Jacqui Naylor
JJacqui Naylor is not an easy artist to categorize. There are times when she performs straight-ahead vocal jazz, but at other times she favors more of a folk-rock/adult alternative approach. Depending on the mood she is in at a given moment, the northern Californian can bring to mind anyone from Cassandra Wilson or British jazz vocalist Claire Martin to Sarah McLachlan or Shawn Colvin — she is as comfortable among jazz improvisers as she is in the singer/songwriter world. During one of her live performances, Naylor has no problem singing smoky jazz one minute and folk-rock or adult alternative the next — and there are times when she blurs the line between the two.
Naylor, who is very jazz-friendly but far from a rigid jazz purist, brings a long list of influences to her introspective work — influences ranging from Billie Holiday, June Christy, and Nina Simone to Tracy Chapman, Natalie Merchant, Carole King, and Sheryl Crow. That is an unlikely combination of influences, certainly, but it is one that works well for Naylor (who has used all of them to fashion a personal, recognizable style of her own). Naylor has a highly diverse repertoire; on-stage, she is likely to perform a Tin Pan Alley standard right after something by the Rolling Stones or Talking Heads (in addition to performing songs of her own). Naylor is not an overly aggressive or forceful type of singer; she favors subtlety, restraint, and understatement, which are things that Holiday and Christy (one of the goddesses of jazz’s cool school) were both masters of.
Born and raised in Saratoga, CA, Naylor attended San Francisco State University after graduating from high school in the ’80s. Naylor entered that college to study marketing, but along the way she became interested in drama and acting — and after hearing the album Sarah Vaughan Sings George Gershwin in a music appreciation class, Naylor became seriously interested in vocal jazz. However, she continued to study marketing and earned a marketing degree from SFSU in 1991. After graduating, she spent six years as the marketing director for clothing designer Lat Naylor. But she studied music on the side, and from 1991-1995, she studied with the San Francisco-based jazz vocal teacher Faith Winthrop.
In 1996, Naylor’s work in clothing design required her to spend a year in New York City, where she studied vocals on the side with Shirley Calloway (mother of cabaret/traditional pop singer Ann Hampton Calloway).
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Album Review
- Shelter by Javier AQ Ortiz
- Live East-West: Birdland/Yoshi's by Mark Sabbatini
- You Don't Know Jacq by Guy Zinger
April 05, 2021
Celebrated Jazz Vocalist & Composer, Jacqui Naylor, Releases Her 11th...
November 06, 2015
Jacqui Naylor Invites Fans To Rate Songs At Upcoming Yoshi's Concert
September 27, 2011
Jacqui Naylor Combines Original Compositions, Acoustic Smashing and Fan...
December 11, 2009
Jacqui Naylor Special on 1.FM - Adore Vocal Jazz
December 11, 2009
Jacqui Naylor Special on 1.FM - Adore Vocal Jazz
December 10, 2009
Jacqui Naylor Special on adorejazz.com
July 24, 2009
Singer Splices Tunes for Hybrid Jazz Sound
April 12, 2009
Jazz Singer Blossom Dearie Remembered
December 03, 2008
Jacqui Naylor Returns to the Turning Point Cafe