Confident and comfortable with her place in music as an artist and as an educator, classically trained flutist Kim Scott is relishing her charmed life. With accomplishments that include multiple Billboard No. 1 singles, a Billboard No. 1 album, Billboard’s Song of the Year honors, and being named 2024’s Smooth Jazz Network’s Artist of the Year, Scott found her unique musical voice by combining classical, jazz, R&B, Latin, and pop to form a distinctive brand that has won fans around the world. The nine songs comprising her sixth album, “Livin’ It Up,” reflect her diversity, the pride and joy in her accomplishments, and her grateful spirit. The Innervision Records release will arrive on February 28, featuring seven songs co-written by Scott and production by two-time GRAMMY winner Paul Brown, GRAMMY winner Kelvin Wooten, and multi-time Billboard hitmakers Greg Manning and Michael Broening.
“I wanted to compose an album that reflected this time and space because I'm enjoying every minute of where I am in my life. I'm truly living it up and celebrating the gift of music I've been given and the opportunities that have come from it. I've had such an exciting music career that has allowed me to grow as a musician. I've been able to travel the world performing on some of the biggest stages. Sharing my music globally has allowed me to see the influence the music has on worldwide audiences. It's invigorating, inspiring, and such a blessing,” said Scott, who coproduced four tracks on the album with Wooten, her longtime keyboardist.
Scott approaches her songwriting intentionally. When it came to composing material for “Livin’ It Up,” she set out to write songs that were “outside the box.”
“For this album, I didn't want it to sound like the music playing on jazz radio right now because I wanted it to stand out as truly something unique and special. I want my music to stop people in their tracks when it comes on and be intrigued, captivated, inspired, and willing to lean in a little more to take it all in. On ‘Livin’ It Up,’ I took more liberty to write songs that embraced world music in terms of rhythms, vibes, and styles. You'll hear energetic and rich South African rhythms and harmonies on the album, which is quite new for me,” Scott shared.
“Livin’ It Up” opens with the Mediabase No. 1 hit “Like Butter” featuring saxophonist Jeff Ryan, a Billboard chart-topper in his own right. Broening produced and played keys on the soulful R&B track flanked by GRAMMY winners Freddie Fox (guitar) and Mel Brown (bass).
As Scott worked on the album over the last couple of years, occasionally, she released singles to prime audiences on what was to come. The first single, “Magic City Streets,” was released in July 2023 and is a love letter to her hometown, Birmingham, Alabama. Paul Brown produced, and GRAMMY-winning multi-instrumentalist Shane Theriot handled all the instrumentation aside from Scott’s impassioned flute.
“When I wrote the chorus, I chose to pay homage to my city of Birmingham so I could capture the magic and soul of the place I love so much. Birmingham’s nickname is The Magic City. The name came from the richness of the minerals in the soil, but I like to think it came from the magic of the people, the culture, and the food,” said Scott with pride.
“Alma de Lisbon” is an exotic Spanish sojourn that opens with a gorgeous flute and piano intro showcasing Scott’s classical chops with an improvisational nod to Marin Marais’s "Les Folies d'Espagne" before her band – Wooten, guitarist Eric Essix, and drummer James “PJ” Spraggins – kick start the beat.
“I wanted to write a song that captured my intrigue for the city of Lisbon and Portuguese/Spanish culture. In thinking about the beauty of Lisbon, the spirit of the music, and my experiences in Portugal, I tried to encompass that in the melody and rhythms. Kelvin (Wooten) and my amazing band helped bring that vision to life,” said Scott before addressing the song’s intro.
“Chick Corea was my inspiration behind the concept for the intro, which allowed me to display my versatility as a musician. I was always intrigued and captivated by his intro for ‘Spain,’ and I wanted my own reimagining of a Spanish song improvised in my own way.”
Scott is also intentional about the covers she selects to reimagine. Since her sophomore release, “Rite of Passage,” she has sung one tune on each album. Singing one of her favorite songs, The Police’s “Every Breath You Take,” fulfilled that desire for “Livin’ It Up.” The second remake is an instrumental take on Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You,” with Scott’s version more closely resembling Whitney Houston’s modern classic.
