Sherry Scott Belts Out Thrilling Jazz in Her Rich Alto

NEWPORT BEACH —  Anyone clinging to the notion--not always unjustified--that jazz is a rarefied and aloof form of music would do well to check out singer Sherry Scott when she returns to Cafe Lido in January for a month of Wednesdays.

This past Wednesday evening, Scott gave a performance that bespoke of all the complexity and finesse that jazz has to offer but moreover displayed what a powerful emotional conduit this music is at its best.

Scott is a widely experienced singer. A Chicago native, she was part of the city’s groundbreaking ‘60s avant-garde workshop, the Assn. for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, and worked with Joseph Jarman and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. In quite a turnabout from that, she was a founding member of Earth, Wind and Fire. During her six years with the band, she wrote and sang it’s first hit, “I Think About Loving You.” Her other credits include work with Eddie Harris, Freddie Hubbard, Pharoah Sanders, Hugh Masekela and Mongo Santamaria.

Working through sets of standards, Scott displayed a fabulously nimble and evocative voice most easily likened to Betty Carter: There was the same chance-taking spirit, and some similar swoops into her lower register, though Scott rounds off those wonderful extremes of phrasing that Carter often assays. More than any stylistic mutualities, though, Scott recalls Carter in that both clearly are caught up in a captivating joy when they sing.

Scott practically radiates when she performs. Wednesday, she sang with her whole body, playing imaginary instruments while scatting on “My Favorite Things,” dancing animatedly while playing a gourd-shaker on a romp-paced “The Shadow of Your Smile,” getting the whole audience up and moving.

Many jazz singers have a peculiar inability to sing a convincing blues, intellectually dancing around the obvious notes instead of just nailing the suckers when the emotion calls for it. Scott had no such reservations, approaching the powerful cry of the early Etta James on a blues-steeped version of “Since I Fell for You.”

The show-stopper Wednesday was Scott’s reading of “My Funny Valentine,” which started as a deep mood piece, a rainy night expressed in music. Scott practically sighed the lyric line in her rich alto while her trio achieved both an intimacy and cinematic presence: There were hushed arpeggios from pianist William Henderson, and drummer Tootie Heath provided muted thunder with his mallets. Then, Scott started flying against that storm, shouting and bopping the melody line into abstract pieces, her legs and arms flying. The band paced her perfectly.

The trio, which also included bassist Richard Reed, often achieved that special communication. There were times when the enlightened stuff the musicians were playing individually didn’t serve the song or arrangement as well as one might have wished. Those times were remarkably few, though, considering that Scott, who is based in New York, had only been able to rehearse with the band once before the Lido engagements.

Between sets, Scott discussed her career while sitting in the Cafe’s dressing room, a small, drafty place that seemed designed chiefly to house a wall of electric switches and circuit boxes. “I’ve seen lots worse,” she said laughing, which prompted the question of why she’d chosen the relatively unrecompensed jazz life over the pop world in which she’d found some success.

“I wish I could say it was really a decision,” she answered. “If it is, it’s a decision of the heart. My heart is in jazz, my spirit, my rhythm. I grew up that way. When I was 16 I was pulling on Eddie Harris’ pant leg saying, ‘Let me sing, let me sing a song.’

“I was underage but people kind of tolerated me because I was so enthusiastic about it. The music would always take me somewhere so special, and I said, ‘This is where I want to be all the time.’ ”

Growing up in Chicago gave her access to help from such artists as Harris, Sanders and Carter. Other influences included Dinah Washington, Billie Holiday, Della Reese, Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald as well as the pop music of the ‘60s.

“There also came a time,” she continued, “when I stopped listening to singers and was more into horn players instead. John Coltrane was the epitome for me, because he had courage. He’d find places to go where the music hadn’t gone before, and I’m a seeker too, so it really touched me.

“I think my riffing style has a lot to do with the horn players I grew up with. When I came up, you’d go to a session and there would be all these horn players, and they wouldn’t want to let the singers on, because the singers would inevitably do a ballad and pull the energy level down.

“So I learned to do nothing but up-tempo things, and I was always welcome at the sessions. The other singers would always get upset. But that’s where the music came from inside of me, and I couldn’t see it in a lot of the other singers.

“A lot of them were too female, you know, too concerned with how they looked and who was in the audience and whether they’d had a fight with their boyfriend, and none of that stuff ever mattered to me. It was always just the music for me.”

Carter once provided a stinging spur to Scott’s singing. “I’ll tell you, 15 years ago Betty Carter told me, ‘You know, you’re a baaaad b-i-t-c-h , but you’re not a jazz singer!’ Oh, my heart was hurt! ‘Oh Betty, don’t tell me that!’ But I worked harder and harder and harder and about two years ago she came to see me in Brooklyn and she cried , and she asked if she could produce me sometime, so there’s the possibility of that. I really feel like I can say I’m a jazz singer now.”

For Scott, it’s not such a bad time to be a jazz singer. Her six children are grown, so she’s able to pursue her career wherever it leads--and recently it led to a six-week engagement in Istanbul. She has two albums in the can, one jazz and one pop, and she is shopping them to labels.

“I was especially surprised by the interest in the jazz album. (With jazz) it has always been really hard to get the kind of airplay and record sales you really want. But there seems to be a lot of jazz flowing through other styles right now, and jazz is catching people’s attention. I’m really glad, because I’ve been starving a long time,” she said with a laugh.

Asked what motivates her when she sings, she answered, “Music and spirit. Spirit is that special essence that creates all life, and I think a musician is really connected with that energy, and through you flow all those good feelings.

“That’s what I try to send to people. I want people to feel good when they hear me sing. I know I’m not the greatest singer in the world but I love people and I want to share that love with them. I don’t think there’s enough love in the world today, and there’s always a place to lift a spirit, to give a person a smile and make them feel a little better.”