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Home > Features > Artist’s Choice: Carmen Lundy Pays Tribute to “Modern Ancestors”

Artist’s Choice: Carmen Lundy Pays Tribute to “Modern Ancestors”

The singer and multi-instrumentalist gives Stevie Wonder, John Coltrane, and Sarah Vaughan a listen in this playlist

Published By Carmen Lundy
Carmen Lundy (photo: Janet Van Ham)
Carmen Lundy (photo: Janet Van Ham)

When I was 28, Sarah Vaughan was in the prime of her life. I saw her in New York a half-dozen times, along with Shirley Horn, who returned in the early ’90s. Additionally, Benny Carter all through those years, not to mention Dizzy, Miles, George Coleman, Bobby Watson, and Wayne Shorter—we’re talking about a time in jazz when a lot of our icons were here putting people in the room. We’ve lost more than half of these great artists. My influences are those “modern ancestors” and a result of that time. I had the wonderful gift and honor of being in the room, privy to the sound, privy to the expression and creativity.

Listen to a Spotify playlist featuring all the songs in Carmen Lundy’s Artist’s Choice:

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Carmen Lundy

Carmen Lundy is a Los Angeles-based singer, multi-instrumentalist, producer, arranger, visual artist, actor, and educator. Never signed to a major label, she has instead maintained an independent career for more than 40 years. She has also worked with a variety of musicians as a backing singer and as a bandleader. Her latest recording is Modern Ancestors.

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In the cool, blustery summer weather that is typical of Finland’s Satakunta province, Dave Douglas’ quintet-Douglas on trumpet, tenor saxophonist Jon Irabagon, pianist Matt Mitchell, bassist Linda Oh and drummer Rudy Royston, with vocalist Heather Masse-played a well-received set at the 2013 Pori Jazz festival in July. The music alternated between a loose-limbed intensity and measured melancholy-the latter in particular on the church melodies taken from Douglas’ 2012 album Be Still (Greenleaf). One of those happy, unplanned musical connections took place when the group performed the title track, sparking a rousing response from the outdoor crowd.

“I got so many questions from people here in Finland about why I played it,” Douglas, 50, explained after the set. “When my mother was very ill she gave me a list of hymns that she wanted me to play at her memorial service, and one of them was ‘Be Still, My Soul.’ It was one of her favorites, played in Protestant churches with English lyrics and a melody composed by [Finnish composer] Jean Sibelius. I don’t think she knew the melody is also called ‘Finlandia,’ but we began to play it and I quickly learned that it’s the national anthem here, more or less. It was a real honor to play it in Finland.”

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