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Eugenie Jones

The connection between travel and the discovery and broadening of one’s artistic voice is a consistent theme in the jazz continuum: Louis Armstrong goes up the Mississippi River from New Orleans to Chicago; Charlie Parker goes east from Kansas City to New York; Ornette Coleman moves from Fort Worth to California; and Ray Charles relocates from Florida to Seattle.

The places and spaces the award-winning vocalist/composer/lyricist Eugenie Jones has traveled in the eight years she’s been on the jazz scene cover a wide range of landscapes and longings, from her humble beginnings in West Virginia, to her move to Seattle where—through inspiration and an inexhaustible work ethic—she transformed herself into a jazz vocalist of impeccable taste, with a respect for the jazz tradition and the courage to try something new. Her first two recordings, Black Lace Blue Tears (2013) and Come Out Swingin’ (2015), both feature these attributes.

With the release of her new two-disc, 15-track recording Players, Jones takes jazz traveling to a whole new level. Four years in the making, Players— independently produced and recorded on her own Open Mic Records label— finds Jones crisscrossing the United States with stops in Dallas, New York, Chicago, and Seattle, where she recorded with a top-notch cadre of 32 jazz musicians, including the legendary bassist Reggie Workman, drummer Bernard “Pretty” Purdie, trombonist Julian Priester, percussionist Bobby Sanabria, and bassist Lonnie Plaxico, as well as Young Turks Marquis Hill (trumpet) and Jovan Johnson (trombone), to name a few. These players joined Jones on a musical magic carpet ride powered by standards by Irving Berlin, Billy Strayhorn, George Gershwin, and Nina Simone, and ten of Jones’s original compositions.

“From the beginning of this project, I considered how this new CD would be different from the previous ones,” Jones states. That question was satisfied by Jones’s visionary idea to record in each region of the United States with a different set of artists. “It was way beyond anything I’d ever done,” she says. “And while it was a foreboding prospect, once I make up my mind, I’m very tenacious about doing what it takes to achieve my heart’s desire. In many ways this CD is a continuation of my last two recordings in that it only contains songs that truly resonate with me, namely hard-swinging songs, earthy emotive ballads, and uplifting songs of inspiration. These themes are consistent throughout all my recordings.”

Jones’s foray into New York City was a formidable challenge. “New York is massive,” she says. “Massive in terms of its population, its history, its musical legacy, and even in terms of the artists who joined me in the studio. It was mind- blowing to think that here I am in a studio with Reggie Workman and other artists who are absolute demigods, like Bobby Sanabria and Bernard Purdie. I just tried to keep my feet on the ground, and remember that it was my work that got me here.”

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Take Five With...

Take Five with Eugenie Jones

Read "Take Five with Eugenie Jones" reviewed by AAJ Staff


Meet Eugenie Jones Born and raised in Morgantown, West Virginia, Eugenie Jones's father, Eugene, was the director of the local Friendship Baptist Church Choir, and her mother was the choir's lead soprano. However, Jones possessed no latent desire to one day become a singer herself. She earned her MBA, married, and moved to Seattle, raising two sons. Her singing career began later in life, after her mother Tommie's death. Jones was inspired to start singing to carry ...

28
Album Review

Eugenie Jones: Come Out Swingin'

Read "Come Out Swingin'" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


The last we heard from Seattle-based Renaissance woman Eugenie Jones was on her quite excellent debut recording Black Lace Blue Tears (Self Produced, 2013). On that recording Jones demonstrated great accomplishment as a vocalist, composer, and arranger. She was in the process of transitioning from a successful marketing career to a singer. That kind of change is not for the faint of heart. Jones returns with Come Out Swinging, a collection of tunes as different from those ...

4
Album Review

Eugenie Jones: Black Lace Blue Tears

Read "Black Lace Blue Tears" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


Seattle-based vocalist/composer/arranger Eugenie Jones didn't start out as such. A business and marketing major in college, Jones graduated and went on to be a business owner, consultant and all-around marketing roustabout. But life is never so simple and after her mother's death, Jones decided that it was time to pursue music as a vocation. On her debut Black Lace Blue Tears Jones flexes all of her creative muscles assembling nine originals and interpreting two standards, all at a high level. ...

