(ThyBlackMan.com) If you’re a jazz lover and want to look upon the contemporary face of jazz royalty, take a moment to go check out Ms. Rita Edmond on Youtube. She’s the jazz world’s best kept secret. She’s currently working on her third CD, but even on her first CD, she made it abundantly clear to this writer that she hit the ground fully seasoned as one of the greatest jazz singers alive today. I know, that’s a mighty lofty claim to heap onto the shoulders of a relatively new artist, but I’m not given to hyperbole, so I fully intend to back up my assertion with the contents and attachments to this piece.
Along with this piece I’m attaching three links to make my point – ‘Here’s to Life,’ ‘Embraceable You’ (Live at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art) , and ‘It Might As Well Be Spring’ – and each tune shows a different side of her tremendous, and still growing, musical personality.
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Earlier this year Ms. Edmond toured Russia, bringing the house down with the late Phil Woods’ protégé, Robert Anchipoloski, and at this writing she’s wrapping up a three month gig at the luxurious Oriental Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand, where she’s doing her part to show jazz lovers, politicians, and ambassadors from all over the world what we bring to the table. She’s also just completed a project with her good friend and fabulous sax player, Dale Fielder, that’s monstrous. While very contemporary in it’s concept, the quality of musicianship is a throwback to the way the big boys used to do it.
Ms. Edmond approaches jazz like she’s been here before; it’s like she walked on stage fresh from 52nd Street. For that reason, whenever I hear her sing it makes my eyes moist, because I can here Ella and Sarah whispering softly in the background, “So ’em how it’s done, baby girl.” And she has a natural musical kinship to Dexter Gordon, whether she’s singing a ballad or swinging, and when you’re as familiar with Dexter Gordon’s music as I am (his family lived two blocks away from my grandparents, and my mother went to Jefferson High School with him), it’s a scary thing to watch. Her approach to phrasing and the feeling she evokes is the exactly the same kind of feeling that Dexter had on his tenor. I played Dexter for her doing “You’ve Changed,” and she said, “Hey! He sounds just like me!” I had to laugh. I told her, “No, baby. You sound like HIM.”
But in spite of her talent, Ms. Edmond is a very innocent sort whose emotions are always very close to the surface – I think that may be the key to the beauty of her musicianship, but in spite of her unassuming manner, when she picks up a mic someone else emerges. Just the touch of a mic seems to transform her. It gives her a tremendous confidence, and a unique sense of individualism that serves to produce a flawless musical delivery – a delivery that seems to say, “There’s a new diva in town,” and I say, it’s about time!
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PS: Something just happened that made my blood run cold. I didn’t know whether or not it was appropriate to mention it in the context of this article, but it was such a coincident that I feel that I would be remiss if I didn’t say something about it. As I was writing about the kinship of the music of Dexter Gordon and Rita Edmond, and before I posted, I received a contact. It was from Dexter’s wife, Maxine Gordon (or as Dex would call her, “Lady Gordon”). She sent me a friend request. That was one hell of a coincident . . . or was it?
Staff Writer; Eric L. Wattree
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