The Search Is On

What’s going on with women jazz singers? Suddenly, it seems, they’re all over the place--from pictures of a leggy Diana Krall popping up in Target store ads to Dianne Reeves performing at the Winter Olympics closing ceremony to the much-hyped arrival of another knockout young star, Norah Jones. Established artists are receiving more attention than ever and every jazz label is looking to swing the Next Big Thing.

Blame it on Krall. Sure, there were other jazz singers around a few years ago, all doing fine work in their individual styles: Reeves, Cassandra Wilson, Karrin Allyson, Nnenna Freelon, to name only a few.

But it was Krall, 36, who took it to another level, raising the bar of potential for a genre that had never before generated pop-size sales figures. Two years ago, she released an album, “When I Look in Your Eyes,” that not only won the Grammy jazz album category, but was also nominated as overall album of the year--which had only occurred one other time, in 1964, when Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto won. The exposure from Krall’s nomination spurred the album’s sales, now totaling more than 1.2 million copies in the U.S. Her follow-up album, “The Look of Love,” has also surpassed the 1-million mark--easily the biggest numbers ever by a jazz vocalist since SoundScan began accurately measuring sales in the early ‘90s.

Seemingly ever since Krall’s breakout, jazz singers, would-be-jazz singers, sort-of-jazz singers and pop-jazz singers are coming out of the woodwork.

Elegant Jane Monheit, 24, with her flowing mane of black hair and precise vocal articulation, arrived in 2000. Monheit’s first album, “Never Never Land,” zoomed to the top of the jazz charts, selling more than 100,000 copies, breaking the five- or even four-figure standard typical of new jazz vocal talent. Her second album, “Come Dream With Me,” has sold 200,000 copies in the U.S.

Last month, New York-born, Texas-raised Norah Jones arrived, heralded by an aggressive promotional campaign that saw features in major newspapers and magazines even before the 22-year-old singer’s first album had been released. In the six weeks since its release by Blue Note, more than 300,000 copies of Jones’ debut CD, “Come Away With Me,” have been sold.

Those aren’t numbers one commonly sees in the jazz record business, where instrumental albums--even by well-known artists--can top out at sales levels of 20,000 to 30,000. The Jones CD, in fact, has been pouring out at the rate of 20,000 a week, well beyond Monheit’s rate, and in the ballpark with Krall’s numbers.

So what’s happening here? Even granting Krall’s remarkable achievements, why is there so much activity in a genre that has generally tended--with the exception of such figures as Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan--to be viewed as an adjunct to the more serious business of instrumental jazz?

The answer has many facets: Jazz singers are beginning to reach listeners in the younger age ranges; the vocalists are not hesitating to explore contemporary songs; they’re helping to alleviate boardroom concerns about the music’s financial viability--and don’t disregard the marketing potential of young, pretty faces.

Even a record executive who has spent a career in the relatively low-pressure environment of the jazz world can’t help but notice the kind of sales generated by Krall, Monheit and Jones. Combine that with the continuing successes of Wilson, whose “New Moon Daughter,” released in 1995, has sold more than half a million copies worldwide, and Reeves, who was hitting six-figure sales as far back as the ‘80s, and the message is loud and clear: Women jazz singers are selling, and you’d better find one or two of your own.

“We are now actively looking for young, jazz vocal artists,” says Verve Group CEO Ron Goldstein. “Obviously, we’re looking for the best talent we can find, but we’re also very much aware of the fact that the singers who seem to be generating the biggest numbers are female artists.”

Already in the Verve stable is Lizz Wright, 22, who has been raising expectations with the initial tracks from her guest appearance on a forthcoming Joe Sample album. And there’s Paula West, with three albums out on small labels, who has received rave reviews wherever she performs but, amazingly, has not yet been locked up by one of the larger jazz record companies.

With Jones already on his roster, Blue Note President Bruce Lundvall is also actively in the search. “Of course, we’re looking,” he says. “But remember that this is a trend that has slowly been gathering steam. Look at our roster: Blue Note was traditionally an instrumental company, but we currently have--in addition to Norah and Cassandra--Patricia Barber, Rachelle Ferrell, Bobby McFerrin and Kurt Elling. And, for a while, we had Lena Horne and Holly Cole. So we’re well aware of the impact that singers can have on our bottom line.”

