Decades after the recording, just a few seconds of her voice were still enough to fill the listener's heart with soul, sorrow and zest for life. Jazz singer Marlena Shaw, who died on Friday, experienced the peak of her career in the 1960s and 1970s, but she was heard again on nights out and in student rooms forty years later thanks to the many samples in alternative dance hits by lounge musician St. Germain, among others. Shaw had an unprecedented talent for performing jazz, soul and pop with an overdose of rhythm and groove. She was 81 years old.
Already at the age of ten, the young New Yorker impressed the audience of the Apollo Theater, which is known for being difficult to impress. But her mother did not want her to go on stage more often so early. Ultimately, Marlena Shaw found her way to music, first with jazz trumpetist Howard McGhee and eventually in clubs in Chicago, where she was discovered by Chess Records, the music label that, in addition to raw blues, also released soul and jazz singers including Etta James. Shaw's voice was not so much raw as it was full of lived soul.
Feminist statement
Shaw's single 'California Soul' from 1969 is in a class of its own. It was originally a b-side for a Motown group, but in Shaw's performance the sung, sunny music history of how surf gave birth to Californian soul really comes to life. Her narrative singing style always revolves around the music itself, the feeling that dancing is allowed, no, must become. When you hear the beat / You wanna pat your feet.
On the same album – 'The Spice of Life' – she also showed another side of her artistic abilities in the song that was later so often sampled: 'Woman of the Ghetto', a powerful feminist statement sung in the first person about the (surviving) in an American slum.
Through Count Basie's band she further developed as a jazz singer and in 1972 Shaw was one of the first female vocalists to record on the renowned jazz label Blue Note. She released five albums there.
Although she would continue to perform throughout her life, she had passed her peak in the 1980s. But several of Shaw's songs became sought-after singles in the British rare-groove scene, where DJs outdid each other with rediscoveries of obscure or forgotten funk, jazz and soul. It led to a reappraisal. Whenever there was jazz on a dance floor at the turn of the century, there was a good chance that Shaw's voice could be heard.
Gift for the dance floor
Two alternative dance singles revolved around samples of her 'Woman of the Ghetto'. In 1997, British DJ Blue Boy used a scat piece on 'Remember Me' over a bare beat and French lounge musician St. Germain scored a worldwide hit in 2000 with 'Rose Rouge', based on a sample of Shaw's live performance.
She herself told the website bluesandsoul.com that after the initial surprise about the revival she was 'excited all over again', especially with St. Germain's version, which she found the jazziest. And so in 1999, 2001 and 2007 she suddenly appeared again at the North Sea Jazz Festival and impressed several generations.
Shaw was the resident DJ of TivoliVredenburg St. Paul for fans of various genres it expresses on X“A gift for the dance floor”.
#Soul #voice #overdose #rhythm #groove
