Grammy Award-winning jazz artist phenom, Melanie Charles talks about the importance of jazz, winning a Grammy and her Hotel San Claudio collaborative album released by Soul Bank Records.
The project with revered composer, pianist, DJ and two decade-long bridge between jazz, dance and hip-hop, Mark de Clive-Lowe (MdCL), and Detroit drummer/producer/DJ, Shigeto is a spiritual jazz, live deconstructed beats, including a three-track set of Pharoah Sanders reinterpretations ‘masterpiece.’
When we asked Melanie about her dream for jazz music, she says it is seeing jazz become the music that people are dancing to in the clubs.
The multi-instrumentalist and vocalist also talked about being featured on
celebrated drummer Terri Lyne Carrington’s album, New Standards Vol. 1, which won a 2023 Grammy award in the Best Jazz Instrumental Album category.
Melanie says, “When Terri, one of the biggest and most important drummers alive today and such a mentor and lover of the next generation brought me in to sing on an arrangement of Throw It Away, I was so honored to be on the New Standards Vol. 1 album – a great memorable moment for me.”
About Melanie Charles
Her improvisational style, inflection, and spontaneity talents displayed in the celebrated Y’all Don’t (Really) Care About Black Women album is nothing short than brilliant and a must add to your playlist – ‘a sheer ‘masterpiece.’
Whether you’re a longtime jazz fan or new to the genre, Melanie Charles is one artist you want to check out – hands down. Watch Melanie Charles electrifying performance on NPR’s Tiny Desk – click here.
There are very few artists whose sound can capture the sentiments of a generation. The Brooklyn born and raised, Melanie Charles, is one of these artists. Over the past few decades, she has made a name for herself through dynamic engagements with jazz, soul, and R&B. Her bold genre-bending style has been embraced by a range of artists including Wynton Marsalis, SZA, Mach-Hommy, Gorillaz, and The Roots. In 2021, she appeared on NPR’s Tiny Desk and stunned with her eclectic style. Through it all, she has remained committed to making music that pushes listeners to consider new possibilities—both sonically and politically. “Make Jazz Trill Again,” a project that she launched in 2016, demonstrates her allegiance to everyday people, especially the youth and is focused on taking jazz from the museum to the streets. “I love jazz, I really fell in love with it deeply. But I was interested in young people interacting with it,” Charles says. The album Y’all Don’t (Really) Care About Black Women is reflective of Charles’ tremendous versatility and imagination as an artist but of also her deep care for community.
Enter into the creative realm of her electrifying performances and leave entertained, educated, and empowered on the Official Melanie Charles Website with just a click here.
You can follow Melanie Charles on her social media @melaniecharleisdflower