Even Lundvall, however, did not anticipate Jones’ impact. “What’s happening reaches well beyond Blue Note, up to the Capitol corporate level,” he says. Then, with a laugh, he adds, “I mean, this is serious stuff. It takes me back to my old pop music days when I was back at Columbia.”

Those were the days when Columbia had an active jazz program to match its successes in popular music. The case could be made that it was the torrid sales of pop acts in the ‘60s and ‘70s that made it possible for the majors to carry less profitable jazz artists on their rosters. But Columbia is now principally in the reissue business via its Legacy imprint, RCA maintains a small roster but is also actively working its catalog, and Warner Bros. concentrates on a few artists: Pat Metheny, Brad Mehldau and Joshua Redman, along with smooth jazz acts Boney James, Kirk Whalum and Bob James.

It’s a different ballgame now. But, interestingly, the singers’ successes are now providing jazz labels such as Verve and Blue Note with a financial foundation that makes it possible for them to support their existing instrumental rosters as well as efforts to develop new talent. Equally important, the numbers generated by Krall and Jones carry weight at higher levels of the company.

“You wouldn’t believe how much I’m hearing from corporate, now that the Jones thing is happening,” Lundvall says.

It’s one thing, of course, to observe that female jazz singers are selling albums; it’s something else to find them. “There are plenty out there,” says Ralph McDonnell, the founder of MaxJazz, a company that has built its early reputation upon a roster of singers, including Carla Cook and Rene Marie. “The problem is that there are only a few good ones.”

Not surprisingly, the initial tendency was to find artists with qualities similar to Krall.

“Oh, yeah, the blonds have been coming,” says Tommy LiPuma, Verve Group chairman and producer of Krall’s string of hit CDs. “Not as many as you might think, but they’re in there, in all the other singers’ demo tapes and videos that are showing up.”

Lundvall agrees: “I’ve passed on so many Diana Krall look-alikes, sound-alikes. They come in all the time--another blond girl who plays the piano and sings.”

That raises another issue: None of the primary headliners in the current jazz vocal revival--Krall, Monheit and Jones--is African American. Race is a touchy issue in jazz, given that issues of authenticity and ownership continue to provide fodder for debate.

“The question of why they’re white is an interesting question, so long as no one is asking if they should all be white,” says jazz critic and historian Stanley Crouch. “My basic feeling is that Jane Monheit can sing; she’s young but she has a very good instrument. She and Diana Krall are bringing young people into jazz and introducing them to higher quality repertoire at a time when almost all popular music has been on a vamp, not going anywhere, for about 40 years.

“And wouldn’t it be a grand irony if people like Monheit and Krall created an appetite in the public that allowed a Cassandra Wilson to sing far more interesting material, of the sort that would reveal a great deal more about her substantial talent?”

Whatever the answer, the real test may come with the response that greets Wright, a 22-year-old African American performer described by Verve’s Goldstein as “the full package ... great voice, charismatic stage presence, and poise way beyond her years.” She comes from a gospel background and makes regular appearances with Atlanta’s highly praised jazz ensemble In the Spirit. Her first album is due out later this year.

Ideally, record companies would love for their jazz A&R; (artists and repertoire) executives--specialists in finding and working with talent--to locate gifted neophytes through the tried-and-true method of getting out to clubs, tapping into the grapevine and networking with musicians, who are usually the first to know who’s hot. But Jones--who attended the acclaimed jazz program at North Texas State University in Denton--came to Blue Note on a recommendation from someone who worked in the company’s administrative area.

“When I was first approached, I said I’d listen,” recalls Lundvall, “primarily because it was someone at the company who brought her in. But after about three tunes, I knew I wanted her on Blue Note.”

Krall was a known quantity to many musicians, and had recorded for a Canadian label before LiPuma brought her to Verve and began working with her in 1994, gradually building an audience through five increasingly successful albums.

Monheit came to the attention of virtually the entire jazz industry in 1998 when, at the age of 20, she was the first runner-up in the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz vocal competition. Signed by N-Coded Records in 2000, she then hooked up with Jazz Tree Management, the company that handled Krall in the early establishment of her career.

