MusicNews

Jazz saxophonist Jessy J is a fine player. Her dexterity on the keys is solid, her intuition good.

But in a recent run in the Lehigh Valley that brought sax players Steve Coleman to Allentown JazzFest and, less than a week earlier, Kamasi Washington to the same Musikfest Café at ArtsQuest Center that Jessy J played Thursday, Jessy J was clearly a step below them.

What Jessy J has going for her is that she is an attractive woman who reimagines contemporary songs or classic jazz as smooth jazz with a band of excellent players.

That’s fine, too, and it made for an entertaining show.

In a 14-song, 80-minute show that was among the headliners for ArtsQuest’s RiverJazz series, Jessy J clearly understood her strong points.

Dressed in a short, clingy red dress and high heels, swaying and dancing while playing, she opened with a not-so-subtle instrumental cover of Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman.”

“Not only men can play the saxophone,” she told the audience of 260. “Ladies can do it.”

Jessy J explained that all of her five albums are in different musical styles, and her most recent, last year’s “Second Chances,” was R&B. She played three selections from it, including the good title track, and over-explained on “La Luna Feliz” that the song contained elements of soul, jazz and funk – apparently just in case you couldn’t hear it.


the source