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Music Industry

For Your Grammy Consideration: Players by Eugenie Jones (Best Jazz Vocal Album Category)

For Your Grammy Consideration: Players by Eugenie Jones (Best Jazz Vocal Album Category)

Source: Bright Ideas

The four-years, four-cities, 32-musician-project, Players, by singer/songwriter Eugenie Jones is now available for your Grammy consideration. Listeners are invited to review this ten-original, five-jazz classic, two-disc project during round-one consideration. The Players NEW YORK: James Weidman, Julian Priester, Marquis Hill, Reggie Workman, Bernard Purdie, Bobby Sanabria, Asaf Even Zur, Stanley Banks, Jovan Johnson. SEATTLE: Bill Anschell, Julian Priester, Alex Dugdale, Jay Thomas, Clipper Anderson, Mark Ivester, D’Vonne Lewis, Jeff Busch, Velocity, Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio. DALLAS: Shaun Martin, Lynn Seaton, ...

2

Recording

Vocalist-Songwriter Eugenie Jones Revels In Variety Both Musical And Geographical On 'Players,' Set For March 11 Release By Open Mic Records

Vocalist-Songwriter Eugenie Jones Revels In Variety Both Musical And Geographical On 'Players,' Set For March 11 Release By Open Mic Records

Source: Terri Hinte Publicity

“Wide-ranging” takes on a new meaning with the March 11 release of vocalist/composer/lyricist Eugenie Jones’s Players on her own Open Mic Records. Jones’s third album is the result of an odyssey that took her from her Pacific Northwest base (jny: Seattle) to the Deep South (jny: Dallas), the bustling East Coast (New York), the Midwestern Plains (jny: Chicago), and back again, working in the process with a jaw-dropping spectrum of major jazz musicians that includes (among others) bassists Reggie Workman ...

2

Recording

Seattle Jazz Singer Eugenie Jones To Release "Come Out Swingin'" May 12

Seattle Jazz Singer Eugenie Jones To Release "Come Out Swingin'" May 12

Source: Terri Hinte Publicity

Eugenie Jones’s widely praised 2013 debut, Black Lace Blue Tears, introduced a late-blooming but fiercely original jazz vocalist and songwriter to the jazz world. Among other honors, the disc was named Earshot Jazz’s Northwestern Recording of the Year. The Seattle-area singer’s response to her warm critical reception was to start writing again and prove that her success was no fluke. On her impressive follow-up, Come Out Swingin’, Jones displays the rhythmic authority, emotional insight, and melodic invention of an artist ...

Recording

"Black Lace Blue Tears," Debut CD For Seattle-Area Jazz Singer Eugenie Jones, Due May 28

"Black Lace Blue Tears," Debut CD For Seattle-Area Jazz Singer Eugenie Jones, Due May 28

Source: Terri Hinte Publicity

With the release of her debut album Black Lace Blue Tears, Seattle-based Eugenie Jones emerges as a rising jazz vocal star with a deep-rooted sense of where she’s headed as an artist. Jones’s repertoire is based primarily on her own striking originals, and she also had a hand in all of the arrangements. The disc is due from Jones’s Open Mic Records on May 28. Throughout Black Lace Blue Tears Jones receives first-rate support from three of Seattle’s most gifted ...

Jones, “has a voice that covers words like pieces of silk covering precious stones. But she never overdoes it, never overflows with emotion, never goes too high or too low, but always sings with a restraint that’s cosmopolitan, yet not soulless. Charles Mundede, Associate Editor, The Stranger, Seattle, WA

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Players

Open Mic Records
2022

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Come Out Swingin'

Self Produced
2015

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Black Lace Blue Tears

Self Produced
2013

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Sittin at the Bar

From: Players
By Eugenie Jones

There Are Thorns

From: Players
By Eugenie Jones

Swing Me

From: Come Out Swingin'
By Eugenie Jones

I Could Get Lost In Your Eyes

From: Come Out Swingin'
By Eugenie Jones

Black Lace Blue Tears

From: Black Lace Blue Tears
By Eugenie Jones

A Good Day

From: Black Lace Blue Tears
By Eugenie Jones

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