Traditional tribute albums normally feature one artist paying tribute to another in an attempt to evoke their legendary forebear. But when five-time GRAMMY® nominee Nnenna Freelon set her vocal sights on songs associated with Billie Holiday, she determined that she wanted to emulate the spirit, rather than the sound, of the great “Lady Day.” Freelon’s sixth Concord Jazz release, Blueprint of a Lady – Sketches of Billie Holiday (CCD-2289-2), coincides with the 90th anniversary of Holiday’s birth, yet Freelon presents a moving and uniquely contemporary homage, a distinctively refreshing take on the legendary jazz singer’s firmly established contributions to music. With Freelon’s treatments, Holiday’s feisty spirit and independence, even her selection and interpretation of signature tunes, are presented against the backdrop of her time and ours, thus assuming new significance and traveling beyond mere tribute to powerful musical statement.

“Billie Holiday really sang what she had to say in her own way,” says Freelon. “That’s one of the things that was so impressive about her; she was a survivor, and had an absolutely brilliant, innovative concept of her own. She really sang to her time . . . and so do I.”

Freelon and Concord Music Group Vice President Nick Phillips co-produced Blueprint of a Lady – Sketches of Billie Holiday, and recorded, mixed, and mastered the disc entirely at Concord’s own Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, CA. It follows Live (CCD-2184), recorded at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and four previous Concord recordings, each serving to further Freelon’s well-deserved reputation as an adroit interpreter and irresistible live performer. Previous accolades and career achievements — in addition to five GRAMMY® nominations, the prestigious Billie Holiday Award from France’s prestigious Académie du Jazz, the Eubie Blake Award, and two nominations for the “Lady of Soul” Soul Train Award — include command performances at the 43rd annual GRAMMY® Awards telecast, Carnegie Hall, a Society of Singer’s gala event honoring Dame Julie Andrews, and some of the world’s most famous jazz festivals. She has even shared the stage with some of the jazz genre’s most admired artists, including Ray Charles, Ellis Marsalis, Al Jarreau, George Benson, and countless others.

Freelon’s decision to record Blueprint of a Lady – Sketches of Billie Holiday was an evolution from a larger multimedia project she conceived of with choreographer Ronald K. Brown and his NYC-based ensemble, Evidence, entitled Blueprint of a Lady: The Once and Future Life of Billie Holiday. “I was having dinner with Ron and telling him how much I loved and admired Billie Holiday and talking about my dreams of doing a tribute to her. His concept was more along the lines of expressing through the body the impact she had on all of us. That project became a three-part collaboration of live band, dancers and video, with each of us expressing our own interpretation of what it means to be an artist, to tell your own story,” says Freelon. “It was an experimental venture with Billie as touchstone. We all pulled our inspiration from her.” Why not go a step further and record a CD, Freelon then reasoned.

Blueprint of a Lady – Sketches of Billie Holiday is lovingly comprised of 15 tracks, including a Freelon original, “Only You Will Know,” recorded as a duet with guitarist André Bush. “I imagined a conversation between Billie and an ingenue asking her questions like ‘what would you do?,’ ‘how can I sound like you?,’ ‘should I wear a flower in my hair?,’ and Billie answers her the only way a seasoned person could answer: be yourself. One of those easy to say, hard to do things,” Freelon acknowledges, “and I’m working on it daily. The song flows like a tone poem, like sitting and having a conversation, and it was really exciting to write it.”

Freelon assembled a talented group of a dozen musicians for Blueprint of a Lady – Sketches of Billie Holiday and created a lively fusion of multi-layered modern jazz coupled with a colorful mosaic of contemporary influences, ranging from funk and soul to Latin, reggae and more. Her incredible touring band forms the essential core: Wayne Batchelor (acoustic bass), Beverly Botsford (percussion), Kinah Boto (drums) and Brandon McCune (piano, second trumpet and musical director).

“Everyone was absolutely wonderful to work with, and really caught the fire, the spirit, of the record. It’s sometimes hard for guest artists to join an already developed group, but all of the players brought a lot of color and blended in nicely,” says Freelon. “We grew to be like a family, and everyone brought something to it that you can’t pay for — heart. It can’t just be about notes on a page: it’s a real gift.” Guest artists featured on the CD include jazz guitar prodigy Julian Lage (who was most recently featured on Gary Burton’s Next Generation), Jessica Ivry (cello), Mary Fettig (saxophones, flute), André Bush (guitar), Doug Lawrence (tenor sax), Dave Ellis (tenor sax), and new Concord/Milestone artists Christian Scott (trumpet).

Freelon’s boldly fresh interpretations of tunes strongly associated with Holiday are indicative of her desire to recast or at least re-position some of the popular conceptions of Holiday, both as jazz singer and composer. Listen to “God Bless The Child,” “Don’t Explain,” “Them There Eyes,” “Strange Fruit (sung in medley with a Latin-inflected “Willow Weep for Me”), or her reggae-infused version of “All of Me,” and you reach the inescapable conclusion that deep admiration, not imitation, is Freelon’s inspired intention for the CD.

“A lot of information about Billie Holiday has been filtered through opinions, feelings, projections of who she was. I take it all with a grain of salt,” explains Freelon. “This woman created a way for herself in a hard situation. Her art made a path for her, and her art was her refuge, a place where she felt strong, safe and invulnerable. She had some difficulties, some issues,” Freelon acknowledges, “but the way she grabbed life by the horns through her art was remarkable. A lot of men, especially, miss the socio-economic realities of what it meant to be a black woman in 1915. I did a lot of research, looked at census figures, the bigger picture. Her sometimes self-destructive behaviors were sensationalized, but she fully lived the moments that she had.”

“Billie Holiday had an amazing capacity and ability to squeeze emotion out of a song by doing less rather than more,” Freelon continues. “She was a minimalist in a way, angled to the music and swinging in her own time sense. She sang behind the beat, and you had no choice but to fix your gaze on her. She was mesmerizing, yet restrained, in her music, and very beautiful.”

“One of the reasons I decided to name this CD a blueprint is because I wanted to create a roadmap, using her voice as a musician to build something new. It’s about taking what she stood for as an artist rather than how she sounded,” explains Freelon. It’s a simple concept that also helps build a bridge between two generations of proud black women. Imagine, a figurative grandmother and granddaughter, both reaching for truth and integrity, and channeling it the best way they know how — with music, via an incredibly powerful and expressive voice and a depth of emotion reaching both forward and backward, inwards and out. Freelon’s Blueprint of a Lady – Sketches of Billie Holiday is in an innovative musical embrace that transcends time. It’s a statement that’s brave and strong and, above all, respectful of the true spirit of jazz.

Freelon and her band will tour extensively to support Concord Records’ release of Blueprint of a Lady – Sketches of Billie Holiday. An 18-date tour with Evidence includes the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Lee, MA, and the Mondavi Center at the University of California in Davis.