“To me jazz is like a sponge of culture, you squeeze it out and you get new jazz,” singer/songwriter Raya Yarbrough tells me during our recent conversation, “I disagree with people when they say that jazz needs to be preserved and frozen in (time). I think that dead things need to be preserved, and jazz is not dead, it is very alive. Jazz is changing because it is meant to change. People didn’t think that bebop would ever work and it did. Every step of the way, every time that jazz has morphed, people have said that’s not jazz, that’s not going to work. (They have said), jazz is changing too much; it’s not really jazz (however), each and every time it has come to be accepted. I think that true art is meant to change, and it is meant to reflect all the different cultures, and the different social changes that just happen over time. That is why I started the Alternajazz Festival, because I meet other musicians and groups that are taking jazz in so many interesting directions. I wanted to put together a forum where once in a while people could come and see how many cool things are happening, which are still within the category of jazz. The people who like stuff that is more traditional can come and enjoy themselves, and the people who don’t think that they like jazz can come and hear how multifaceted it really is. If I were to give myself my own genre, I would call myself alternajazz. There is alt rock, so I see myself as alt jazz”

Yarbrough’s new self titled CD, from the Telarc label has many flavors and colors to choose from, including her opening track “Lord Knows I Would.” The song is more blues than it is jazz, and she literally breathes sensuality into every evocative phrase that leaves her lips, and no more so than when she sings, “If I had me a little sugar / I’d pour it slow / So I could have me something sweet / After you go.” 

“I came up with these lyrics (to “Lord Knows I Would”), on an airplane and I think that at the time, I was either coming from or going to visit my boyfriend. The lyrics came from how I was feeling. I felt that no matter what I did, I couldn’t do right by him. I wanted to, but sometimes I didn’t know what to do.  I think that everyone that is in a relationship, feels like they are trying really hard and they are doing the best that they can do, but sometimes you have to throw your hands up and say, ‘If I could be perfect, if I could be everything that you need me to be, I would. I just don’t know how. I just needed to say, ‘I’m trying.’ That is pretty well much where that song came from,” says Yarbrough in explaining when and how the creative juices started to flow.

Yarbrough accompanies herself playing a blues shuffle on her acoustic guitar while singing, “Lord Knows I Would.” She credits her father Martin Yarbrough, a highly respected singer/songwriter, originally from the south side of Chicago, for teaching her some bluesy licks, while she was honing her craft. Daddy taught her well, because even though Yarbrough’s song is more about, ‘This isn’t working for me,’ her guitar riffs seem to say, ‘you don’t know what you have, and if you lose me, I’ll still be real good, and by the way, I’ll pour me a little sugar.’ John Kirby’s keyboarding is equally provocative