Jacqui Naylor

Jacqui Naylor (* in the 1960s in Saratoga , California, USA) is an American singer-songwriter between jazz and pop , who lives in San Francisco and, besides continuous publications and worldwide appearances, became known for her method "Acoustic Smashes".

Live and act

Naylor grew up with six siblings in Saratoga. Her parents collected antiquated mechanical jukeboxes from the early 20th century and old jazz records. After high school, she began studying economics at San Francisco State University in the 1980s, graduating in 1991 with a bachelor's degree in marketing . She worked for six years as marketing director for the fashion designer Lat Naylor, whom she married in the meantime. Even during her studies, the album Sarah Vaughan Sings George Gershwin made her more interested in the possibilities of vocal jazz. From 1991 to 1996 she also took singing lessons from Faith Winthrop. She gained practical experience as a soloist in the Sacred Heart Gospel Choir. She also used a one-year marketing training course in New York City in 1996 for further musical training. When she returned to California in 1997, she resolutely made music a professional priority. With her economics degree behind her, she founded her own record label Ruby Star Records at the same time and made sure that its productions were available throughout North America through Ryko Distribution .

In 1999 her first album came out with the simple title Jacqui Naylor . More albums followed about two years apart, most recently the live double album Live East-West: Birdland / Yoshi's in 2005 . The recording locations were Yoshi’s in Oakland (California) and the Birdland Club in New York City. Like the previous jazz standards, the album contained their own song compositions, but above all the beginnings of their well-known specialty of "acoustic smashing". The idea is to mix two songs from different genres into one, for example “ My Funny Valentine ” together with “Back in Black” by AC / DC . The band plays one song while singing the other. From Color Five (2006) two more albums came annually, Smashed For The Holidays 2007 and You Don't Know Jacq 2008. The last album was 2011 Lucky Girl . Its 15 song titles were selected by 90 friends and fans out of 25 performed live.

She presented a video DVD for the first time in 2012 under the title Lucky Girl - A Portrait of Jacqui Naylor . The documentary by auteur filmmakers Marcelina Cravat and Jules Kobelin was made with recordings from two years of occasional accompaniment of the musicians on tours, including gigs in the Seattler Club Jazz Alley , the Rrazz Room in San Francisco and the Istanbul Jazz Center . In addition to recordings of performances, songwriting sessions and backstage moments, the portrait documentary contains interviews with long-time band members and friends of the musician, showing her as a practicing Buddhist and local patriot of San Francisco.

She toured beyond the USA and Canada to Japan and most of the Western and Southern European countries. These included the Ronnie Scott's jazz clubs in London, Blue Note in New York City, the Jamboree in Barcelona, other Blue Note clubs in Milan and Tokyo, the Unterfahrt jazz club in Munich and the Women in Jazz Festival in Halle an der Saale .

Her musical direction as a singer-songwriter oscillates between jazz standards, blues , folk rock , soul and pop . It can hardly be defined because it constantly breaks down genre limitations and brushes pieces against the grain. Music journalist Alex Henderson names Billie Holiday , June Christy and Nina Simone , Natalie Merchant , Carole King and Sheryl Crow as her influences . She also leads her Jacqui Naylor Quartet with Art Khu (piano, organ, Rhodes, guitars), Jon Evans (bass, percussion) and Josh Jones (drums and percussion).