After being honoured with the prestigious Vocalist of the Year accolade at last month’s Jazz FM Awards, Judi Jackson presents a bold evolution in her sound with the new single ‘Crashing Down’. It comes as she continues to work on her eagerly anticipated debut studio album, which will follow next year.
The voice that’s enamoured the world of jazz shines bright within a completely new context on ‘Crashing Down’. It’s modern soul with a vintage edge. Jackson possesses a masterly vocal control, rich with elegant phrasing and palpable emotion that glides and weaves around a production generated by warm live instrumentation. Her timeless songwriting expresses a thoroughly contemporary attitude that’s big on self-empowerment, presenting an artistic vision that’s uncompromised by external influences.
‘Crashing Down’ echoes with the soul of an artist who has lived through every lyric she delivers. She grew up in Roanoke, Virginia, playing piano and singing in the church choir. Inspired by the greats – Bettie Carter, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgeraldand Nina Simone – her career started to take shape in her teens. She was just 16 when she opened for Mavis Staples, and two years later, teamed with jazz fusionists Snarky Puppy to record her own song, ‘Only Love’, for their Grammy-winning album ‘Family Dinner: Volume One’.
‘Crashing Down’ was produced by the Grammy Award winner Tommaso Colliva (Erykah Badu, Damon Albarn’s Africa Express) and co-written with Tim Baxter.
She later moved to London, where she channelled influences such as Joni Mitchell, Sade and Erykah Badu into her acclaimed EP ‘Blame It On My Youth’. All these experiences and eclectic styles feed into her upcoming body of work, which represents the culmination of what Judi Jackson has achieved to date.
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