Owen will be performing at the Grammy Museum on Monday, October 9th. She follows that with four performances at the McKittrick Hotel in New York beginning on October 11th.

Earlier this week I spoke with Owen about the lusty songs she recorded on Come On & Get It, the role of female empowerment in modern music and we discussed what, if any, difference there is between Judith Owen and Lady J. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

Q: You sing He’s a Tramp on this album. Peggy Lee, who wrote that and other songs for Lady and the Tramp [with Sonny Burke] said, “I try to project not only a song, but a personality.” Your album is released under the name Judith Owen. But on stage, you’re Lady J. How much do the songs that you choose to record and perform reflect Judith Owen? And how much is a preparation for who Lady J is when she performs them?

Very good question, actually. But the truth is it’s all Judith Owen. I was christened Lady J by my trumpet player, Kevin Lewis, his mother. When I did the first ever show at Snug Harbor, New Orleans, right after the last day of recording [this album], she jumped out of a seat after I’d finished singing King Size Papa and screamed, “We love you, Lady J.” The whole place cheered. It was amazing. So my band and everyone else has been calling me Lady J ever since. I think what it refers to is the unapologetic badass woman that I’ve been gestating, that has been hiding inside. 

I always wants to be the consummate entertainer. I want to sing and perform and dance and play the piano and have that stagecraft. Whether it’s my songwriting or whether it’s me covering somebody else, you have to inhabit it. Peggy Lee was absolutely correct. But the truth is, that’s all me. It’s all me finally on display, unapologetically. I love being the front person. I love being that lady J out front, center. Whatever you want to call me, it’s me. 

What inspired you most about this collection of songs, all performed by women, that have innuendo at their core?

What these women were all about, whether they wrote it or not, was about the ownership of it. It was about the fact that they could sing it and deliver it in a way that no one else could. No man would ever get away with this or do this and be that empowered. This was an era where women were meant to be decoration. Nice girls were singing about romance, for God’s sake. These women were not only singing about sex, they were celebrating female sexuality and enjoying it. They had a smirk on their faces. They had their tongues in their cheeks and they were putting it out there that they were woman in control of themselves. 

If people think that sexuality has only just occurred with Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B, think again ladies. These woman were in control and sexy – out of control sexy. And they didn’t even take it off. I’m bringing my fresh take on this and showing the joy and the sexiness of keeping it on.

I assume singing these songs on stage allows you to bring even more than what you do in a recording studio?

That’s correct. I’m a very visual artist. Performing is my true love. Live performance is what I live for. Everything is recorded live. It’s one take. I believe in that completely and utterly, because I want to keep that seat of the pants feeling that makes great performance.

I’m very proud of the album. But the thing that I love about performing it live is to entertain you. But also to transport you and to leave you breathless with that art form that is rarely seen these days. It’s an old art form and it’s a wonderful art form. If I could spend the rest of my life on stage performing like this, that’s really what I’ve always wanted.

Female self-expression and ownership has changed a lot from the time of the music that you’ve recorded to what’s being released as new music today. Where do you think female self-expression will go vis-a-vis artists in the next ten or 15 years?

Young women are asking me what is the answer? How do they get to that place? You, in your lives, are not here to be pleasers. It’s to please us first and then we can everyone else. I do believe in that strongly. I think that whatever way you look, whatever way you dress, the future is woman. However you present yourself, your music, your gift, your sexuality, is on your own terms. Because when you’re authentic and when your voice is true, people can tell.

I spent a whole career being told why do you talk so much? Why do you think you’re funny? Why do you want to do this, do that? Then you get to a point where it’s look, this is who I am. Do you understand? This is who I am. You like me or you don’t like me, but I can’t do anything about that. It’s not about how other people judge you, What matters is the voice inside you that’s judging yourself. We all know that you get to that point [where] we actually don’t give a shit. That’s the most freeing moment. That is moving forward movement. I really hope that is the future.

Let’s talk about your future. 18 years ago you were Lost and Found [her 2005 album]. Now you’re at a point where you’re saying, come on and get it. What do you feel is the most authentic next step for Judith Owen?

That is unbelievably insightful and I never even thought about it that way. I’m somebody who every single CD, every single album I made, you could tell where I was, who I was, how I was doing, how my mental health was. I was lost. I was found.

