The Jazz Singer Makes Her Own Scene

The notion of jazz in South America almost immediately calls up thoughts of Rio, possibly So Paulo or Bahia, all in Brazil; maybe even Buenos Aires in Argentina for the seemingly natural link with tango. But Chile, for all its other charms, is not exactly the place one might consider an incubator for a growing jazz talent.

Nonetheless, Concepcion, Chile’s second largest city, is singer Claudia Acuna’s birthplace, and it was there and in the capital, Santiago, that she spent the first two decades or so of her life.

“You can’t really say there was a jazz scene there,” she says with a smile. “Mostly we just got to occasionally hear good players on the rare occasions when they passed through on tour.”

But Acuna, who performs with Kenny Barron and Regina Carter at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre tonight on the Jazz Bakery’s “A Midsummer Night’s Jazz” program, experienced an urgent inner connection with the music long before she had the opportunity to hear any touring American musicians.

“I have been told that I was 3 years old when I first said I wanted to be a singer; I was singing all the time,” says the slender, dark-haired vocalist. “From the time I was very young, I used the radio to look for the music I liked. Later, when I discovered that there was a music called jazz, I realized that a lot of the songs that I would look for on the radio were either jazz or related to jazz.”

Now 30, Acuna spent her high school years absorbing as much musical experience as she could, studying a bit of guitar and playing percussion in school ensembles.

“I tried to get into every single music group that I could,” she continues, “since it was the only way I could learn.”

That sort of pragmatic approach continued into her early 20s, when she decided that the only way to really have the jazz career she dreamed about was to move to New York. It was an extremely unpopular decision with her parents, who did not initially support her desire to pursue music.

“They’re very proud of me now,” she says, “but in the beginning it was very hard, very painful. The idea of a girl like me, coming from where I come from, wanting to go to New York from Chile to have a jazz career--it seemed almost impossible.

“It really was like a fairy tale,” Acuna continues, her voice quavering a bit as she recalls the early, scrambling years in New York--working as a dishwasher, a dog walker and a baby-sitter--before she finally signed a record contract with the Verve Group. “Sometimes I try not to think about it, because I get very emotional. I never would have thought I could do this, make my dreams come true.”

It wasn’t easy. Although she was offered a number of scholarships, she was unable to accept them because, she says, “I didn’t have the money to pay for my living expenses.”

Instead, Acuna started learning on the go. Sometimes working until 1 or 2 a.m. washing dishes, she would then head down to Small’s in Greenwich Village to participate in all-night jam sessions.

“I just kind of taught myself, doing it the old-fashioned way, learning the music and everything that I could, hanging out with the musicians,” she says. “New York is a hard city, a very demanding city. And I realized the only way I could succeed was by being very demanding with myself too, to work on what I have, instead of getting frustrated and complaining about how hard things can be.”

Offbeat Time Signatures and Personalized Classics

The first tangible return on what eventually stretched into several years of effort was the highly praised Verve album “Wind From the South,” released early last year. It was, by almost any measure, a surprisingly mature effort, in which Acuna reached well beyond the standard singer-with-backup-band collection of tunes. Working intimately with such major talents as pianist Jason Lindner, bassist Avishai Cohen and saxophonist David Sanchez, she produced a debut album filled with adventurous undertakings.

Offbeat time signatures abound--6/4 in “My Man’s Gone Now” and Violeta Parra’s classic “Gracias a la Vida,” 5/4 in “As Long as You’re Living” and “The Thrill Is Gone”--but she handles all effortlessly. She scats through a rapid filigree of melody on her own title track and finds highly personal ways to render familiar standards: “What’ll I Do” as a moody duet with Lindner, “My Man’s Gone Now” over a repetitious vamp and going against type with “Prelude to a Kiss” by making it a romping up-tempo.

“I worked so closely with the players on the album because that was basically how I learned to make music,” Acuna says. “I have a little tape recorder, and I use it all the time. Then, when I go into the studio, I talk it over with my musician friends, using lots of colors and visual things to describe what I’m looking for. Like sometimes I’ll say, ‘I want this part to sound like the ocean.’ Or, ‘In this part, it’s as though we’re riding a horse, very fast.’ And it seems to work very well to communicate the dynamics and the direction that I want to go.”

Acuna is already preparing for her second album, an extension of the sort of material used on “Wind From the South.” Her third album, still only in the early stages of conception, will be a Spanish-language outing, embracing, she says, “the old songs from Latin America: boleros, some things of Piazzolla, some Cuban songs, some more of my songs.”

Tonight’s audience at the Ford will hear a few selections from the upcoming second album, some songs from the first release and a few standards.

They will also experience, in Acuna’s performance, the work of a gifted young artist whose long, arduous journey has in no way diminished her dedication to the art she believes she was born to practice.

“It’s been hard,” she says, “but many things in life are hard. You just have to work for what you want. I’m not trying to be the next Ella or whatever, because that’s impossible. I’m just expressing how I feel today through this music.

“I would have gone through the hard times I’ve experienced three times over, and if I died and were born again, I’d do the same thing--just to have the chance to continue this incredible musical journey.”

*

“A Midsummer Night’s Jazz,” with Kenny Barron & Regina Carter and Claudia Acuna. Tonight at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East, Hollywood. 8 p.m. (323) 461-3673. $20 and $25.