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~Photo by Edith Williams
Jazzy Summer Nights has been a staple event in Baltimore for 10 years. LarIan Finney, of Visionary Marketing Group, has decided to "end the series on top," he said, in hopes that someone else will elect to continue with the free outdoor summer concert series. Leelah James, above, headlined last night's final showcase, which also featured opening acts Corneille and Curt Chambers.
No more local vendors selling everything under a Baltimore’s summer night’s sky. No more independent artists delivering hearty vocals. No more musicians blowing their horns to hundreds who hungry harmonic tunes. No more Jazzy Summer Nights.
After 10 years of putting together the free summer concert series, Visionary Marketing Group (along with Public Radio WEAA 88.9) has decided not to continue.
“It’s been ten years,” said LarIan Finney, president and CEO of Visionary Marketing Group. “I’d rather go out on top. It’s time for someone else to take the torch.”
When asked if he had someone or some company in mind to continue the concert series, he shrugged his shoulders and lifted his hands up, conveying nonverbally that he had no clue.
“Not my job,” he said with a smile and a look of relief in his eyes. It’s safe to say that perhaps Finney and the rest of Visionary Marketing Group is simply tired.
Finney does have a point. Jazzy Summer Nights is a Baltimore City event, so why should he and his company be solely responsible for finding a successor? Well, Mayor Sheila Dixon may be a bit preoccupied with legal matters to tackle this situation, but she did find time to lend her support by attending last night’s showcase.
“It’s coming to an end,” said Dixon. “It’s been a phenomenal event, a free event. It’s a really good way to network, sit back and enjoy yourself. I would love to find someone to pick up the baton and keep it going.”
If last night was truly the end of Jazzy Summer Nights, soul singer Leelah James surely made its farewell memorable.
James has performed at Carolina Jazz Festival with Musiq Soulchild, the Montreal Jazz Festival in Switzerland, and the Cape Town Jazz Festival in South Africa. Baltimore and its Jazzy Summer Nights stands out because there's “a lot of black people,” she said. “They definitely party. They don’t sit back and try to be cute. Places like here and Chicago, they kind of let loose.”
The Warner Bros. turned independent artist has toured with the late James Brown, The Black Eyed Peas, and Macy Gray. Her 2005 debut album A Change is Gonna Come, which spent 5 weeks on Billboard’s top 200 charts, landed her a best new artist nomination from the Soul Train Music Awards and the NAACP Image Awards. Her most musical achievement: becoming VH1’s first “You Oughta Know” artist, she said.
The Los Angeles born songstress released her second effort Let’s do it again on March 24 “for the purposes of doing a tribute album,” she said. “It gave me the opportunity to make music and do it live with live musicians.”
The four-year lapse between A Change is Gonna Come and her latest album can be attributed to new management and a new label, she said.
“Plus I needed some personal time,” James said. “I needed a break to put things in perspective.”
She expects to release a third album tentatively titled Tell me you love me at the top of the year, she said.
Those not familiar with her music are “missing out on a real artist, all around soul music,” she said.
Though James does not consider herself a neo soul artist (think India Arie, Eryka Badu), she does consider herself a singer with soul.
“I love all kinds of music and people may not know that about me,” as quoted on her official website.
In fact, she said that her all-time favorite albums include Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Prince’s Purple Rain, and Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On?
If it is possible to wrap up James signature sound in a phrase, it would be—as she said last night on the Jazzy Summer Nights stage—“soul music that sticks to your ribs, that’s inspirational.”
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