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Introducing Violinist Jacquie Lee
Her sudden emergence as a singer in the past year has been somewhat of a shock to all of us in our family and in the Jazz House community.
—Mike Lee
When
Jacquie Lee
violin
Regina Carter
violinb.1966
Lee, now 17, has actually been playing violin since she was two years old. "I don't think I had much choice in the matter," she said. Her mother Rebecca is a classical violinist; her father Mike is a jazz tenor saxophonist. "My mom started both of my brothers and me on the violin," she explained, "because she believed it was important for all of us to get a grasp of music. In the early part of my life, I was very strongly averse to playing jazz because both of my brothers did it, and my dad did it." Her brother Julian (27) is a saxophonist and her brother Matt (21) is a drummer. "Then," she continued, "I got to that age where I really wanted to be like my brothers."
In her freshman year at Montclair High School, "Covid happened. I was 14, and that's when my dad stopped working every night. Covid was terrible for a lot of people and for us as well, but my dad could put a lot of focus into helping me practice and stuff. It was amazing to go downstairs and practice with him for two hours."
Mike Lee
saxophone, tenorb.1963
Melissa Walker
vocalsb.1964
Christian McBride
bassb.1972
Nathan Eklund
trumpetb.1978
In the spring of 2022, when the Big Band was preparing for the finals of Jazz at Lincoln Center's Essentially Ellington high school competition, Eklund selected a violin/clarinet duo as one of the band's performances. "We have a violinist in our group, Jacquie Lee from Montclair High School," he told me (Jersey Jazz, May 2022), and "We also have one of our saxophonists, Mark Ricco from Lodi High School, whose primary instrument is clarinet. There's a great tradition of violin and clarinet in the Ellington Orchestra." For the violin/clarinet duo performance , Eklund selected Ellington's arrangement of
Juan Tizol
trombone1900 - 1984
Jacquie said she "really loves how that era of jazz (Ellington)." And she enjoys adapting the violin to parts originally designed for other instruments. "I think it (the Essentially Ellington performance) was my first time playing a clarinet part. I think I was playing the clarinet 2 part, and Mark was playing clarinet 1. The harmonies were so much fun to learn. When I'm playing in a big band, whatever instrument part I play, I kind of have to figure out things about that instrument. Playing the clarinet part, learning how to make the scoop sound and the vibrato and everything like that, it just felt so natural to do it on the violin. I wasn't sure how it would go because I'd never played the clarinet part before. I was smiling all the time. It was just so fun to play that part."
For the
Charles Mingus
bass, acoustic1922 - 1979
According to Eklund, playing in a big band as a violinist "often requires her to be sight transposing her parts to play from the trumpet or saxophone music, a big ask for most high school musicians but something that she was clearly up for taking on. She already had a strong, established practice routine on violin, so when she started singing, she immediately applied those skills toward her vocal preparation."
Lee also sang with her father's JHK Combo. "Her sudden emergence as a singer in the past year has been somewhat of a shock to all of us in our family and in the Jazz House community," said Mike Lee. "Looking back on it, we should have known her training as a jazz violinist would be the ideal preparation to sing complicated chromatic passages required by a jazz vocalist. Unlike saxophone or piano, that have one note designated per key, the violin, which requires great precision to define each pitch, means young students must hear a melody in their mind before they have any hope of replicating it. When she started singing in public for the first time last summer, her acclimation to the challenging intervals and harmonies of this music was almost immediate."
One of the songs performed by Lee at the Mingus Festival was Charles Mingus' "The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines" with lyrics by
Joni Mitchell
vocalsb.1943
"The combo that we have at Jazz House Kids this year," Lee continued, "is really, really special. I think our rhythm section is absolutely insane. So many great soloists in the combo. I think it really came together in the performance." (The JHK Combo won the Mingus Spirit Award in the Combo category).
Lee has completed her college applications and auditions. "I think it went really, really well," she said. "I felt really good about my playing. I can just hope for the best." Her favorite jazz violinist of the past? "I love
Stuff Smith
violin1909 - 1967
Regina Carter
violinb.1966
Ray Nance
cornet1913 - 1976
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