Alicia Waller - Singer, Jazz + Vernacular Music
Alicia and I met our freshman year of college at University of Maryland. We were both students in The School of Music, and later worked together at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center on campus. Although we have been friends for well over a decade, it occurred to me before we met for this interview, that there were certain aspects of her evolution as an artist that we hadn’t discussed in great detail. Late last fall, when I found myself in New York for work, Alicia and I met up in SoHo to discuss her upcoming EP, Some Hidden Treasure (it drops on Valentine’s Day!), her evolution as an artist, and what exactly vernacular music is.
Vocal Style, Culture, and Music
Alicia is a classically trained singer dabbling in a number of music forms — specifically jazz and vernacular music. Alicia describes vernacular music as being music “of the culture.” As a black woman, it makes sense to her to further describe the genre as being the soul music of other cultures. It is the music that pretty much everyone from the culture understands uniquely and innately.
The choice to use the term vernacular music over the more commonly used descriptor of world music is rooted in belief that the categorization of music as being “of the world” is very much rooted in the implication that if the music is not of the US or UK it’s just “the rest of the world.” In actuality, there are really high levels of music forms in every culture and the term world music tends to diminish that.
““People don’t think about black women thinking about the world, but I think we nurture the world so much.”
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Black Women In Opera
Alicia began her journey as a classically trained vocalist. In many ways, what she does as an artist is rooted in that tradition and in that training, and the lineage of the Black Women who came before her, women like Jessye Norman, Leontyne Price and Marian Anderson, among others is a somewhat weighted thought for her.On that lineage, and how she sees her work as an artist through the lens of such greats, she says “I think I had another story and another responsibility that was put upon me in my life.” That story and that responsibility was — is — to be the conduit of the black woman’s soul and to do so in a way that gives consideration to how black women nurture the world so much. There is a beautiful tradition of black women in song, of which Alicia is a part of, that takes place in a very elevated and undeniable way.
Advice
Vocal Advice
The best vocal advice that Alicia received was while she was going through the process of mastering her EP. During the mastering process, and a few months after she had recorded a particular song, she called her mixing engineer, Jason Moss asking him to “correct” a note in a recording. Moss told Alicia to be “conscious of your propensity towards perfection.” Recorded music is a snapshot in time and very much a reflection of where you were at that particular moment. As in artist she need to be brave and to let go of the work and let the story happen.
Advice To Other Performers
On her advice to other performers, and to vocalists in particular, Alicia noted that the current environment is very much about promoting first, instead of focusing on the art first.
Be good at what you do and really know your instrument through and through. While it is terrifying to not do what is acceptable, what is the point of making music if you’re not making something new?
We closed our time together by discussing the proudest moment of her career so far. It was no surprise that her forthcoming EP, was among her proudest moments. The project came to be, and is very much a reflection of Alicia’s desire to make something soulful, honest, heartfelt, and at times ballsy.
It’s pretty ballsy to go after who and what you want to be as an artist, and I am so glad to have had the opportunity to discuss that with Alicia for this project.
