9/5/2023
Performances and Artists
Award-Winning Vocalist Nicole Henry to Perform Iconic Pop and Jazz Hits on Oct. 14
Some might think award-winning vocalist Nicole Henry had expert help guiding her trajectory to global acclaim.
But she did it on her own, she says, with success surprising her along the way.
“You don’t know what’s possible, until you do what you love,” says Henry, who has performed at legendary venues such as The Blue Note and Jazz at Lincoln Center.
When Henry collaborated with a DJ on her second-ever single, for instance, the song quickly shot to number eight on the Billboard dance charts.
“I was like, ‘what? How does this happen? Is it really that easy?’” laughs Henry. “It made me realize that if you go for it with naivete or just with passion and desire and organic hope, you realize what your abilities are.”
This gave her the confidence to start her own label for releasing her music — which led her to securing four Top 10 jazz albums on the Billboard charts.
“Friends of friends would say ‘I know someone who has a distribution company,’ or ‘I know someone who does radio promotions,’” she says of launching her label. “This is what happens when you have an idea in mind, and you’ve just got to get it done.”
Her success has only catapulted from there, with Henry performing in over 20 countries and collecting awards around the world.
“(I hope audiences experience) a true journey of passion and joy,” she says.
Exploring Love Through Music
Henry’s upcoming show promises to be an uplifting one, thanks to her album’s sunny tunes.
Featuring a wide range of melodies by greats such as James Taylor, Stevie Wonder and even acclaimed songwriter and indigenous activist Buffy St. Marie, the setlist represents iconic melodies that Henry carefully curated over several years, she says.
“I just love telling the story of a great song, and a great story is undeniable,” she says of how she picked each tune.
She eventually realized the wide-ranging collection of songs shared a common theme: exploring love.
“All of these songs are about love in different ways,” she says. “They come from different decades, but tell different stories and bring back different memories.”
Henry decided during the pandemic to record them as an album, she adds, to spread the good feelings that these melodies evoke.
“(The album title) truly came to me at a time where our country, our world, needed to love again, and be reminded of our history and embrace it,” she says.
A Career Ever on the Rise
Henry attributes the many highlights of her career to her personal philosophy: “just say yes to new opportunities, and work your hardest when you have the chance.”
This explains why her achievements span the globe and a variety of musical experiences, including performing with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, singing at over 30 music festivals worldwide and recently recording on a special project for Disney’s centennial celebration.
And with the popularity of her latest album, which remained in the Top 10 of the U.S. JazzWeek chart for 10 weeks, she simply hopes the message of love reaches her audiences.
“It’s time to love one another,” she says. “It’s time to love nature, time to love passion, time to love truth, time to love joy and time to love reality.”