Nnenna Freelon

For nearly four decades, I’ve shared my heart through song, standing on stages across the world, interpreting the jazz tradition with love, depth, and authenticity. But today, I’m inviting you into a new chapter—one that’s perhaps the most personal of all.

My latest album, Beneath the Skin, is my first collection of all original songs. These songs came to me in the quiet, in the ache of absence, in the beauty of remembering. They are stories—of love, of loss, of what we carry and how we grow. They are also celebrations of resilience and joy-the  call and response of life 

— from Nnenna’s website

Nnenna Freelon, nee’ Chinyere Nnenna Pierce (b. 7/28/54) is an American jazz singer, composer, producer, and arranger. She was born to Charles and Frances Pierce in Cambridge, MA, where she was raised. She has a brother, Melvin, and a sister named Debbie. As a young woman, she sang extensively in her community and the Union Baptist Church and at St. Paul AME. She recalled, “I started singing in the church, like so many others….” Nnenna graduated from Simmons College in Boston with a degree in health care administration. For a while she worked for the Durham County Hospital Corporation, Durham, NC.

She suggests that her influences included several “not famous people” as well as Nina Simone and Billy Eckstine, whose records her parents played at home. “It’s important to expose your children to a wide musical environment,” she says.

I did something that my grandmother told me: ‘Bloom where you’re planted’,’don’t get on a bus and go to New York or L.A., sing where you are’.

In 1990, Nnenna Freelon went to the Southern Arts Federation’s jazz meeting and met Ellis Marsalis.

That was a big turning point. At that time, I had been singing for seven years. Ellis is an educator and he wanted to nurture and help. What I didn’t know at the time was that George Butler of Columbia Records was looking for a female singer. Ellis asked me for a package of materials. I had my little local press kit and my little tape with original music. Two years later, I was signed to Columbia Records.

She was in her late 30s when she made her eponymous debut CD for Columbia in 1992. The label dropped her in 1994, and Concord Records signed her in 1996.

She has worked with Ray Charles, Ellis Marsalis, Al Jarreau, Anita Baker, Aretha Franklin, Dianne Reeves, Diana Krall, Ramsey Lewis, George Benson, Clark Terry, Herbie Hancock, and Terence Blanchard. She has performed at Carnegie Hall, Hollywood Bowl, Ellington Jazz Festival, Monterey Jazz Festival, Apollo Theater, Montreux Jazz Festival, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Freelon is the national spokesperson for the National Association of Partners in Education, an organization with over 400,000 school and community partnership programs across the United States, dedicated to arts education. Freelon has maintained ties to her hospital-work as her jazz career has flourished. Her Babysong workshops, which she started at Duke University Medical Center in 1990, teach young mothers and healthcare providers the importance of the human voice for healing and nurturing. She emphasizes the importance of parents singing to children to enhance brain development.

In 1979, she married architect Philip Freelon  (b. 3/26/53 – d. 7/9/19.)  She and Philip raised three children, Deen, Maya and Pierce, before she decided to perform professionally as a jazz singer.  Their son, Pierce, is a hip hop artist, a Visiting Professor of Political Science at North Carolina Central University and the founder of the website Blackademics, for which he has interviewed many notable figures such as Angela Davis, Maya Angelou, Nikki Giovanni, and Jesse Jackson.  Deen is a Presidential Professor in the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of PA studying social media and politics. Maya Freelon- Asante is a visual artist.

Discography
Studio albums = 14
Live album = 1
Grammy nominations = 7

Nnenna has just written a book, _Beneath the Skin of Sorrow: Improvisations on Loss_ (2025) about the loss of her husband of 40 years, her sister, and the family dog and how she was able to get through.

Nnenna also has her own podcast, Great Grief.

artist’s official website

Source: wikipedia