Eugenie Jones

Since she burst on the jazz scene in 2013, the award-winning, Seattle-based vocalist, composer, producer, and legacy activist Eugenie Jones has been one of our time's most evocative and evolving artists. NEA Jazz Master and bassist Reggie Workman described Jones as "an extraordinary singer, songwriter, and a source of light we're fortunate to experience." Thomas Staudter of The Gazette/New York lauded Jones for her "tremendous talent, tireless energy, and buoyant spirit," and Mark Holston of Jazziz praised Jones for her "…keen sense of phrasing, [which] makes her extremely persuasive. Like a veteran horn soloist, she slides effortlessly from one octave to the next, always landing on the right, pitch-perfect note."

Jones displayed all those attributes on her first four releases:

**Black Lace, Blue Tears** (2013), **Come Out Swinging** (2015), **Players** (2022), the soulful jazz derivative **Players 1.1** (2023), and **The Originals** (2024). With the release of her new album, **EUGENIE** Jones extends and elaborates on her jazz-honed, vivid, and vivacious vocals. Jones' vocals, which have been praised by legendary bandleader Joe Chambers as "Excellent" and capable of encompassing multiple idioms, are a true testament to her musical prowess.
 

Unlike **Players** - a two-disc album recorded in Dallas, New York, Chicago, and Seattle with thirty-two world-class jazz musicians, including bassists Reggie Workman and Lonnie Plaxico; drummer Bernard "Pretty" Purdie; percussionist Bobby Sanabria; trumpeter Marquis Hill and legendary trombonist Julian Priester, EUGENIE is a single disc project. With 32 published songs to her credit, the release casts a focused spotlight on the depth and breadth of Jones' lyricism, her adaptive vocal style from sultry blues to hard-swinging classics, and her ability to create intensely passionate renderings of emotively gripping ballads.

"At this point in my life, my priorities and feelings have changed compared to when I recorded **Players** two years ago," Jones explains. "This project reflects that shift in mental focus, marking a shift in thinking and a progression of skills that gave me the confidence to tackle more complex and challenging compositions.

I didn't study music in school; I graduated with an MBA and initially worked in corporate marketing. It wasn't until later that I realized my natural musical abilities, which I believe I inherited from my mother. Even without a formal music education, I feel fortunate to create songs that resonate with listeners, entertain them, and uplift their spirits."

EUGENIE features 13 selections composed of - to riff on an old phrase - somethings old, somethings new, somethings borrowed, something blue; specifically, several selections featuring music associated with Nat Adderley, Oscar Brown, Jr., Nina Simone, Peggy Lee, Duke Ellington, and Carole King. In addition to her unique "Eugenie-izing" interpretation of classics, this release further exemplifies Jones' ability to show she is a composer that is an intelligent, thoughtful composer in the tradition of Abbey Lincoln, Nina Simone, and

Irene Higginbotham.

EUGENIE was recorded in two cities: The New York sessions featured Plaxico on bass; pianists Brandon McCune and Mamiko Watanabe; Russell Carter on drums; Rico Jones on saxophone; trumpeter Gil Defay; Jessica Wang on cello; violinist Yoojin Park and percussionist Kahlil Bell.

The musicians on the Seattle date included pianist Darrius Willrich, saxophonist Alex Dugdale, bassist Elliot Kuykendall, drummer Ronnie Bishop, guitarist Michael Powers, pianist Peter Adams, Chris Symer on bass, and
Ernesto Pediangco on percussion.

Jones chose Plaxico to produce the record. "I'd never worked with a producer, and I wanted to see how bringing another voice into the picture would add value to the project. Lonnie had been a part of the Players recording and tour. I knew he was a great artist and knew him to be a genuine person, so I trusted him to bring next-level direction to this album."
 

Plaxico says of Jones, "It was an honor to produce and perform with Eugenie Jones on her recording. She is laser-focused, full of expression, energy, and passion, with a voice that is original and soulful. The selection of songs and Eugenie's original music is an atmospheric experience."

A professional musician since 14-years of age, Plaxico's immense knowledge base combined with Jones' skill holding the pen and mic make for a grand collaboration of sound and ideas. Jones adds her arrangement spice to some well-seasoned favorites. Ellington's "It Don't Mean a Thing" swings in 4/4 time with a bit of rhythmic displacement, where Jones' "swing, swing, swing" chants complement the infectious beat that drives the song. "I Love Being Here with You," a Peggy Lee staple that jazz great Ernestine Anderson - Jones' Seattle predecessor - adopted as her signature song, is rendered by Jones and company in midtempo mellow tones that are both bluesy and contemporary in its storyline and is played in a slower more evocative groove. On Earle Hagen's "Harlem Nocturne" Jones evokes the ebony embers of an upper Manhattan after-hours club in the 1920's, with wonderfully shaped tones matched and beautifully buoyed by the horn play of saxophonist Rico Jones.

