EMW at Jazzkaar Festival

Part One: Funky Business

VINCENT TEETSOV

Audio cables were plugged into tall speakers, instrument flight cases were cracked open, and drum heads were tuned up. Before long, the flights began to touch down at Lennart Meri Tallinn Airport and footsteps started to fall in the hip district of Telliskivi, capping off another summer in Estonia.

Just as we reported on Tallinn Music Week last year, Elis Jaansoo and Sebastian Buccioni have been there as correspondents at Jazzkaar Festival. The festival, running from Monday August 23rd to Sunday August 29th, has boosted the global touring cachet of Tallinn; and as the festival puts it, “combines the avant-garde with the mainstream for a festival of diversity.”

Fitting for a nation of singers, this year Jazzkaar invited Lucy Woodward, who performed on Wednesday August 25th at Vaba Lava. Woodward has conquered virtually every musical situation out there for singers, but is playing in a more intimate configuration for her tour stop in Estonia, which she has wanted to visit for 10 years.

Many of her tour dates prior have been with large ensembles. Just prior to arriving in Estonia, she had been playing big band music in Sicily, leading her to remark on how different it is in Estonia. She spent her first morning quietly walking circles around Vanalinn, describing it as “magical.”

We may even see the Old Town appear in a future song. Just as she finds ideas going around New York City or Los Angeles, she says that when touring, “Your environment affects you. You realize there’s this kind of bubble that you’re in with the people who are taking care of you and you spend every minute together with.” She continues, “That bubble is kind of like its own story. A song could come out of that because of the friends you make along the way...”

Touring aside, Woodward has had a transatlantic upbringing. She was born in London, England but moved to the Netherlands at an early age, before moving again to New York City with her mother and spending summers in the Netherlands with her father.

Though she is English-American and recognizes the profound way blues and jazz have raised her artistically, she adds that “I’m very connected to the Dutch culture because I’ve been going there my whole life...”, especially because she lives there currently. Woodward has absorbed culture all along.

As a singer, her timbre is mighty and bluesy. Although both of her parents were classical musicians and she studied classical flute, she knew from a very young age that she was never going to be a classical singer. Since high school, she’s been entranced by R&B. Then came jazz and blues, which she groups together “in the same family.”

The heart of the blues was astounding to her. “I had a boyfriend when I was 16 or so who introduced me to Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan, and I was like ‘whoa, it’s only three chords!’” She states, “It doesn’t matter how many chords or notes are in your song, how big your range is as a singer. It’s all what you do with it.”

Between releasing her debut solo album While You Can in 2003 and Music! Music! Music! with Charlie Hunter in 2019, what she’s been able to create has changed significantly. “My first record deals were in the pop world, and that record in 2003, it’s music I will never sing again. I’m very proud of that period, it was just like a past chapter. You sign with a major label and are told what to wear, what to do, what to look like. There are a lot of rules you have to play by... Then after that goes away, you get dropped, and you start really learning about who you are as a singer, as an artist, as a songwriter... You start finding your own sound.”

With the freedom of being a more independent artist, she’s been singing the stuff that makes her happiest. With sonic explorer and guitarist Charlie Hunter, she released an album two months ago that uses a blues foundation to cover artists like Nina Simone and En Vogue. The formidable combo has been active since 2018, ever since Hunter asked her to come on tour with him when another singer couldn’t be there. Hunter’s signature, where his instrument melds bass and guitar together into one guitar neck, has augmented the tonal palette of songs for Woodward.

Over 180 shows in 2019, every night they tried new songs, new keys, and alternate tunings to “carve out space” somewhere in the frequencies for her voice. They didn’t want her notes to clash with his guitar.

The same practice applies to performing with large ensembles like Snarky Puppy, where she’s been on stage with around a dozen musicians. It could be a trio, a big band with 19 people, or a symphony orchestra with 70 people; but a space has to be arranged for each instrument. Woodward explains how space is everything. “I have a mezzo soprano belting voice and a lot of horns also play in that same range. So you don’t want too much of that sound in the same area.” Likewise, Charlie Hunter has told her that “space is the fourth and free musician that’s not on stage, but he’s always there with you.” Space doesn’t need to be paid after a gig, so bands take advantage of that.

Having sung backing vocals in the studio for Céline Dion and live with Rod Stewart for four and a half years, she has direct advice for aspiring singers: “Your job is to support the singer always. Keep one eye on Rod Stewart, the other eye on the audience, and the eyes in the back of your head are watching your fella backup singers and your band... You have to be aware musically for whatever is thrown your way.” With Rod Stewart, who likes soulful backing vocals, she describes how she had to blend her voice with his. To be prepared for this, she tries to learn about all genres, including the folk songs that she has had the chance to enjoy while in Estonia.

For her Tallinn show, Woodward and her bassist, guitarist, and drummer had a priority of telling a story and “[making] a groove feel good... We’ve got some funky business.”

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Lucy Woodward.

Photo: Elis Jaansoo