Jazz Articles about Sheila Jordan

Sheila Jordan: A Life of Honest Expression

by Joao Moreira dos Santos
March 12, 2007

Her voice really cooks but what is the recipe for the way Sheila Jordan picks songs and transforms them into something special and swinging? Well, you take a quarter Cherokee child raised in poverty in Pennsylvania's coal-mining country, you add to it the definitive influence of a genius, Charlie Parker, and mix it all with a hard life, a great and creative voice able to express the soul through melodies and lyrics and... Sheila is ready to serve you plenty ...

A Celebration of Sheila Jordan

by Andrew Rowan
December 2, 2005

In his collection of essays Shadow and Act, novelist Ralph Ellison writes about certain singers, female singers, who have “an uncanny ability to provoke our love. He continues, “Their simplest songs sing in our hearts like the remembered voices of old dear friends. Sheila Jordan is such a singer. The ability to sing with great technique that is more than mere ruffles and flourishes is rare enough. Coupled with her almost unparalleled ability to examine the depth ...

Sheila Jordan: Confirmation

by Andrew Rowan
June 15, 2005

Sheila Jordan has the purity of heart of a child expressed through adult experience. When she dedicates this 1975 recording (originally on the Japanese East Wind label) to children of all ages, it is real. Confirmation has songs written by Charlie Parker and Billie Holiday (her two greatest influences) nestled alongside offerings from American popular song (Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein, Jerome Kern, Frank Loesser, Arthur Dietz, and Richard Schwartz)--as well as pianist Steve Kuhn ("Pearlie's Swine, aka ...

Sheila Jordan: Little Song

by Joel Roberts
December 3, 2003

There's a lot to be said for experience. That may be especially true for singers. The knowledge of how to get inside a song and really convey the meaning of a lyric isn't something most younger singers, even those with pretty voices (and faces) can do with the skill of a seasoned performer like Sheila Jordan, who celebrated her 75th birthday with a fine new release, Little Song, and a grand two-night stand last month at the Jazz Standard with ...

Sheila Jordan: From the Heart

by Mathew Bahl
October 1, 2000

From the Heart is a compilation CD that draws from three out-of-print albums Sheila Jordan recorded for the now defunct Muse label: Old Time Feeling (1982), Lost and Found (1989), and Heart Strings (1993). While these records deserve to reissued in their entirety, by culling tracks from each album, 32 Jazz has created a perfect single disc showcase for Jordan's considerable talents.

Sheila Jordan is a supremely musical singer with a light, ageless, flexible voice. A true jazz musician, her ...

Sheila Jordan: I've Grown Accustomed to the Bass

by Mathew Bahl
September 1, 2000

Sheila Jordan is one of the most creative, intelligent and original singers that jazz has ever produced. Like Carmen McRae, she has the ability to deconstruct a song harmonically without sacrificing the coherence of a lyric. When she dispenses with words, Jordan's scat singing is fluid, inventive and often quite playful.

Her latest recording happily finds Sheila Jordan back in the musical format of which she is the acknowledged master--the bass/voice duo. Her partner on this outing, recorded ...

Sheila Jordan: I've Grown Accustomed To The Bass

by AAJ Staff
September 1, 2000

From a mid-1950's duo encounter with Charles Mingus, Sheila Jordan has retained an infatuation with the sound of the bass throughout her on-again, off-again career of almost five decades. At the time, the vocal/bass duo was an innovative concept, years before Peggy Lee recorded “Fever". Jordan's vision--or rather, her aural conception-was fulfilled with a 1977 album with bassist Arild Andersen. Jordan moved on to a classic series of duo albums with Harvie Swartz. When Swartz lost interest in the concept, ...