if you want to cover a song, you should either completely reinvent it, or improve on the original. Trying to improve on anything from the immense catalog of the late, great jazz poet/hip-hop/psychedelic funk icon Gil Scott-Heron‘s catalog may be an impossible task, but as far as reinventions are concerned, the field’s wide open. Singer Charenee Wade tackles that challenge on her ambitious new album, Offering: The Music of Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson. She’s playing the release show at the Jazz Standard on July 8, with sets at 7:30 and 9:30 PM: cover is $25.
For those unfamiliar with his catalog, Scott-Heron, who died in 2011, ranks with Bob Marley, the Clash and Johnny Cash. Scott-Heron may not be quite as well-known, but his searing, fearlessly political music is every bit as powerful as anything those artists ever put out. Many consider him to be the first major hip-hop artist. Over the course of a forty-plus year career, Scott-Heron ripped racists and rightwingers to shreds, called bullshit on his own community and was one of the few American artists to call attention to the apocalyptic danger of nuclear power: his unforgettably ominous cautionary anthem We Almost Lost Detroit predated the Chernobyl disaster by a dozen years, and was the standout track on the otherwise forgettable No Nukes concert compilation album.
Maybe wisely, Wade and her band steer clear of most of Scott-Heron’s major works, instead focusing on more obscure tracks.There are two songs from Scott-Heron’s auspicious 1971 Pieces of a Man album, another two from 1975’s far more mellow The First Minute of a New Day. She and the band kick off the opening number, Offering, from the latter album with a strikingly straightforward delivery that actually manages to one-up the original. The genius of the arrangement is Brandon McCune’s steady piano augmented by Sefon Harris’ vibraphone, plus guitarist Dave Stryker’s brittle but triumphant cadenzas.
Another track from that album, Western Sunrise is a real revelation, bassist Lonnie Plaxico kicking it off with a catchy hook, Wade establishing a tricky tempo that ironically puts her unaffectedly strong vocals front and center, reinforcing Scott-Heron’s sardonic commentary on American exceptionalism. She ends it with a misty scat solo that the composer would no doubt appreciate.
Of the two tracks from Pieces of a Man – Scott-Heron’s first recording with a full band – Wade goes for fullscale reinvention with a scamperingly salsafied take of Home Is Where The Hatred Is, in her hands an even more chilling portrait of ghetto abandonment and alienation spiced with rippling solos from Harris and McCune. When she toys with the song’s haunting, concluding line, the effect is viscerally spine-tingling. Likewise, Wade reimagines the other track from that album, I Think I’ll Call It Morning, as a spirited if rainswept late 60s soul-jazz waltz as Roberta Flack might have done it.
Interestingly, the most epic number here is a shapeshifting take of Song of the Wind, an optimistic Afrocentric peacenik anthem from the 1977 Bridges album: the sparkly piano/vibes arrangement raises the energy of the undulating Fender Rhodes-driven original. A Toast to the People, one of the deep cut from the iconic 1975 From South Africa to South Carolina album, also gets an expansive treatment, Wade maintaining an enigmatic, misty distance from Scott-Heron’s snide, insistent delivery, Stryker channeling a period-perfect feel with his octaves.
Arguably the most apt choice of songs here is Ain’t No Such Thing As Superman, from the 1974 album The First Minute of a New Day – simply being sung by a woman, let alone with as much conviction as Wade brings this, elevates Scott-Heron’s message of community solidarity. Actor Malcolm-Jamal Warner narrates the historically biting proto hip-hop intro to Essex/Martin, Grant, Byrd & Till, an improvisational tableau with a lively solo from saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin. Likewise, Christian McBride provides a spoken-word intro to a lushly assertive take of the understatedly snide Peace Go With You Brother, from the 1974 album Winter in America. The most obscure track here is The Vulture (Your Soul And Mine), a clave-soul mashup based on a cut from Scott-Heron’s debut and also his final and forgettable album I’m New Here.
Is That Jazz is the one song that would have been really awesome to hear Wade do here. Can’t you imagine Plaxico playing that bitingly bluesy intro…and then Wade scampering down the scale, or up the scale as that groove kicks in? And wouldn’t that be hilarious when she got to the chorus? Is that jazz? OMG, is that jazz! The album’s not out yet, therefore no streaming link: put out a Google alert for when it hits Spotify, Soundcloud or Bandcamp.
https://www.postandcourier.com/news/charenee wade/article
Charenee Wade
Charenee Wade
When she was 12 years old, jazz singer and Brooklyn native Charenee Wade heard a recording of the legendary jazz vocalist Sarah Vaughan singing “My Funny Valentine.” Wade instantly fell under the spell of Vaughan’s lyrical voice, and she has been singing ever since.
“What I liked about Sarah Vaughan’s voice was that it was warm, soulful,” Wade said. “I felt like I connected with her.”
