Jamile Trio
Baby Grand Jazz Series
Hartford Public Library
Hartford
I love Brazilian music.
Well, let me be more specific: I love the Brazilian music I’ve heard. My playlist has a few songs from Caetano Veloso and Elise Regina, but I haven’t been exposed to a great deal beyond them.
That changed Sunday afternoon during the season finale for the Baby Grand Jazz series at Hartford Public Library. I was able to stop in for the first half of the double header, featuring a rescheduled appearance by the Jamile Trio. The group is made up of singer Jamile, Miki Yamanako on piano (who I’ve written about previously) and Simón Willson on bass. Despite being based nearby in New York City, the concert marked Jamile’s first appearance in Connecticut’s capital city.
Jamile’s sound is an eclectic mix of smooth melodies, driving rhythms and a touch of clashing sounds. The trio’s use of dissonance felt novel to me. Dissonance is used often in jazz, but I’d never heard it integrated so prominently into a vocal performance. I enjoy the instrumentation and style of Brazilian music, but the language itself is an important element too. Portuguese allows for the bombastic rhythm and flurry of syllables that makes Spanish music so fun, but its use of different sounds, mostly the soft sh and ch sounds, feels more mellow. Where Spanish language music hypes me up, Portuguese chills me out.
One might think that dissonant sounds might drown out the lyricism of the music, but in fact the opposite is true. The clash of sounds made each element of the song more distinct, as if the soundscape of the music was rendering each pound on the piano, each strum of the strings, in relief.
Having such talented partners to rely on elevated the music even more. I knew what to expect from Yamanako on piano, but she still knocked my socks off with the skill of her playing. Wilson on bass was terrific as well, keeping up with the rest of the trio while playing support and dancing his fingers expertly on the bass when taking over for solos.
And then there’s Jamile herself. Whether she was singing a ballad, upping the tempo with bossa nova or singing a cover of one of my favorite Jill Scott songs, she infused each with a sultry energy that drew the crowd in.
Jamile’s performance was varied not only stylistically, but also content wise. She lamented the fact that so many singers focus on love songs (although she did concede that she’s written a love song or two), but no one would make the same claim about her. During her set, Jamile sang songs about a hypochondriac feeling his pregnant wife’s contractions; dealing with the complications of OCD; giving an interested party a wrong number, and more.
In fact, one of the final songs of the performance was about a boy selling oranges. Jamile delivered it with the same fire and intensity as if she were singing about a gut-wrenching breakup. She ripped through the extended runs of the song with ease, drawing cheers from the audience.
From one Jamil to another, the Jamile Trio’s performance was worth the wait from their original date in January, and a fitting way to end another great season of music at the Hartford Public Library.
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Jamil goes to check out the play Circus Fire.
