(L)Singer Kandace Springs says she has a possible reality TV show in the works involving her obsession with cars. (R) Jazz violinist Regina Carter has played all over the world, but says her hometown is still one of her most important influences: “Detroit really helped form me, not only as a person, but as a musician.”
Kandace Springs has no idea where she is. All she knows is she is at an “industry” party somewhere in the Hollywood Hills. It’s a schmooze-fest – like a long take from Robert Altman’s The Player – where she says everybody is “somebody you have to meet” and nobody has any idea whose top-shelf booze they’re ingesting. Even at 27 years old, Springs is surprisingly unimpressed with the influx of celebs and constant hobnobbing going on inside. She has stepped outside for a phone interview with the Weekly, into the fresh evening air, which she says feels a million miles away from pressures of Los Angeles.
In reality, Springs is just a few miles from Sunset Boulevard. From her vantage point, the City of Angels looks like thousands of tiny beads of light rolled out like a glowing red carpet meant only for her. An hour earlier, the Nashville native wrapped up a recording session on a song with multi-talented hip-hop guru Common (see p. 22) and award-winning producer/pianist Robert Glasper.
Before Springs released her acclaimed, full-length Blue Note Records debut in 2016, her haunting one-of-a-kind, classic-meets-contemporary vocal style captured the attention of Prince, who invited her to Paisley Park to perform with him for the 30th anniversary of Purple Rain. A bigger coup for Springs was the invaluable education she received from the late-great musical savant.
“[Prince] told me that I needed to do what comes naturally to me,” Springs says from her Hollywood Hills perch outside of the party. “He was absolutely right.”
Soul Eyes, which features an all-star cast of jazz players, from Terence Blanchard on trumpet to Dean Parks on guitar, Springs delivers a mix of jazz standards (Mal Waldron’s title track), original ballads (“Fall Guy”) and an unexpected take on War’s funk jam “The World Is a Ghetto.”
Before the Common/Robert Glasper session, Springs spent most of the day in an L.A. studio working on her forthcoming sophomore record (to be released February 2018), featuring Diana Krall’s band. The album is currently in the post-production mixing phase.
Roberta Flack’s “The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face” is one of the tunes on the record that Springs is most excited for folks to hear.
“Every time I perform that song live, the audience goes crazy,” she says.
Ideally, Springs, who makes her MJF debut this weekend, says she wants to be remembered for “timeless music that people will play when I’m long gone – like many of my influences.”
Some of those influences are unexpected. For instance, cars.
“I always have one or two [cars] that I’m fixing up to resell,” she says. (She attended auto mechanic school and currently owns five rides, including a heavily modified monster Jeep and 1953 Chevy.)
Springs says compared to navigating the music industry, it’s the car world, surprisingly, that’s been more unforgiving.
“There are a lot of confederate flag flyers where I live [in Nashville], so they hate seeing a black woman pull up in a new Corvette with her afro out,” she says.
She responds by continuing to do what she loves: “I like showing them that women of any race are just as strong and can share the same interests as anyone.”
Part of that is dropping her vast knowledge, which rivals any gearhead, every chance she gets. It’s become the basis for some unlikely friendships, she adds: “I don’t hold grudges.”
~ : ~
Regina Carter wields her violin on stage with an intensity rivaling Miles Davis and his trumpet. Whether she’s performing with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra or Mary J. Blige, her violin cuts through each line of music with fierce, one-of-a-kind personality. Carter’s been at it for more than 45 years, and offers up a different perspective than Springs when it comes to her place in music history.
“[Women of color] have it easier because of people like [Ella Fitzgerald], who fought and marched and were hosed down and beaten with clubs so we could have what we have,” Carter says. “When you don’t know the suffering of those before you and take things for granted, we sometimes become a little apathetic.”
Carter says it’s important to showcase icons like Fitzgerald, so we can learn about the struggles she had to endure.
“Her music is so upbeat and positive, it just seems that’s the way she was,” Carter says. “I never heard any negative stories about her or that she was a dark person.”
A lengthy research process into the life and music of Fitzgerald confirmed what the Detroit native suspected: light, without any darkness. Carter spent the last few years digging deep into the music of Fitzgerald to ensure her tribute, Ella: Accentuate the Positive, would be different from the other Ella tributes out there (the 2017 release coincides with Fitzgerald’s 100th birthday). Carter continues to celebrate Fitzgerald at MJF with a program on Friday night called “Simply Ella.”
When Carter approached the Ella tribute performance idea, she didn’t want to include tunes that folks typically associate with the First Lady of Song, such as “Dream a Little Dream of Me,” “Cheek to Cheek” and “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing).” Carter plunged into Lady Ella’s expansive catalog and selected songs she dubs Fitzgerald’s “B-sides.” Carter also wanted to use compositions where she could incorporate her own style into the music.
“I’m from Detroit, so I’m a big fan of Motown, R&B and soul,” she says. “I thought of people like Otis Redding and Mavis Staples, so I wanted to treat Fitzgerald’s tunes with that same ’50s-’60s vibe. So the tunes had to fit within that style as well.”
Carter says she couldn’t find any recordings of Fitzgerald performing the slinky, melancholic “Judy.” All she knew was the story behind Fitzgerald’s performance of the song at Amateur Night at the Apollo. Initially, Fitzgerald, unknown at the time, was going to dance, but before her time slot, the well-known dance group The Edwards Sisters performed. Fitzgerald didn’t think she could compete with them, so at the last minute, she decided to sing Hoagy Carmichael’s “Judy” instead, which she’d been working on anyway. (Fitzgerald won the contest.)
Carter’s interpretation of the timeless “I’ll Never Be Free” is arranged as a blues-laden number led by the rhythmic pulse of Chris Lightcap’s bassline.
“Ella recorded so much music, so there was tons to listen to,” Carter says. “It took me close to two years to finish the project.”
That kind of dedication is standard for Carter delving into a project. “It’s probably the norm,” she says. “There are always twists and turns when you’re researching music, listening – there are so many possibilities. I know myself and I can’t stay on a direct journey. Wherever the music leads me is where I end up.”
Carter’s last MJF appearance was in 2009. She likens the jazz-fueled weekend to summer camp.
“You’re right there with all the other musicians and with all the fans,” she says. “There are jam sessions and I get to check out new people I’ve been wanting to hear. It’s really a great festival where I feel like I get my soul fed.”
Carter, who resides in New Jersey with her husband/bandmate, drummer Alvester Garnett, says the stage has always been a sacred place for her.
“I feel like it’s the only time I can get away from all this ugliness, get inside the beauty of the music and hopefully spread some of it and have a positive, shared experience with the audience,” she says. “It’s one of the times when I know I can have some peace.”
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