Robin McKelle

From country music to rhythm and blues, Robin McKelle has made an entire career exploring the rich vastness of American music. With Impressions of Ella, McKelle returns to her traditional jazz roots and finds herself right at home.

“There was a part of me that wasn't writing so much,” says the seasoned vocalist. “I wasn't singing a lot, and I really missed [performing] live music. When I [started] to think about what I wanted to do for my next project, there was just so much of a feeling over the time of COVID; this feeling of nostalgia and longing for what felt like home. I felt it was the right moment to change gears and get back into that traditional swing and everything that helped me break into my career as an artist.”

Introducing Robin McKelle, her eponymous 2006 debut, delved into a dozen timeless standards of the swing era (“Come Rain or Come Shine,” “Night and Day,” “On the Sunny Side of the Street”). For her latest effort, McKelle draws from only one source and perhaps her greatest artistic influence, Ella Fitzgerald. “The concept of the music of Ella came about because she was my first introduction to vocal jazz. I learned so much from her singing — the style of her swing feel and her singing resonates [with] me.”

To help bring her concept to life, McKelle enlists a brand new trio of venerated jazz players: Kenny Washington on drums, bassist Peter Washington, and NEA Jazz Master Kenny Barron on piano. “I wasn’t intimidated to make music with them, but [their] résumés were like, ‘Wow!’ [Am I] going to be good enough? Are we going to connect? The exciting thing was having the opportunity to sing over them as a trio; that was such a huge joy.”

Impressions of Ella finds McKelle a little older and a lot wiser. More than 15 years since her first album, she finally feels ready to tackle the emotional heft behind these jazz standards. “My voice has matured, and I have grown so much as a woman. I felt like I was really at a point in my life where the lyrics resonated with me, and I could sing these stories because I had lived them. It wasn't like me as a 20-year-old singer [who] really wouldn't understand or maybe haven't had the loss of love or true love at that point in my life. And so I felt like at my age now and my maturity, I was ready to return to this music and this repertoire.”

Impressions of Ella features selections from an extensive catalog, including duets with the Oscar Peterson Trio. However, it is far more than a tribute album. McKelle wisely eschews Ella’s scatting and note-bending style in favor of thoughtful arrangements and keen musicianship that revivify these timeless standards.

The bond between a vocalist and an accompanist is perhaps one of music’s most profound and extraordinary unions. Barron, a living jazz piano virtuoso, keenly understands this more than most. Cutting his teeth as a sideman for Philly Joe Jones and Dizzy Gillespie, Barron has recorded more than 50 albums, spanning over five decades, as leader. On “Lush Life,” Barron opens with warm restraint, reminiscent of predecessors Duke Ellington and Red Garland. Staying close to the original ballad, alongside Peter and Kenny Washington, the trio supports McKelle as she relishes the palpable ache of Billy Strayhorn’s tune still felt decades later.

Countervailing the earlier track, “Embraceable You” shifts the album’s overall mood. A widely recorded Gershwin standard, McKelle takes the reins of this redolent ballad in her command and approach. From the arrangement to its arresting lyrics, an overwhelming heft is felt almost immediately, as if McKelle and the trio members are collectively drawing from their experiences to bring out the song’s emotional gravitas.

“I Won’t Dance” features Grammy Award winner Kurt Elling as a guest artist. McKelle credits Elling as a champion and mentor since the beginning of her career. An homage to the many celebrated duets Ella recorded with Louis Armstrong, Elling and McKelle retain the charisma and whimsy of the original tune, sounding more like two old friends after a long absence.

Perhaps the most unrecognizable of the standards is “April in Paris,” as McKelle transforms it into a slinky bossa nova. It marks such a departure that during the recording, McKelle shared that Kenny Washington had never played the tune as a samba before. After recording it, however, he quickly said, “I like that!”

With Impressions of Ella, she doesn’t attempt to reinvent the wheel or limit her potential for creative expression. While it lauds our “First Lady of Song,” the album also marks an inevitable coming of age for McKelle’s career in jazz, as the fruits of her hard work and years of training finally ripen and bear fruit.

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Robin McKelle & The Flytones: Soul Flower

Read "Soul Flower" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
July 26, 2013

First, Robin McKelle & The Flytones Soul Flower is not neo-soul. Neo-soul is what Amy Winehouse was and Cee Lo Green is (at least on his “Forget You"). Neo-soul is a cheeky attempt to cash in on a classic style while, at the same time, not taking it seriously. Second, Soul Flower might be better termed retro-soul, except that McKelle avoids the pitfall of clinging too tightly to the old style that has plagued other artists trying to put a ...

