With nine albums under her belt Nnenna Freelon has an impressive oeuvre since her first self-titled album was released in 1992 by Columbia. But it wasn’t until 1998 that I discovered Nnenna and her music when I bought a copy of her fifth album, Maiden Voyage, and soon I began to buy her back catalogue and all the records that followed. So you may argue that I may be a little bit biased when it comes to Nnenna but if you listen to her music and especially to her new album Blueprint Of A Lady and her Stevie Wonder tribute Tales Of Wonder you will discover her great talent to take a song and tranform it into something new and making it her own. What was already impressive on Tales Of Wonder finds its sequel on the new tribute album to the unforgotten Billie Holiday.
This album evolved from a larger multimedia project she did with Ronald K. Brown and his NYC-based ensemble, Evidence , entitled Blueprint of a Lady: The Once and Future Life of Billie Holiday. “I was having dinner with Ron and telling him how much I loved and admired Billie Holiday and talking about my dreams of doing a tribute to her. His concept was more along the lines of expressing through the body the impact she had on all of us. That project became a three-part collaboration of live band, dancers and video, with each of us expressing our own interpretation of what it means to be an artist, to tell your own story,” says Freelon. “It was an experimental venture with Billie as touchstone. We all pulled our inspiration from her.”
So you think you know all the cover songs on Blueprint and this is just another cover album? Well, think again and just listen to Nnenna’s version of I Didn’t Know What Time It Was for example. With trumpets, saxophones and lots of percussion this tune is turned into a vivid latin jazz song.
One of my favourite songs is Don’t Explain. The cello solo at the song’s beginning and ending gives it a great sad feeling.
God Bless The Child sees its inspiring resurrection as soul jazz tune with Nnenna ad-libbing at the beginning.
The always haunting Strange Fruit is sung in a medley with the Latin inspired Willow Weep For Me while All Of Me is recorded with a reggae beat.
Left Alone is a song Billie Holiday had written with Mal Waldron but actually she has never ever recorded it. In 1961 Abbey Lincoln did the first vocal version of this tune. Nnenna’s version is a fine slow jazz version giving Brandon McCune room for showing his piano skills. And it’s Brandon who accompanies as sole musician Nnenna on her moving performance of Balm In Gilead.
With more captivating songs like Them There Eyes, Lover Man or Nnenna’s own Only You Will Know this is an impressive album that lets you forget that you’ve heard most of the songs dozen times before. What’s so inspiring about Blueprint Of A Lady is that all the songs just seem to flow naturally out of Nnenna and her musicians. There’s nothing exerted about it like someone trying to sound originally by hook or by crook.

Tracklisting of Blueprint of a Lady - Sketches of Billie Holiday: 1. I Didn’t Know What Time It Was/ 2. What a Little Moonlight Can Do/ 3. Don’t Explain/ 4. God Bless the Child/ 5. Strange Fruit/6. Willow Weep for Me/ 7. Balm in Gilead/ 8. Them There Eyes/ 9. Only You Will Know/ 10. You’ve Changed/ 11. Now or Never/ 12. Lover Man/ 13. Left Alone/ 14. Little Brown Bird (Interlude)/ 15. All of Me | released 2005 Concord Jazz

For more infos visit nnenna.com and concordrecords.com.

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