Jazzmeia Horn - A Social Call (2017) [HDTracks]

New York-based performer Jazzmeia Horn is a gifted jazz vocalist with an inventive, scat-influenced style that helped her win the 2015 Thelonious Monk International Vocal Jazz Competition. Born in Dallas, Texas in 1991, Horn grew up in a creative, spiritually minded family and was first introduced to singing by her grandmother, a gospel pianist with an abiding love of jazz. Although she sang from an early age, it wasn't until her teens attending Dallas' Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts that she developed an interest in jazz. Introduced to Sarah Vaughan by her composition class teacher, Horn fell in love with Vaughan's style and worked to learn her phrasing and inflection. From there, she began listening to other instrumentalists, including John Coltrane and Miles Davis. After high school, she honed her skills studying at Manhattan's The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music. She already gained recognition as a formidable talent during her time in school, and took home several Down Beat student music awards. Graduating in 2009, Horn quickly immersed herself in the New York scene, performing alongside such luminaries as Billy Harper, Delfeayo Marsalis, Mike LeDonne, Peter Bernstein, Vincent Herring, and many more. Horn's profile was raised significantly when she won Newark's 2013 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Competition. Two years later, she solidified her place as a bona fide star after taking first place in the Thelonious Monk International Vocal Jazz Competition. In 2017, as part of her Monk Competition prize, she released her debut full-length album, A Social Call, on Concord Records.