Meshell Ndegeocello

Tonight on Fridays Live, SFJAZZ presents GRAMMY-winning bassist, singer, and songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello, who brings music from her 2023 Blue Note debut The Omnichord Real Book. Ndegeocello built a career as an uncompromising artist whose deliriously funky and soulful work is a powerful commentary on race, gender issues, and LGBTQ+ rights. On The Omnichord Real Book, she embraces a broad spectrum of her musical roots with original compositions featuring Moran, Ambrose Akinmusire, Joel Ross, Jeff Parker, and fellow 2023-24 Season performers Brandee Younger and Mark Guiliana.

Ms. Ndegeocello’s music sounds as if it springs directly from a mind that’s restlessly curious about ideas, people, interactions and possibilities, and is passionate about all of them.
The New York Times

ABOUT MESHELL NDEGEOCELLO
Returning after a magical, sold-out reunion on the Miner stage with pianist Jason Moran during the 2022-23 Season, GRAMMY-winning bassist, singer, and songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello brings music from her 2023 Blue Note debut The Omnichord Real Book, with special guests. The Berlin-born Ndegeocello cut her teeth on Washington D.C.’s explosive go-go circuit in the 1980s and was one of the first artists signed to Madonna’s Maverick Records label, which released her landmark neo soul album Plantation Lullabies in 1993 — a blockbuster debut that included her twice GRAMMY-nominated hit single “If That’s Your Boyfriend (He Wasn’t Last Night).”

A GRAMMY winner and 11-time nominee, Ndegeocello built a career as an uncompromising artist whose deliriously funky and soulful work is a powerful commentary on race, gender issues, and LGBTQ+ rights.

She’s released 13 albums as a leader and has amassed a distinguished list of collaborators including Moran, with whom she co-led the 2014 Blue Note release All Rise: A Joyful Elegy for Fats Waller, as well as Herbie Hancock, Robert Glasper, John Mellencamp, Madonna, Pat Metheny, Marcus Miller, Terence Blanchard, and The Blind Boys of Alabama.

On The Omnichord Real Book, Ndegeocello embraces her jazz influences along with a broad spectrum of her musical roots in a program of original compositions featuring guests Jason Moran, Ambrose Akinmusire, Joel Ross, Jeff Parker, Cory Henry, and fellow SFJAZZ 2023-24 Season performers Brandee Younger and Mark Guiliana.