Tessa Evans

The term "jazz" means different things to different people. Here's what it means to me:It means fusing contemporary music with the beatiful and heart wrenching melodies found in Torch songs from the 40's and 50's. It means taking elements of Anita Baker, Ella Fitzgerald, K.D. Lang, Mary J. Blige, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, Etta James, Billie Holiday, and Rickie Lee Jones, and putting them in the mix with my own style. To take what is beautiful and intoxicating about jazz and blend it with the amazing rythmic patterns found in contemporary r&b/funk. My art is my passion, and what I paint on the canvas is always changing and evolving. My first love was torch music, and everything you hear now is built upon that foundation. The first song I ever loved was an old ballad called "Black Coffee." People didn't understand how an eleven year old girl from a small town in the sierra's could feel that song, but I was born with torch in me. I was born knowing what it means to be blue.