All this may suggest that A&R; execs have not played an especially important role in the jazz singer breakout, but it’s probably too soon to tell. With the word out, it’s a sure bet that tons of demo tapes are now being scrutinized in A&R; offices, and clubs that book singers on a regular basis can expect record executives to be making frequent appearances.

One difficulty for everyone trying to ride this resurgence is the age-old question: What exactly makes a jazz singer? There are plenty of opinions, many of them hardened by the crossover qualities in the recordings of Jones, Wilson, Reeves and others.

Jones’ “Come Away With Me” and Wilson’s latest recording, “Belly of the Sun,” in particular, have raised hackles among those observers who refuse to view the albums as jazz efforts. It’s a bit difficult to understand the reaction to Wilson, who has been expanding her view of repertoire since she included songs by Hank Williams, Neil Young, Robert Johnson, Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell and even the Monkees on her first Blue Note albums, “Blue Light Til Dawn” and “New Moon Daughter.”

But even Blue Note’s Lundvall initially had doubts about categorizing the Jones album. “When I signed Norah, I thought she was going to make a jazz record--Horace Silver, Ellington, maybe a few contemporary songs. But we ended up with just ‘The Nearness of You’ as the only sort of straight-ahead jazz-type tune. So I said, ‘Look, Norah, let’s put this on our Manhattan label,’ which is more pop-oriented. And she said, ‘Absolutely not. I signed to Blue Note.’ And I said, ‘OK, why not?’

“Why should we have such narrow confines as to what jazz is or isn’t? If we’re really going to expand the market for the music, let the artists do what they believe in.”

Jones, unfazed by genres, points out that her background has been in jazz, but--at this particular time--”Come Away With Me” was the recording she wanted to make.

“It’s definitely a sleeper kind of album. But that’s the kind of music I like. I like records that have an atmosphere throughout, no matter how you define it. Because I just basically want to record songs that I love, and I want to do them in a way that is honest to each of the songs.”

The perception of Monheit has been a bit different, with critics insisting she should be considered a cabaret singer, or perhaps a musical theater singer, rather than a jazz artist. That view undoubtedly has been furthered by the beauty of Monheit’s voice, which would indeed sound just fine on the Broadway stage. But her phrasing and her sense of rhythmic time are built on a jazz foundation.

“For a long time, I could have gone in either direction,” Monheit says. “I loved musical theater when I was a teenager and I had a great time doing it. But as far as music goes, I was always incredibly serious about jazz, and I’ve always known that was my primary direction.”

Neither Monheit nor Krall have indicated as much fascination as Wilson and Jones have for diversifying their repertoire. Although Krall has expressed interest in the possibility of reaching into more contemporary material, she is still entranced by the material in the Great American Songbook--the music of Gershwin, Porter, Kern, Rodgers & Hart, et al.

“She’ll get around to newer material,” LiPuma says. “But for now Diana is still captivated by all the great standards.”

With Krall, the questions surrounding the definition of jazz singing take a somewhat different slant. She continues to be mystified that--despite her dedication to the standard jazz song repertoire--she must still deal with potshots from the cognoscenti about her authenticity.

“I spent so many years working on my jazz chops, trying to maintain my integrity,” Krall says, “and now I sometimes hear, ‘Oh, Diana’s gone, she’s not a jazz musician, she’s a pop artist.’ Well, just because you have some sort of success or you’re blond or something doesn’t mean that you can’t be a jazz artist.”

If anything is clear about this surge of interest, it’s that the definition of what constitutes jazz singing must be expanded. Or, at the very least, reconsidered. After all, popular songs have always been essential elements in the repertoire of jazz singing. And, extraordinary as that Great American Songbook may be, there’s no reason--as Wilson, Reeves and others have been insisting--that it can’t be complemented by the music of Lennon & McCartney, Billy Joel, Elton John, Paul Simon and James Taylor, to name a few.

“Jazz in general, and jazz singing specifically, over a long, long time has been a collector of musical ideas from other places,” says MaxJazz’s McDonnell. “And how can you not like that? It’s the way the music has always evolved, and the way it will continue to evolve.”

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Don Heckman writes frequently about jazz for The Times.