Eugenie Jones photo by Steve Korn

Thursday, August 20, 7:30pm
Courtyard Marriott Hotel
11010 NE 8th Street Bellevue

Cooksie and Lionel Kramer’s Eastside Jazz Club presents emerging vocalist Eugenie Jones, with pianist Bill Anschell, bassist Clipper Anderson, drummer Lionel Kramer, and a short screening of producer and director Kay D. Ray’s film Lady Be Good: Instrumental Women in Jazz.

International Sweethearts of Rhythm Saxophone section

Lady Be Good simmered along as a side project for Ray for nearly twenty years. While a senior film producer at the Experience Music Project, where she developed and created over 85 films, Ray conducted dozens of U.S. interviews for Lady. She recently found Kickstarter success to fund final edits and continue seeking rights and clearances for the production.

Also the producer and director of the documentary Ernestine Anderson: There Will Never Be Another You, numerous films for the Museum of History and Industry, and recent recipient of a bronze 2013 Telly Award for Corazon Contento: Then and Now, a fundraising short about the development of a school for special needs students in Granada, Nicaragua, Ray tells me over the phone that Lady carried on as a project from her heart. Ray found a yet untold story, in the historical jazz narrative, about the experiences and accomplishments of the all-women jazz big bands, swing bands and combos from the early 1920s to the 1970s.

Screening a portion of a jazz documentary is a little different for the Eastside Jazz Club concert series, but featuring women musicians is not – sometimes instrumentalists, such as vibraphonist Susan Pascal, and often vocalists, such as tonight’s Eugenie Jones.

A performer with graceful élan, Bremerton-resident Jones made her professional debut two years ago. Today, Jones regularly commutes for gigs around Puget Sound – at the historic Sorrento Hotel, Seattle, Sip Wine Bar & Restaurant, Issaquah, Amici Bistro, Mukilteo.

It wasn’t until her mother’s death from cancer five years ago that Jones decided to take up singing in earnest. Early on, she attended the Greta Matassa vocal jams at Tula’s. Then she explored other parts of the scene. 

The divorced mother of two teenage boys, with many years’ experience as a business owner, consultant and marketing specialist, Jones manages to balance singing with her full-time engagements. “It’s wonderful to discover something new about yourself at this stage in life,” she says. And she’s been resolute in presenting her music and sharing that discovery with audiences. 

As it got going, “I knew I had to record,” she says. Her self-produced Black Lace, Blue Tears (2013), with Bill Anschell, Clipper Anderson, Mark Ivester and guest Michael Powers, features nine of her original compositions – the sprightly “A Good Day,” audience-engaging shuffle “I Want One,” and groovy “In a Shot of Tequila or Two,” which opens with Jones singing in Spanish, among them. 

“Everything in life has prepared me for this,” she says.

Tickets for tonight’s Eastside Jazz Club event are $13 for adults, $8 for 18 and under, at the door.