Festival Jazz Onze+ –
Nu-soul priestess, Meshell Ndegeocello returns to life
In Lausanne, the musician’s tribute to James Baldwin kept all its promises. Critical.
Published today at 12:13 p.m.
Meshell Ndegeocello au Cully Jazz en 2013.
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For those who know Meshell Ndegeocello for a long time, the inner torments of the musician have been notorious since the album “Bitter” of 1999. This sometimes melancholy or reluctant turn of mind could have given gray nuances to her music, but without ever succeeding in extinguishing the hearth of a very special fusion…
As we were able to see again on Thursday October 31 at Lausanne Jazz Onze+ Festivalthe bassist and singer, who has just released the album “No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin”, a tribute to the African-American writer, always has in her cards glowing assets of soul and funk to make fuck the ace of spades.
The one who collaborated as well with the funk and angular jazz of a young Steve Coleman as with the pop of Madonna has always kept the fire. With her sound cocktails which still integrate rock, dub or rap, Meshell Ndegeocello is above all a very lively pioneer of the neosoul (or nu-soul) movement, an advance over her time perceptible from her first recording, “Plantation Lullabies” .
But the artist has always preferred tortuous detours, shadow work and half-tones rather than the brilliance of overly garish successes. Since last year and her move to the Blue Note label – which saw her release two albums in quick succession after a five-year recording silence – she has returned to the spotlight and it was a pleasure to find her at the Paderewski Hall, surrounded percussion, bass, guitar, synths, a Hammond organ and the celestial voice of Justin Hicks.
To paraphrase Baldwin, if hatred disappears, it will give way to pain. Meshell Ndegeocello’s hatreds have faded and her sufferings do not stifle this form of musical sensuality that she has always cultivated: a slow-burning funk, a soul woven with prayers with devout realism, indecisive sound textures but with impeccable rhythms. and a song where love and resignation compete. A comeback in style, if not a winner.
Jazz Onze+ continues with no less exceptional concerts by the trumpeter Chief Adjuah (aka Christian Scott) on Saturday and pianist Roberto Fonseca on Sunday.
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