Here I am 18 years later after all this time and all these albums at a point where I’m saying to the world grab this life. Just embrace who you are for real. It’s a short life. It’s a short time we’re here. Don’t waste it. If I could have got here faster, I would have. But I couldn’t. So here I am looking forward. These women gave me permission to be my unapologetic self, to reveal the bad ass that was gestating all this time since I was six years old. I kid you not. Moving forward, I’m going to be performing and recording and being that person. 

Since we started with Peggy Lee, I want to end with something else that Peggy Lee said. She said, “I regard singing pretty much like acting. Each song is like playing a different role. I get very involved with my material. I feel a responsibility for the emotion it brings out in the listener.” Do you equate singing with acting? And if so, how does that inform not just how you present yourself today, but how are you going to present yourself in a week or a year or a decade?

Having an overactive imagination, but having a core actor sensibility in me, I do believe that. Being an interpreter is about being an actor. Somebody like Sinatra was so extraordinary in that way. Peggy Lee was so magnificent in that way. You felt like she meant every single word. That’s what I believe in. It’s half acting, half really exposing your true self. Because like any fine actor, you must immerse yourself in the character. You must immerse yourself in the role and you must mean every word that you utter. So if you’re going to do it right, and do it well, you take it to the place inside you where it resonates.

I’m not just singing this song because it’s pretty or lovely or what sounds good or my voice is nice. That’s not what it means to me. I want you to be on this ride with me, to feel what I feel and remember how you’ve been there. She could not be more right. I’m a big believer of this. Again, it’s not incredibly popular, I guess. You don’t see that very much these days, but I believe in it.

To see the full interview with Judith Owen, please go here.

Main Photo: Judith Owen (Courtesy Judith Owen)

The post Is Singer Judith Owen Lady J or Vice-Versa? appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

If you ask most people under the age of 50 who Billy Strayhorn was they will probably look at you with a blank face. Composer and musician Marlon Martinez, well under that age, would be able to tell you more about Strayhorn that you could possibly imagine. Unlike many of his peers, Martinez took an early interest in jazz.

“I was in middle school and I gravitated towards big band jazz,” he told me. “My parents knew that I was interested in it, so they bought me a lot of compilation CDs.” Remember compact discs?

Any good compilation of big band jazz was certain to include the music and recordings of Duke Ellington. But as Martinez kept listening he discovered something he couldn’t quite figure out at first.

“As the years went by and as I listened more and more to Duke Ellington, I started picking up on compositions that really resonated with me,” he revealed. “You know, I didn’t know at the time that those particular compositions were Billy Strayhorn’s compositions: Isfahan, Chelsea Bridge, Clementine, all these other compositions. I was assuming it was just Duke Ellington’s compositions and his music.”

It took a few documentaries hearing Strayhorn’s name regularly mentioned with Ellington’s and for Martinez to start digging deeper. His studies in music provided some clarity about the music he’d been listening to and the help of a teacher pointed Martinez in a direction that would change his life.

“I went back to Duke Ellington and I listened to The Nutcracker Suite, Such Sweet Thunder and other orchestral suites. I heard these compositions again. My ears had developed so much through school that I started to pick up on harmonies and chords and melodies that I really liked and these particular pieces sound a little different from Duke’s pieces. One of my orchestration teachers, Joey Sellers, let me borrow his copy of David Hajdu’s Lush Life book. I read that and fell in love with Billy Strayhorn right then and there.”

Where it went is impressive. Through Colburn Conservatory of Music, where he went to school, Martinez created an eight-part video series called Ever Up And Onward: A Tribute to Billy Strayhorn. It’s an impressive series of videos that cover multiple aspects of Strayhorn’s life and music.

On January 16th, Martinez will release an album with his Marlonious Jazz Orchestra entitled Marlonious/Strayhorn – a combination of Strayhorn’s songs (using the composer’s original charts) and originals written by Martinez. They will be performing selections from that record on December 7th at the Clive Davis Theatre at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles.

When asked how he differentiated between what was written by Ellington and what Strayhorn had composed, he didn’t hesitate.