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Album Review

Robin McKelle: Modern Antique

Read "Modern Antique" reviewed by Woodrow Wilkins

by Woodrow Wilkins
December 16, 2008

Sometimes, when a jazz vocalist does a big band arrangement of a rock or pop hit, the results can be classical. Robin McKelle avoids that trap from the very start with her swinging rendition of Steve Miller's “Abracadabra." The lyrics are perfectly suitable for a jazz offering, and the blend of McKelle's voice and the horns is magical.That cover opens Modern Antique, McKelle's follow-up to her debut, Introducing Robin McKelle (Cheap Lullaby, 2006). Boston-bred McKelle has taught voice ...

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Interview

Robin McKelle: Songbird On The Wing

by Marcia Hillman
November 17, 2008

Robin McKelle's career as a recording artist and a performer is on the rise on both sides of the Atlantic. She is already a jazz star in France and has appeared at the Blue Note and Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola in New York City. Exposed to music at home by her mother, a musician, McKelle began singing at an early age and playing piano at the age of five. In her early teens, she became interested in jazz. She switched from ...

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Album Review

Robin McKelle: Modern Antique

Read "Modern Antique" reviewed by Marcia Hillman

by Marcia Hillman
September 9, 2008

Robin McKelle knows fine ways to treat a song. Once again, as in her debut Introducing Robin McKelle (Cheap Lullaby, 2006), her vocal ability and flexibility sparkles as she sings, scats and swings with a big band behind her. This time, however, she shows more rhythm and blues touches and also captures an old-fashioned torch song delivery in her treatment of mostly standard material. McKelle has a wonderfully rich assortment of qualities in her voice. She is ...

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Album Review

Robin McKelle: Introducing Robin McKelle

Read "Introducing Robin McKelle" reviewed by Marcia Hillman

by Marcia Hillman
May 4, 2007

Robin McKelle's debut CD is a blast of fresh air from the past. Introducing is done from the stance of a band singer from the 1940s in musical format and material, logical since most legendary jazz and pop singers learned their trade that way. Most of the tracks are read in standard fashion--the band taking the opening choruses and the vocals coming in on the second, with strings added on the ballads. Many of the arrangements come ...

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Album Review

Robin McKelle: Introducing Robin McKelle

Read "Introducing Robin McKelle" reviewed by Jim Santella

by Jim Santella
June 24, 2006

Accompanied by a big band that features many of LA's top sidemen, Robin McKelle sings from the Great American Songbook on this solo recording debut. It's an excellent choice. The songs seem to be an integral part of her personality.

McKelle interprets “Dream with a subtle caress, “I've Got the World on a String with a glad-happy attitude, and “The Lamp is Low with seamless phrases that flow evenly on high. Her interpretations and those of her orchestra ...

268

Interview

Robin McKelle: A Different Approach

by Woodrow Wilkins
May 25, 2006

Robin McKelle doesn't fancy herself a jazz singer. However, with a little prompting from her producer, she has released a first-rate jazz album. Unlike other vocalists whose debuts have featured many of the same standards, McKelle went back a little further with Introducing Robin McKelle. She even approached the process differently, spending her own money to make sure she got it done her way. All About Jazz: A lot of debut vocalists do standards, but your approach was ...

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Recording

Songstress Robin McKelle to Release "Mess Around" on E1 Music

Source: DL Media
April 19, 2010

SONGSTRESS ROBIN MCKELLETO RELEASE MESS AROUND ON E1 MUSICALBUM SHOWCASES A NUMBER OF GENRESINCLUDING SOUL, BLUES, AND JAZZU.S. TOUR DATES IN SUPPORTOF MAY 4TH RELEASE“I've wanted to do this kind of album for a long time. It's a project that spans a number of genres: soul, blues and jazz - all musical styles I love and which define my personality. It's an organic, flesh-and-blood record, recorded with musicians close to me. ...
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Festival

The 2008-09 JazzErie Season Brings Eric Alexander, Dave Liebman, Pete Mills, Robin McKelle to Town

Source: All About Jazz
August 21, 2008

If you're among those in the Erie area who feel they've heard some good music this summer, well, wait until you hear what's yet to come. JazzErie has put together a highly promising 2008-09 concert season (its fifth annual) featuring some of the best jazz musicians in the world, as well as outstanding local and regional players. Most of the musicians who will be part of the upcoming season -- leaders and their band members -- place among the top ...
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Recording

New Candid Records Release by Sensational Jazz Vocalist, Robin McKelle

Source: All About Jazz
June 19, 2007

"A unique new voice on the jazz scene who someday soon will require no introduction" - Jazz Week

“First-rate jazz album" - All About Jazz

Top 10 Billboard chart entry A Barnes & Noble bestseller Extensive plays on BBC Radio 2 Approaching 50000 sold in France

2nd July 2007 will mark the release of “Introducing", Robin McKelle's debut album that is already a best seller in the USA and Europe. Critics compare he voice to Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald! ...
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