TRANSCRIPT
Being on stage with a three-time Grammy award nominee is a moment these students will likely never forget.
New York based vocalist Jazzmeia Horn has been in Adelaide to inspire the next wave of musicians with her self-taught approach to jazz.
She’s left a lasting impression on her students at Adelaide University’s Elder Conservatorium.
"The different textures she gets with her voice, and just the control and power she has, but also clear she is with everything she wants. It's just - she’s an absolute powerhouse!
"Yeah, just having all that technical stuff, she just uses all that to tell an amazing story every single time. It's just so powerful."
The Helpmann Academy – an organisation that creates opportunities for emerging creatives - has brought her to Australia for the Adelaide only visit.
Jane MacFarlane is the Academy's CEO.
"I keep pinching myself that we managed to bring her out here. I mean, she’s such a gifted performer but also she has such a unique teaching style."]]
The Jazzemia Horn approach is about tapping into emotions to put yourself into the music.
So Miguel Capiti chose this song about love, applying the lyrics to his Filipino heritage.
"I picked As Time Goes By. It’s a love song. I’ve not fallen in love before, unfortunately... So it’s not really something I can resonate with. However the other theme of the song is love is eternal. It’s something that’s a constant in the ever changing sphere of what humans are like, right. Love stays the same... And I’m thinking internally about my grandparents, my parents, just the older people around me and how their life is a story. Everyone's life is a story, and that is kind of what I was internalising when I sang As Time Goes By."
Jazzmeia uses her own method to express frustrations with racism and sexism.
"I have to live with that more so than I would like to, and it's just a part of my reality. So my song, Free Your Mind, it becomes a meditation for me, not just for who I'm talking to but for me. I'm talking to myself also. Free your mind and let your thoughts expand."
A childhood saturated in gospel traditions opened her musical ears.
"I needed the foundation of hearing my mother sing in the choir, my father play drums, my grandfather play guitar, and everybody around me. My grandmother playing organ and singing, everyone around me singing in my family - and this sound. My ears are huge, because I've been hearing it since I was able to walk, and even before. When my mother was carrying me in her womb she was also singing in the choir."]
But Jazzmeia only discovered jazz in her teens.
"One of my teachers said to me how can your name be Jazzmeia Horn, and you don't like jazz music. And the first thing I said to him was yeah, that's old people's music'. I heard it and I was just like, where have I been all my life. And I was hooked, and I didn't - I never looked back."
Courteney Hooper is a second year Bachelor of Jazz student.
She says Jazzmeia pushes them to step outside of their comfort zone.
"I think a lot of us are very shy and have this tall poppy syndrome kind of thing going on, so... She wants us to be fully unapologetic and just - I don't know - transcend the fear I guess of singing and performing in front of people."
Jazzmeia Horn says that's exactly the kind of energy she wants to see.
"When people can relate, they feel and they emote, and they share - and they share and they share and they share. And your seed of encouragement, or your seed of knowledge, or your seed of self-care, or your seed of love, or light, healing is now is being spread across the world - and that is my mission."