“Billy Strayhorn has a legato melodic sensibility that I feel is not in Duke Ellington’s music as much,” he offered. “Strayhorn has that element. He also has harmonic elements that aren’t really characteristic of Duke Ellington, like his frequent use of melodic minor or minor 11 chords instead of your minor seven or the half diminished chord. There’s also a tinge of sadness in Strayhorn’s music that separates him from Duke Ellington. That does not mean that Duke Ellington is not deep, but they’re just both so deep in their own way. Billy Strayhorn has that emotional content in there.”

Strayhorn was an anomaly for his time. He was an openly gay Black American. He came out before the expression existed. That emotional content that Martinez spoke about is nowhere more pronounced than in the song Lush Life, a song Strayhorn wrote as a teenager.

“It’s more like a poem. The music is set to a poem. It has more of a classical sense to it. I think it’s rhapsodic. It has a different kind of flow from the regular song styles at the time. Lush Life has those twists and turns that’s usually going to be hard to interpret. Lyrically I think it’s very sophisticated; very mature lyrics.”

It’s a classic song that has been recorded by a who’s who of popular and jazz music: Nat King Cole, John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald, Lady Gaga, Johnny Hartman, Bettye LaVette, Frank Sinatra, Donna Summer, Sarah Vaughan and more. Perhaps the most surprising rendition of the song is the one recording Strayhorn made of this notoriously challenging and profoundly emotional song.

“It’s faster. He has a theatrical take to Lush Life. I think that makes a lot of sense because Strayhorn was so inspired by musical theater. It seems like something that is like a staged song. Something where you would have choreography, you’d have acting, you’d have a bit of singing. I feel like that’s kind of the narrative in which Strayhorn wrote Lush Life.”

As passionate as Martinez is about Strayhorn, he also knew he has to create a link between the music he writes and the music he loves – while still maintaining his own sound and vision.

“I find my music is very much centered in the rich tradition of big band writing and the styles from the forties, fifties and sixties. But played in a contemporary way, in a contemporary context. What I seek to do, even to this day with all my projects, is to show how Billy Strayhorn has inspired my writing. I wanted to pick Strayhorn repertoire that covers many areas of his style or many of the styles that he has. Then sprinkle in some of my compositions to be more of a commentary on Billy Strayhorn’s writing.

“This album will be the first big band album that I’ve produced. I think it’s wise to showcase some of my work as well. This is his world of writing and then here’s my writing. It moved me to do these compositions this particular way. So I think that is definitely carrying the torch and then passing it on to the listener.”

Martinez is under no illusion that the music he loves and the music he writes is not the type of music you find topping the charts today.

“I think the main challenge is showing people that these chords and this type of instrumentation isn’t old. It’s not a thing of the past or a memory. I’m not trying to be a cover band and I’m not trying to be a cover band in the way I write music either. I feel that there’s a stigma around jazz and big band music that needs to be broken. The challenge is how do you make something that’s genuinely what you want to write and not deter people from thinking, ‘Oh, it’s sounds like In the Mood or Take the A-Train.’ I haven’t found the big answer here yet, but I think the fact that I’m writing this music makes it appealing to people because I’m a young musician, a young musician of color. I’m writing this music dedicated to the people in the past and presenting it today. I think the younger generation coming after me they’re going to appreciate it, too.”

Of course Martinez could just follow Strayhorn’s own philosophy: “If you want something hard enough, it just gets done.”

“I was thinking about that quote literally yesterday. That’s always driven me,whether it’s through finding venues and convincing people that this is a band that needs to be heard and contracting musicians and convincing them that this music will be fun and it will be something that you’ll want to play with your your friends in the section. I don’t have to do this kind of music. I don’t have to be a big band composer at this time and be successful at it. There are so many other avenues that I could take, but I love it so much that I’m going to see to it that I do this for the rest of my life.”

Which, of course, sounds like Martinez does have to do this kind of music.

“I do because I have the passion for it. Hypothetically I can say I’ll do the other things that I like to do, like play in symphony orchestras. I can do that and then retire off that and whatever. I find joy in doing that. I find joy in being a sideman on bass for someone else. I can write all kinds of music, but I have the urge and the itch to just write big band music and direct big bands. So that’s what I’m going to do.”

To see the full interview with Marlon Martinez, please go here.

Main photo: Marlon Martinez (Photo by Imran Stephen/Courtesy MarlonMartinezMusic.com)

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