Ella Grace: Figments

Raised in the icy Minneapolis-St. Paul area, trumpeter and composer Ella Grace studied with longtime Prince band member Steve Elfstrand before moving to Chicago to attend DePaul University, from which she graduated summa cum laude in 2025. Supported by a Chicago Music Scene Fellowship, Figments, her debut as a leader, is a testament to the warm reception she has been receiving in her new home. The album finds her in good company among an assemblage of up-and-coming Windy City peers and DePaul alumni, singer Julia Danielle, saxophonist Garrett Munz, pianist Aval Stanley, bassist Marion Mallard, and drummer Jayden Richardson.

In school, Grace majored in jazz with a minor in communication studies and a noteworthy paper on gender equity entitled "Psyche of a Jazzwoman: Gendered Psychological Barriers to Jazz Participation."  The impetus for her thesis was an old story. "As a jazz trumpeter, I have noticed gender disparity in jazz since I began playing in middle school. I have almost always been the only woman in the jazz band or one of two," she said. Her data-driven study won her the first-place Sloane Prize in Undergraduate Research at the 2024 National Collegiate Honors Conference.

Figments explores the seeds of imagination and creativity. For Grace, "Every composition begins with a figment to be developed and molded into a tangible work." The album begins with "Butterfly Watching," a brief introduction that, as she put it, "invites listeners to reconnect with curiosity and joy."  An unpretentious unison blend of trumpet and wordless singing, an enchanting timbral mix she employs throughout the album, combines with birdsong over rippling piano, arco bass and splashing drums to set a lovely cool tone for the tracks to come.

Each piece has its own flavor and satisfies in its own way. Grace's lyric for "Cherry Blossoms in the Rain" / "Sailing Through a Cloud" moves backward in time, beginning with an over-the-shoulder glance at youthful love, ending with a newly-energized experience of childhood joy. Danielle's delivery is at once guileless and artful, her sweet sound decorated with occasional flourishes, bright curlicues of her own invention that draw the listener in. "The Alchemist" is of a deeper hue, beginning with Mallard's bass, opening into an animated collective improvisation with the full ensemble, concluding with a vigorous drum solo from Richardson. Offering reflective trumpet and piano solos, Grace and Stanley shine on the final cut, "Ballad for the Bittersweet."

Grace is clearly one to watch, as a performer, composer, and youthful force on the Midwest jazz scene.