“I wanted to create a version (of the song) on flute that conveyed the same purity and honesty that Whitney (Houston) showcased on her recording. For that reason, I even kept the unaccompanied intro in my version. I also wanted to keep the saxophone feature present in the recording, so I invited the talented Kelley O'Neal to play the solo,” said Scott, who will support the album with concert dates this year in such US locales as Charlotte, Washington, DC, and Honolulu and international gigs in England, Portugal, and Norway.
Between the covers, Scott’s most recent single, “Freedom,” is her first foray into using South African rhythms. For “Freedom,” the idea sprang from Manning, who helmed the track.
“Greg (Manning) and I agreed that we wanted to push the musical boundaries of contemporary jazz. We didn't want the song to sound like anything on the radio. Greg asked if I had ever thought about incorporating South African Amapiano (a style incorporating house, jazz, and kwaito) rhythms in my music. Ironically, I had just finished writing another song in the style for this album, so I loved the idea. The chant at the beginning of the album version is in Swahili and it emphasizes themes of liberation and unity, which highly influenced the vibe for the song,” said Scott.
A mashup tribute to Miles Davis and Herb Alpert that mixes the former’s “So What” and the latter’s “Rise,” Scott’s experimental “So What If I Rise?” is a fun and funky romp that she said, “began as a silly idea in my head.”
Another Scott tradition is including a devotional song on her albums, and “Love Thy Neighbor” is the first original sacred song that she penned with Phil Davis (George Duke, Boney James, Norman Brown, Walter Beasley), who plays an ethereal wind keyboard on the track.
Closing the collection with another African adventure, Scott envisions “You Got The Power” as an empowering anthem for women. Cameroonian rapper Naomi Achu takes command of the mic amidst the sounds and rhythms of African beat maker VIKWYNBEAT.
“With ‘Power,’ I wanted to create a new age ladies' anthem that is intoxicating in rhythm and vibe. I wanted it to have a strong message of encouragement as delivered by my good friend, Naomi Achu. I asked Naomi to find an African beatmaker to give us the most authentic sound and rhythm, which VIKWYNBEAT created for us. Naomi and I sing the hook. I hope ladies all over the world will be inspired, invigorated, and empowered by this song!” Scott declared.
Scott’s debut disc, “Crossing Over,” streeted in 2011, and her “SHINE!” album topped the Billboard chart in 2022. The title track was her third Billboard No. 1 single, and it was Billboard’s Song of the Year. In addition to performing at major jazz festivals and venues around the world, including Catalina Island JazzTrax Festival, Seabreeze Jazz Festival, Greater Harford Jazz Festival, and the Algarve Jazz Festival, Scott has grown her brand exponentially by hosting the syndicated Kim Scott’s Block Party Radio show. She’s collaborated with noteworthy genre stars, including Jonathan Butler, James Lloyd, Jonathan Fritzen, and Jazmin Ghent, and is a member of the renowned female-powered supergroup Jazz in Pink.
Different dimensions of Scott’s accomplished career are found in the classical genre. She plays piccolo in the Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra and is an active clinician and a 25-year music educator. Scott has presented and performed at prominent conventions such as the National Flute Association, the Mid-South Flute Festival, and the International Festival of Flutists in South America. She was the department chair at the Alabama School of Fine Arts, where she presently serves as the director of student support services and teaches at the applied flute studio.
Hitting her stride as an artist whose muse has fostered new possibilities for the flute in popular music, Scott is grateful for her successes thus far. He is fully committed to utilizing the new album to propel her to new heights.
“‘Livin’ It Up’ truly captures my personality, my musical tastes, and the headspace I'm in now. At this stage in my life, I'm comfortable and confident in my musical voice and the uniqueness of it. I'm not a traditional jazz musician in that my training was in classical music, and I didn't start playing jazz until 2010, but through intensive personal study, I've melded the two styles. I have created my own signature sound and style through this discovery. I'm proud and so pleased that the world has embraced it.”
Scott’s “Livin’ It Up” album contains the following songs:
“Like Butter”
“Magic City Streets”
“Alma de Lisbon”
“Every Breath You Take”
“Freedom”
“I Will Always Love You”
“So What If I Rise?”
“Love Thy Neighbor”
“You Got The Power (Ladies’ Anthem)”
For more information, visit https://kimscottmusic.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment