Edmonds Jazz Connection performer expresses life through music

Jazz music favors life experience.

"The more you live, the better it gets," says Karrin Allyson by phone from her home in New York, where she's lived since 2000.

"You're expressing your life experience through this music," said the jazz singer and pianist. "In our case, I feel it's a lot of joy."

Allyson's the marquee name at the seventh annual Edmonds Jazz Connection.

This day-to-night jazz festival begins with free public performances by 200 young musicians at the Edmonds Center for the Arts and two other venues during the day. Noted bands, choirs and ensembles perform, including award-winning local soloists fresh from the Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition and Festival in New York City.

The day is capped by an evening gala, featuring a concert by Allyson and her trio at the Edmonds Center for the Arts, emceed by NPR "Jazz After Hours" host Jim Wilke. An all-star jazz band and all-star jazz choir open the concert.

Famous for her wide range of music choices, Allyson has earned a legion of fans for her live concerts as well as her recordings, including the Grammy-nominated "Footprints," her latest CD.

The concert will feature tunes from "Footprints," with its art songs, syncopated tunes, upbeat jazz tunes and ballads, as well as songs she recorded for "Wild for You," a previous CD featuring classics from such singer-songwriters as Elton John, Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon and James Taylor.

Allyson's soprano is a pure, youthful voice, whether she's reinterpreting Taylor's yearning torch song "Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight," or turning Simon's "Lovin' You's the Right Thing to Do" into a song of devotion and commitment. Mitchell's "Help Me" becomes an extended jazz poem, and the pop song "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," popularized by Roberta Flack, becomes a lullaby-like anthem to love at first sight.

Jazz concerts are inherently full of surprises. The well-traveled singer-pianist — she's on the road 75 percent of the year — compares improvisation to a road map.

"You have a map of a state, going from point A to point B, but you may be going a different route."

That works even for the best-worn jazz standards. "If it is a real jazz concert, you're hearing much of it for the first time — musicians, too," she said.

She says, "Every time you step on stage, you're putting yourself out there. Those are the risks you take. Most jazz musicians enjoy that — the life itself, the travel, the schlepping, the lack of sleep on the road."

At noon Saturday at the Edmonds Theater, Allyson will be part of an "Inside the Musician's Studio" discussion, talking about the importance of music education in her career.

The Kansas-born singer grew up in Omaha, Neb., the daughter of a Lutheran minister dad and a pianist mom who also was a teacher and psychologist.

Allyson said she was introduced to the piano at age 5 by her mother, and went on to major in piano in college. Singing at her uncle's jazz club in Kansas City, Mo., gave her the polish to respond to audiences, and she's so comfortable in front of audiences that she doesn't totally set her charts until she sees the theater where she's performing, in this case with Rod Fleeman on guitar, Todd Strait on drums and Scott Steed on bass.

Around the country, she regularly performs in pops concerts conducted by her partner, Bill McGlaughlin, a composer, conductor and radio host of "Saint Paul Sunday."

She draws her choice of songs from anywhere. "It's a mysterious thing," she said. "It could be the lyric, the melody — hopefully it's both, if I'm looking for a blues tune or a French tune or a Brazilian tune or a ballad."

The Rotary Club of Edmonds Daybreakers and the Edmonds Center for the Arts sponsor the Jazz Connection; proceeds benefit a variety of youth-service projects, including the Burned Children Recovery Foundation.

Diane Wright: 425-745-7815 or dwright@seattletimes.com