{"id":15590,"date":"2023-04-19T14:11:39","date_gmt":"2023-04-19T19:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=15590"},"modified":"2023-04-19T15:00:01","modified_gmt":"2023-04-19T20:00:01","slug":"singer-donna-woodall-swings-between-jazz-and-pop-with-aplomb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=15590","title":{"rendered":"Singer Donna Woodall swings between jazz and pop with aplomb"},"content":{"rendered":"
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All photos courtesy Donna Woodall.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Though she was born in St. Louis, she\u2019s lived in Milwaukee since 7th<\/sup> grade, so jazz singer Donna Woodall feels deep musical and cultural roots here, considers this home. She grew into a radiant, apple-cheeked purveyor of song who swings like ripe apples on a wind-blown tree. She\u2019s since parachuted far from the tree, a full-fledged artist, perhaps the most active and accomplished female jazz singer working in Milwaukee.<\/p>\n

She\u2019ll be honored with a concert at the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts on April 21: http:\/\/wilson-center.com\/calendar\/2023\/4\/21\/wisconsin-artists-club-show-series-donna-woodall-group.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI attribute my specific love of jazz music to my grandfather, who encouraged me to \u2018sit and listen\u2019 to swinging divas, and to my mother, Jeanne Woodall, who performed in Milwaukee jazz circles, leaving behind a legacy of song after her passing in 2011,\u201d she explains. Donna diversified her performing skills, studying music, dance, and theater at UW-Milwaukee and UW-Madison. Yet, \u201cmy mother was my greatest voice teacher — she was a walking encyclopedia of jazz songs and styles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her deepening knowledge, innate musicality and affable personality insinuated her into popular local jazz bands like Eddie Butts, and soon Streetlife, the dynamite jazz-fusion band led by Warren Wiegratz, which played for Milwaukee Bucks crowds for years. So, Woodall can project big, but also charm you with a tender ballad, like \u201cSummertime.\u201d Yet the modal vamp inserted by pianist Theo Merriweather casts a fresh shadow of tension across the languid Gershwin song. This lends strong undercurrents of meaning to a song from a \u201cfolk-opera\u201d (Porgy and Bess<\/em>) about Southern Blacks enduring the early Jim Crow era which, out of context, \u201cSummertime\u201d gauzes over.<\/p>\n

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Donna Woodall performs recently with keyboardist Theo Merriweather.<\/em><\/p>\n

A measure of Woodall\u2019s regard among the region\u2019s jazz musicians is that Madison-based Hanah Jon Taylor, arguably the state\u2019s premiere jazz saxophonist, has recently visited Milwaukee twice to perform alongside Woodall, at Caroline\u2019s and St. Kate\u2019s nightclub.<\/p>\n

Part of that regard surely has to do with her melted-carmel voice and elastic phrasing, reflecting key influences like Sarah Vaughan, Nat King Cole and Cassandra Wilson. There\u2019s also Woodall\u2019s expansive repertoire, which includes personalizing atypical-to-jazz pop music songs, including Stevie Wonder\u2019s \u201cDon\u2019t You Worry \u2018Bout a Thing,\u201d The Beatles\u2019 \u201cI Feel Fine\u201d (in a jazzy minor-ish key), and even improbably, The Monkees\u2019 \u201cLast Train to Clarksville\u201d — about a romantic relationship in its desperate last hours.<\/p>\n

What makes a non-jazz song work for her? \u201cThe song should have some connection to my life experiences and great lyrics,\u201d she says. \u201cI was an English teacher for years, so the words and meaning of a song are important!\u201d It should also be pliable enough to \u201cbe interpreted numerous ways.\u201d It should also have \u201cuniversal themes, and a sense of nostalgia to which an audience can relate.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, they\u2019re usually songs with a deep history, which all the above do. She\u2019s also had an evocative original song, \u201cFireworks,\u201d accepted by NPR\u2019s Tiny Desk contest.<\/p>\n

For all that, she\u2019s also enabled by a close-knit band which, at the Wilson Center, will include pianist-keyboardist Joe Kral, guitarist Bob Monagle, bassist Ethan Bender (her husband), and drummer Jeno Somali.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

At Woodall’s recent St. Kate hotel nightclub gig, Kral consistently added drive and textural power with a Fender Rhodes keyboard setting, echoing the startling fluency of Herbie Hancock, who made the Fender Rhodes a propulsive and atmospheric alternative to acoustic piano in his Mwandishi and Headhunters funk-fusion bands.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Taylor again guest-performed with Woodall, deftly blending tenor sax, flute and wind synthesizer, sometimes in the same song. The band geared up a punchy drive to “Route 66,” inspired by Nat King Cole’s version, the singer explained. It proved that Woodall, whom I first encountered performing an enchanting holiday song concert, can kick a little tail when she wants to.<\/p>\n

She further deepened her jazz bonafides with a wrenchingly eloquent interpretation of Billie Holiday’s autobiographical “God Bless the Child.” Woodall, who taught middle school English for 30 years, enlightened the crowd by explaining that in her biography Lady Sings the Blues<\/em>, Holiday said the song inspired by an argument over money between Holiday and her mother when the daughter was a young struggling performer.<\/p>\n

Rich relations may give you a crust of bread and such\/ you can help yourself, but don’t take too much\/ Momma may have, and papa may have\/ but God bless the child, God bless the child, whose got his own, whose got his own. 1.<\/em><\/p>\n

The band dug deep into the song’s tough but tender emotional core. It’s how memories of a hard lifetime get etched in the soul, which bleeds out to anyone who heard Holiday sing it. That evening, we felt Holiday’s blood bleeding from Donna Woodall.<\/p>\n

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This article was originally published in shorter form in The Shepherd Express<\/em>: https:\/\/shepherdexpress.com\/music\/local-music\/donna-woodalls-legacy-of-jazz\/<\/a><\/p>\n

1 “God Bless the Child” was written by Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog Jr. in 1939. The song won a Grammy Hall of Fame Award, and was chosen as a “song of the century” by The Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All photos courtesy Donna Woodall.\u00a0 Though she was born in St. Louis, she\u2019s lived in Milwaukee since 7th grade, so jazz singer Donna Woodall feels deep musical and cultural roots here, considers this home. She grew into a radiant, apple-cheeked … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[1999,1487,1992,1983,172,1986,730,1993,1995,1997,1982,1996,125,1988,1976,1994,1981,1991,167,505,1990,1979,1985,1975,1984,1998,1977,1980,31,1989,1987,340,1978,432],"class_list":["post-15590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-www-kevernacular-com","tag-arthur-herzog-jr","tag-billie-holiday","tag-bob-monagle","tag-carolines","tag-cassandra-wilson","tag-dont-you-worry-bout-a-thing","tag-donna-woodall","tag-ethan-bender","tag-fender-rhodes","tag-god-bless-the-child","tag-hanah-jon-taylor","tag-headhunters","tag-herbie-hancock","tag-i-feel-fine","tag-jeanne-woodall-eddie-butts","tag-jeno-somali","tag-jim-crow-era","tag-joe-kral","tag-milwaukee-bucks","tag-nat-king-cole","tag-npr-tiny-desk-contest","tag-porgy-and-bess","tag-sarah-vaughn","tag-sharon-lynne-wilson-center-for-the-arts","tag-st-kates-nightclub","tag-stevie-wonder","tag-streetlife","tag-summertime","tag-the-beatles","tag-the-last-train-to-clarksville","tag-the-monkees","tag-the-shepherd-express","tag-theo-merriweather","tag-warren-wiegratz"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hJWE-43s","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15590"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15606,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15590\/revisions\/15606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}