
Open Mic Records, January 2025
A harried office worker trudges into an elevator, cursing her “bullet to the brain” day job. Against a swinging piano trio backdrop, with unwavering determination, she vows to follow her dreams: “Saturday, load that car/Drive, drive, drive to wherever jazz lives.”
Over a decade into her musical career, Seattle vocalist Eugenie Jones, author of the autobiographical “Why I Sing,” the leadoff track on her self-titled new album, has tirelessly lived out that mantra. In addition to releasing five albums on her own Open Mic Records label, Jones is a producer of the Jackson Street Jazz Walk, a celebration of the Central District’s musical heritage, and has organized several tributes to the life and legacy of the renowned, Jackson Street-forged singer Ernestine Anderson.
Eugenie, tracked in Seattle and New York, is a more pared-down affair than 2022’s double album Players—the product of a four-year, four-city recording process—but no less ambitious, delivering Jones’s signature blend of sensitively chosen covers and well-crafted originals.
Produced alongside bassist Lonnie Plaxico, known for his stint in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and lengthy tenure as Cassandra Wilson’s musical director, Jones takes on universally known standards like the Ellington/Mills jazz mission statement “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” and rescues obscurities like Oscar Brown, Jr.’s rarely-performed vocal version of Nat Adderley’s “Work Song.” Meanwhile, Jones expands her own songwriting palette with the quiet storm-flavored R&B ballad “Hold Back the Night,” and the waltz-time love song “Nothing Better,” featuring the lush strings of cellist Jessica Yang and violinist Yoojin Park.
Jones and Plaxico prove their mettle as interpreters through a transformative new arrangement of a transformative cover. Where Nina Simone imbued Les Baxter and Will Hart’s ersatz gospel pastiche “Sinnerman” with an anguished urgency, Russell Carter’s laid-back drum groove—intro and outro quotations of the Simone version excepted—makes the rejection of the singer’s pleas for divine mercy feel like a foregone conclusion.
That instinct for against-the-grain choices enlivens another pair of covers. Most readings of Peggy Lee’s “I Love Being Here with You” (a highlight of Ernestine Anderson’s repertoire) are flirtatious swingers; Jones’s phrasing juxtaposes a relaxed lope with a sassy staccato to convey the contentment—and the excitement—of long-term love. And while Marvin Gaye’s pained falsetto rendition of his blaxploitation theme “Trouble Man” gave the lie to a hustler’s boast that “I came up hard, but now I’m cool,” Jones’s breathy contralto turns him steely, unsettling, and confident.
Eugenie brims with a rather more endearing confidence. Jones is one hell of a singer, and she’s eager to let you know all about it — savoring every swooning syllable of “Nothing Better’s” ode to new love, or overdubbing her own soaring harmonies on “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.” And, buoyed by the top-flight Seattle rhythm section of Darrius Willrich (piano), Elliot Kuykendall (bass), and Ronnie Bishop (drums), she tears through “It Don’t Mean a Thing,” letting loose, exhorting saxophonist Alex Dugdale to “Swing! Swing! Swing!”. He complies, of course.