At the same time, Jones imbues and reshapes Carole King's "Natural Woman," adding strings and newly written background vocals that provide a different tonal tapestry on this well-known Aretha Franklin hit, where Jones' glowing, gospel tones illuminate this immortal love song.  Jones includes Nina Simone's original intro on her "Devil in the down beat" classic, "Sinnerman," on the front and back of the song, with a funky arrangement in the middle of the composition. Jone's rendition of Marvin Gaye's hit song from the 1972 movie "Trouble Man," arranged by Plaxico, retains all the big city swagger and jazz edge of the original, and her rendition of the Nat Adderley/Oscar Brown classic "Work Song," features stop-time syncopations a hard-time melody and redemptive lyrics.

The original tracks composed by Jones highlight an artist who is growing by compositional and lyrical leaps and bounds. The ballad "Starlight, Starbright,”- Jones’ riff off of the American nursery rhyme, is interpolated with lyrics about star-crossed lovers - and the waltz-tempo of "Nothing Better,” a song that posits that there is no greater reward than to love and be loved, are both layered with beautiful string arrangements by Park and Bell.

The Philippians 4 message of Jones’ quiet storm cadenced "Hold Back the Night" is to keep life’s troubles at bay by thinking about whatever is good, true, lovely, and wonderful. Jones' additional compositions include the sassy "It's Okay," a kind of upbeat, bossa nova breakup song, the percussion-propelled, bluesy swagger of "Say What You Will,” which features lyrics dealing with reaping what you sow, the consequences of cowering to curry favor and standing up for the truth, even though it costs you. The swinging, mainstream motored “Why I Sing,” where she “drives to wherever Jazz lives” to unleash her artistic passions, is arguably her most autobiographical song about what she loves and was born to do.

Eugenie Jones's music career originates from Morgantown, West Virginia, where she was born and raised with five sisters and three brothers. Her father, Eugene, was the Director of the family's local Friendship Baptist Church Choir, and her mother sang soprano.  She grew up listening to her mother's singing, and the families collection of Nancy Wilson, Ray Charles, and Motown artists. She grew up, earned her MBA, moved to Seattle, married, and raised a family. But Jones didn't begin her music career until after the death of her mother in 2008, viewing music to honor her mother's legacy.

After honing her skills with local bands for many years, Jones released her debut CD, **Black Lace Blue Tears**, in 2013. Kirk Silsbee of *Down Beat* magazine gave the debut album a 3.5-star review, praising Jones for her “rhythm and swinging” style and “unforced lyricism.” That same year, her project became the first vocal release to win Earshot Jazz’s NW Recording of the Year award. Building on the success of her 2015 follow-up album, **Come Out Swingin'**, Jones earned the title of NW Vocalist of the Year from Earshot.
The album was also applauded in *Jazziz* magazine for her "smoke-and-satin vocals in settings that float like a butterfly and swing like a night at the Savoy."

 Jones continued to receive critical acclaim with the release of **Players** in 2022. This double CD reached #7 on the Jazz Week Top 50 chart and was ranked #30 on Jazz Week's Top 100 Albums of the Year. In 2024, she released
**The Originals**, a compilation of self-penned, top-played tracks from her recordings spanning her ten-year career.
Jones has performed in many venues nationwide, including Minton's Playhouse/NY; The San Jose Jazz Festival, Blue Llama/Ann Arbor;
Atlanta Jazz Festival; Twins/DC; Sistas' Place/NY; Scat Jazz Lounge/Dallas/Ft. Worth, KUVO Studios/Denver, Piano Forte/Chicago, The Jazz Station/OR,
Dirty Dog Jazz Café/MI, and The National Jazz Museum/Harlem.

In 2023, Jones received the Jazz Journalists Association's Jazz Hero Award for her nonprofit, Music for a Cause, which for seven years has presented Seattle's Jackson Street Jazz Walk, honoring the legacy of Seattle's Central District jazz scene, which served as the proving ground for iconic artists, including Quincy Jones, Ray Charles, and Ernestine Anderson. The three-day event employs live bands and raises funds for nonprofit community service organizations.

A true multipotentialite, balancing family with an executive marketing communications career, social good efforts, and jazz legacy causes while carving a space for contributions to the genre, the release of EUGENIE represents a new signpost, a timestamp by an artist continuing her ever-evolving artistry. "It's important to me to know that I'm taking on new challenges, growing, being more today than I was yesterday. I'm thankful that the outcome of this project reflects that heartfelt desire."

C. Michael Bailey of Wild Mercury Rhythm and All About Jazz has reviewed Jones's work over the past decade and says of Jones, "Her voice is warmly, humidly pliant with a deeply sensuous center that she uses expressively with greater validity and genuineness than most better-known singers. It is a mystery that Jones is not better known. Her vocal chops have few peers, and her writing is beautifully grown up and real."

Awards

Earshot Jazz NW Recording of the Year artist
2x Earshot Jazz NW Vocalist of the Year
International Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Hero