Live at Mezzrow Sheila Jordan

• 1 Bird Alone (Live) 03:10
• 2 Touch of Your Lips (Live) 08:25
• 3 What is This Thing Called Love (Live) 06:53
• 4 The Bird and Confirmation (Live) 07:53
• 5 Silver Lining (Live) 04:38
• 6 Falling in Love with Love (Live) 05:52
• 7 Baltimore Oriole (Live) 09:58
• 8 Blue and Green (Live) 03:50
• 9 Autumn in NY (Live) 07:52
• 10 Lucky to Be Me (Live) 06:56
• Total Runtime 01:05:27

Info for Live at Mezzrow

Jazz vocal legend Sheila Jordan's new album 'Live at Mezzrow' is the debut recording in the newly launched SmallsLIVE Living Master's Series.

During the COVID pandemic that shut down Smalls and Mezzrow in NYC from March of 2020 through April of 2021, they relied exclusively on funds raised by their not-for-profit, The SmallsLIVE Foundation. It was short of miraculous, but a world-wide support network of jazz fans and musicians came together and kept them alive with donations and support. They raised more than what was needed, and these extra funds became the budget for their "SmallsLIVE Living Masters Series". This is part life-time achievement award and part recording document. The idea is to document the work of older artists that have had a lifetime in jazz music and a connection to their clubs.

Sheila Jordan, along with her bandmates Alan Broadbent and Harvie S, is not just short of miraculous but actually miraculous. At age 93, she delivers a vociferous performance of standards and bebop. She literally glows with the resonant age of her accomplishments and associations. She prides herself on her friendship with Charlie Parker and speaks often of him. She has the core vibration of the true Detroit sound and hails from the very greatest period of that music. Her fellow Detroiters, such as Barry Harris, Hank Jones, Tommy Flannagan and others have all but left us but she is still here and still vibrant. Sheila still has that vibe and that deep warmth that only a mature spirits can communicate and share. People respond to Sheila with love and gratitude and bask in her modest yet authoritative demeanor.

It is a great privilege for Cellar Music Group to present Sheila Jordan - Live Mezzrow - in partnership with the SmallsLIVE Living Masters Series. She's in an element that she knows best (a crowded and intimate club) and is with musicians she trusts the most. We hope this document can provide you an insight into her work and her depth. Sheila Jordan is the debut of our SmallsLIVE Living Master's Series and we can't think of a better representative.

Sheila Jordan, vocals
Alan Broadbent, piano
Harvie S, double bass

Recorded live at Mezzrow in New York City on October 25th, 2021 by Glen Forrest and Colin Mohnacs

Sheila Jordan
is not only one of the premier singers in jazz, but she is known for her stimulating vocal workshops as well. A superb scat singer, she can just as easily reach the emotional depths of a ballad. Whether singing well-known standards or original material, she makes it all sound like no one else.

Jordan, née Dawson, grew up in Pennsylvania's coal mining country with her grandparents, singing in school and on amateur radio shows. In the early 1940s, she returned to live with her mother in Detroit, where she became interested in jazz after hearing a Charlie Parker recording. She met some of Detroit's young musicians during that time, such as Tommy Flanagan, Kenny Burrell, and Barry Harris. She then joined a vocal trio, Skeeter, Mitch, and Jean, which performed versions of Parker's and others' bebop solos in a manner akin to later vocal jazz trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross.

Upon moving to New York City in the early '50s, Jordan sang in clubs and at jam sessions with some of the city's jazz giants, including Charles Mingus, Herbie Nichols, and Parker. She also studied with the renowned Lennie Tristano. In 1952, she married Parker's pianist, Duke Jordan. Ten years later, she made her acclaimed first recording, showing her vocal finesse on a ten-plus minute version of "You Are My Sunshine" on George Russell's album The Outer View. Thanks to Russell, she released her first album, Portrait of Sheila, on Blue Note, the first female vocalist to record for the label.

In the mid-1960s, Jordan's work encompassed jazz liturgies sung in churches and extensive club performances. After touring and recording with trombonist Roswell Rudd in the 1970s, Jordan became a member of the Steve Kuhn Quartet alongside bassist Harvie S and drummer Bob Moses. By the late '70s, jazz audiences began to understand her uncompromising style and her popularity increased.

Her preference for bass and voice led to several collaborations with bassists, including Arild Andersen, Harvie S, and Cameron Brown. Jordan is the pioneer in bass/voice duo in jazz, starting in the early 1950s and continuing to the present.

In 1978, she began teaching at the City College of New York and has continued teaching jazz vocal workshops there until 2005. She is also a faculty member for Jazz in July at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the Vermont Jazz Center in Brattleboro, Vermont, and conducts workshops internationally as well. The singer has received several honors, including the 2008 Mary Lou Williams Award for a Lifetime of Service to Jazz. Jordan still travels extensively - nationally and abroad - performing with her quartet and as a duo with Brown.

This album contains no booklet.