Twenty years later, Wade is steadily gaining a following. On her latest album, “Love Walked In” from 2010, her stirring voice runs the gamut of expression. The spirited tunes are playfully rendered, each syllable animated. Then her voice is washing over a ballad like a wave with a delivery so intimate it makes listeners feel as though she’s right next to them, crooning in their ears.
Wade is making her Spoleto Festival debut at 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday in the Cistern Yard.
Wade first came to the attention of the jazz world in 2004 when she was a contestant in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocals Competition. The contest has been known for launching the careers of up-and-coming musicians since its inception in 1987. Wade placed fourth.
Six years later, she competed again. This time, she placed second. But perhaps even more important than her ranking in the contest was the friendship she formed with the winner, Cecile McLorin Salvant, who made her Spoleto debut in 2012.
Salvant said Wade’s talent struck her immediately, and she remains a fan.
“My favorite jazz singers are the ones that sing with authenticity, that have a sense of humor, deeply interpret songs and are surprising,” Salvant said. “Charenee does that.”
Wade’s slot in this year’s festival is due in part to a recommendation Salvant gave two years ago, said Michael Grofsorean, director of the Wells Fargo Jazz series.
“I make a practice of interrogating all the musicians I bring to the festival because it’s a great way for me to get ideas for future festivals,” Grofsorean said. Salvant gave him Wade’s name in 2012, and jazz vocalist Gregory Porter also recommended her when he performed at the festival the following year. Grofsorean said that was as good as it gets as far as recommendations, because both Salvant and Porter are great singers.
Wade will be performing at Spoleto with four other musicians: Oscar Perez on piano, Dezron Douglas on bass, Alvester Garnett on drums and Bruce Williams on saxophone. Perez has been playing with Wade for 10 years. He said what keeps him on board with the singer is her honesty as an artist, which was evident the first time he heard her.
“When I listened to her, I realized there was a different path to her, a more pure path,” Perez said. “I met somebody who came up listening to jazz. That’s so rare now. It’s in her DNA.”
Wade started singing jazz when she was 12, but it wasn’t until high school that she realized she wanted to make her living as a singer. Her newfound dedication to music came when she attended the New York State Summer School of the Arts program in Albany.
“I just remember one day having an epiphany that, ‘Oh, I could do this. I could sing all day,’ ” Wade said.
Singing jazz from a young age has given Wade that intangible quality that goes beyond talent or skill: authenticity. Grofsorean said aside from hearing her name from other great musicians, Wade’s sincerity in her singing reeled him in.
“I won’t consider an artist that doesn’t strike me as honest and authentic,” he said. “There’s a richness about everything she does: the range, the tone, the expression, the dynamism of it. Hearing her is reminiscent of Sarah Vaughan.”
And there’s that name again. At 12, Charenee Wade hears Vaughan for the first time. Today, Wade’s got the mic, and she’s making jazz her own.
Jessica Cabe is a Goldring Arts Journalist from Syracuse University.
https://www.juilliard.edu/music/faculty/wade-charenee
Charenee Wade
Teaches
About
Award-winning vocalist, arranger, educator, and composer Charenée Wade has excited audiences all over the world with her ingenuity and vibrancy. A recipient of the 2017 Jazz at Lincoln Center Millennial Swing Award and first runner-up in the 2010 Thelonious Vocal Competition, Wade has worked with artists including Wynton Marsalis, Terri Lyne Carrington, Christian McBride, Winard Harper, Eric Reed, Jacky Terrason, Curtis Lundy, Robert Glasper, and Kyle Abraham. In her early years, Wade was selected as one of four artists for the Dianne Reeves Young Artist Workshop at Carnegie Hall as well as Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead Program, where she was mentored by Carmen Lundy and Curtis Fuller and performed her original music at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. An alumna of what is now the LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, Wade completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music performance at the Manhattan School of Music. Her latest CD, Offering: The Music of Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson, is a powerful reinterpretation of the poet’s musical library, which features notable artists including Lonnie Plaxico, Marcus Miller, Stefon Harris, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, and Christian McBride (spoken word). Wade has performed at top venues including Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Jazz Standard, and the Apollo, and she has performed at major festivals worldwide including Montreux, Copenhagen, Newport, Istanbul, Spoleto, Princeton, Bern, and Savannah Music, and Jazz En Tete. A passionate educator who has taught master classes and private lessons at the Aaron Copland School of Music, Peabody Institute of John Hopkins University, and University of Texas, among others, Wade has also has taught at clinics and jazz camps all over the world, including in New Orleans, the U.K., Israel, Croatia, Spain, Australia, and Taiwan.
Follow JAZZ.FM91 and others on SoundCloud.
Charenée Wade is a force of artistry that makes a sweet and deep impression.
THE MUSIC OF CHARENEE WADE : AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS
WITH CHARENEE WADE:
