Emmaline is a modern-day equivalent of Ella Fitzgerald and Bille Holiday. With a dash of old Hollywood glam thrown in for good measure.
At 22 years of age, Emmaline Campbell is an old soul. She’s a mix of old Hollywood and her modern self, with a dash of glam and cool twinkling on top.
A graduate of Cincinnati’s prestigious Conservatory of Music, Emmaline considers herself a jazz singer, first and foremost. Initially studying violin — which she started playing at the age of 4 and was considered a child prodigy — she eventually narrowed her focus to jazz.
The big band era shaped the Cincinnati-based artist, who recently put together her own jazz ensemble for her debut EP, All My Sweetest Dreams. A first for the singer, who went headfirst into the studio with only two days to record all six tracks. Recorded in New York City, the EP was co-produced by Emmaline along with Grammy-winning producer Jason Olaine (Roy Hargrove, Esperanza Spalding, Dave Brubeck), who also serves as creative director of New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Center program, as well as Mondak and jazz producer Seth Abramson, who also is Emmaline’s manager.
Emmaline possesses a smoky, jazz-infused, genre-fluid voice. She’s admirable as much for the range of traditional sounds she draws upon, as for her startling freshness, innovation, and sly humor. Her songs are bold in statement and soft in feel. She prides herself in being one who has listened with deep intention to her heroes—Anita O’Day and Billie Holiday, Erykah Badu and D’Angelo—and has already learned to rise above questions of category with a healthy sense of musical identity and forethought.
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