For this 2019 concert at the beautiful Malta Jazz Festival, it is Jazzmeia Horn who graces the stage by the water’s edge. She is one of the most dynamic and respected young voices in contemporary jazz, having won DownBeat awards as well as prestigious competitions named after greats like Thelonious Monk and Sarah Vaughan.
Inevitably, this success has led to comparisons with the legandary female vocalists of yesteryear, like Vaughan and Betty Carter. Yet instead of avoiding the point, Horn leans in, taking up the mantle via a repertoire that blends her heros’ standards with original compositions. This set features Carter’s “Please Do Something” and Vaughan’s “He’s My Guy,” along with tracks from Horn’s 2017 Grammy-nominated album A Social Call and her equally lauded follow up Love & Liberation, which was released the year after this performance.
It is a pleasure to watch Jazzmeia Horn in action, a musicians' favorite and one of the most exciting pure jazz singers of the 21st Century. She is comfortable wielding the power of jazz history and stretching it into the future.
