Anaïs Chantal And The Vocal Body
Anaïs Chantal’s Birdie EP comes from a path of musical involvement starting from growing up in Utah with her family still in California. Navigating the social intricacies of being one of the only mixed-race persons in high school, she would pursue new paths by pioneering a jazz program with other interested individuals around her. A move, to me, which exemplifies her beginnings of the pursuit to fulfill her role as a frontwoman. Follows her as she builds her narrative and creative motifs, and then settles in with softness and intent as she pioneers another thing: a community of a genre. About this she says:
My parents met in a band when they were 13 and 14. I grew up in an environment of music. I started volunteering at this senior center and I met this guy in his 90s. He loved jazz. So I started going in every week for hours and he started giving me lessons in jazz history. By learning jazz history, I began learning about my own history as a black woman...I watched a documentary on Billie Holiday and it touched on the meanings of Strange Fruit[Holiday’s song] which I believe is one of the most powerful songs. From there I learned about other protest singers and I was able to dive into black history which is essentially my history:
Her next move would be in college where she would audition as a singer for the ensemble at the University of Utah:
When I started singing, I embraced that person I came on stage and it felt amazing. I called the music program and said, ‘I want to sing.’ And it took the audition for them to realize ‘ok yeah, you really can sing.’
Her academic path led her into the musical realm of jazz. This would introduce her to vocal coach, Mindy Pack. Of their relationship, she says:
The way she has been able to make my voice more powerful is amazing. Her pushing me to challenge my voice is so important. I think for anyone who wants to sing professionally, a vocal coach is necessary.
A place in front of the Scholarship Ensemble at the university and many other jazz ensembles would be a next step towards establishing her place as a front woman. An image of which nestled into her upbringing, but furthermore, into her own narrative arc and thematic exploration in her personal music:
Around 14 my depression really hit. Music became a way to get that out because I didn’t quite have the words to express that. It was a balance of not thinking I would be here and also appreciating my mind because for a while, I literally did not think I would be here. Being able to talk openly about my trauma and depression is important. I want to write for people who live in the shadows. Talking about them in my music creates a sense of community.
She would go on to use the experience of performing as a professional jazz musician, to begin that curation of her own work, and therefore, take the brave step towards becoming her own definition of a front-woman
I’ve never liked being put into boxes. The transition was pretty seamless [moving from big band, jazz] to my own work.
. She hesitates to label her music, saying this in regards to that process of boxing in her sound: When I make it, I ask myself: do I like listening to it? but lands on the genre Neo-soul-- a suggestive, burgeoning genre, pulling at the soul of many before it: it takes the expressiveness from jazz and makes it more accessible. I am driven to break that box
Because they see me as a singer of jazz bands it was about maneuvering that [music] world to what I needed it to be. The most important thing to me is to be happy and to not regret trying.
Rich, attentive and indulgently simple, her debut solo EP Birdie is more of a music festival than a through-the-headphones listen. There is a life beyond just her words such as, When the day would come I could control my story and Is life just a game we all play before its time, embodying the exploration of what it means to become a front-woman. The listener hears the simple, timed patience of practice and how this informs the precious process of becoming a jazz singer. Then the transcendence from that jazz singer builds atop Anaïs’s journey to create a life of defiance of personal and cultural hardship. This life blossoms to picturesque artifice in the track “Pt. 3 Spring.” A fertile navigation through the parts of spring we often traverse past eagerly envisioning summer. This navigation hangs and waits with wind from April shower dusted meadows and speaks in whispers with tender touches of vocal melody.
The EP is a body of celebration of a relationship with subverting an entire genre to make it accessible for the contemporary canon. “Pt. 1 Doctor” is evidence of this success: with Django Reinhardt-esque fills and Ernie Shaw-ian keys filling the background. Through the first breath of the words, Esperanza Spalding and Norah Jones' influence comes in. By the held motions at the end of the first line however, the listener has something all new and all theirs. This curation of a new sound pioneered by Anaïs. Nuances of Neo-soul come through, but the patience and dedication to lyrical richness mimic this attention her music has to a more profound discovery: a new genre for herself.
This new genre is exemplified in “Pt. 2 Lithium.” This new sound is the guttural retching of an expelled emotion. Neo-soul is given life here by her relationship with all the parts of herself, with the fanning of its flames by the air in absent notes and a nod to Jazz’s influential power. The song builds and bolsters Anaïs’s voice holding the music in its caress and cultivating it to a transformation to the new sound she is making-- to the establishment of herself as a frontwoman for the Neo-soul genre and further into the community of listeners re-establishing themselves.
Your voice is a part of your body, Chantal says, describing the unique pleasure a singer has to their voice. Though in the context of practice and praxis of her craft, this line points to the vital attentiveness she pays to her art-- to the direction of her pioneering genre and how composed her presence is at the helm of a musical movement. I encourage you to sit down somewhere you feel safe, pull the blinds and close your eyes when you listen to Birdie. In a time of surreal isolation the EP can transform the most rigid solidarity to a bustling epicenter of golden sound and color.
Catch up with her on her Instagram full of personality, and more of her quintessential recordings @anaischants; it is jovial and bright, brimming with that signature matriarchal life of grace highlighted by her sultry approachable smile.
