That album, Good Morning Kiss, was released in 1985. More than four decades later, Lundy is still doing things her way.

Her new album, Notes from the Wine Cellar, finds the singer, songwriter and musician responsible for virtually every aspect of the music, from writing the songs and creating the vocal arrangements to playing multiple instruments and arranging horns and strings. Some of its music is new. Other songs waited decades for Lundy to decide their time had come.

The album arrives as Lundy prepares to be celebrated as a 2026 NEA Jazz Master. It is a particularly fitting moment to consider not simply where Lundy has arrived, but how she got there.

Mary Lou Williams once said, “Anything you are shows up in your music. Jazz is whatever you are, playing yourself, being yourself, letting your thoughts come through.” Assuming you agree with her, how has that philosophy guided you through your career?

I didn’t know she felt that way, but I could have said the same thing. If you’re not yourself then you spend your career sort of copying someone else, imitating or sound-aliking. If you are not being yourself then you’re kind of not being true to your audience either.

It’s not supposed to be easy. It’s not supposed to be quick. Nobody wants to be a flash in the pan, even if that’s cute for a minute. Doesn’t last. I think you’ve got to develop your skills along the way. Hopefully, you’ll be supported by other fine artists who will give you some direction, a pat on the back when you need it and send some opportunities your way.

At the end of the day, you’ve got to show up and you’ve got to show out and really put yourself out there.

I guess we have to describe you as the Prince of jazz music because you are such an underachiever on Notes from the Wine Cellar. You wrote all the songs, play Fender Rhodes, acoustic guitar and percussion, created the backing vocals, did keyboard programming, arranged the horns and strings and designed the album cover. How does this hands-on approach allow you to shape your music the way you want it heard?

There’s something about orchestration that fascinates me. There’s something about the sound, the massive, the warmth. So when I get into my studio and I’ve got these tunes I’m working on, I want to try and figure out a way to incorporate those sounds.

When I get to a project and I start writing and I’m with that melody, I start to consider shapes and forms and where the music is moving to allow space for those ideas, not to fill up every space with my voice. My voice doesn’t have to cover every note, every bar of the music for the music to speak.

If I can come up with a way that everything sounds like it’s shaping and supporting me and I’m just up there floating and flying somewhere, I’m happy with that.

When I’m in the process of composing new thoughts, new feelings, new musical ideas, I record them. I’m recording all of the time. That’s what I do. And the guitar helps me to think of the space in the music in a way that the piano doesn’t.

The opening track, “In the Rain That Day,” seems to do exactly what you’ve described. Was there a sense of discovery when you decided this was one of the songs that had to be on the album?

This song was written with Harry Whitaker. We actually did a demo tape of this tune back in the early eighties. It was an incredibly straightforward rock and roll tune. But I always loved the chord changes, particularly in the bridge. I knew that I just couldn’t wrap my own head around trying to bring this forth the way we had done it originally.

So I picked up the guitar and I just started, maybe kind of Joni Mitchell-ish or something, just guitar and vocal. I reintroduced myself to the tune that way.

I’m recording it after the umpteenth try and I thought, why don’t I try putting the bridge first? That’s where the orchestration idea came in. That’s when I thought, let me just make this thing sound filmic, like you’re waking up and the sun is rising along with you waking up or something like that.

Harry and I worked this tune inside out. It sat for 40 years. This song just sat somewhere in my archives. So I went into my archives and I said, “It’s time. Let me just go back and give this another look. Let me give it another go.”

So here we are, opening track for Notes from the Wine Cellar.

Do you know when something you’ve written needs to become part of an album, or are there songs that simply have to wait until their moment comes?

They have to wait until their moment comes. I can’t tell you how many albums are sitting, waiting.

Music and songs have their own personality, their own time. They come when they’re supposed to. There’s a time and a space and when people are ready to hear something.

Sometimes you’re more open to receiving a musical thought or idea than another time. And I consider all of this when I’m putting together a project.

Does your own relationship with a song continue to evolve as you bring it out into the world and start performing it?

Yes. There are many songs that I have sung and performed with complete conviction and commitment and I don’t understand what the heck I was singing about.

There’s a tune, “Get to the Church on Time.” I needed to address something in my personal life with a relationship with a parent. I needed to find a way to address that and I was avoiding it, avoiding it. When I finally did it was the most cathartic. I felt like I had just purged some kind of emotional tension that I had lived with most of my life, most of my career.

I was in the process of taking these intense courses on art discourse. Nothing to do with melody and rhythm and chord changes, just visual art. But something about that course tapped into a part of me that needed to be dealt with. So up comes this tune.

I’m really glad. I’m real happy about that. I can move on.

In a 1995 interview you talked about the value of “being out there and learning it from the ground up, becoming a seasoned artist.” Thirty-one years later, what do you think that younger Carmen Lundy still had to learn?

I’m fortunate in that when I did enter the performance life, I had great examples. When I moved to New York, I saw everybody. Not just singers. I mean Dizzy, Miles. To be able to see the masters on a regular basis, you can’t replace that. For me, those are the lessons.

When you’re exposed like that from the ground up and you have this generosity of spirit from all these great artists, because they were not unapproachable individuals, somebody helped them the way they helped me.

My first night ever at the Vanguard, I hadn’t even moved to New York yet, and being allowed to sit in with that band. That was a generosity of spirit. That was welcoming. That was supportive.

I used to book myself for the first seven years I lived in New York. I used to walk the streets of New York putting my posters up on all the bus stops. My goal was to get a record contract, to move to New York City and start making records. And guess what? I made demo after demo after demo and never got a record deal.

But the first record I did, I recorded at the famous Rudy Van Gelder Studios. It was my money and my band, and with the help of Harry Whittaker and at the time my manager, Father Peter O’Brien, we made Good Morning Kiss, my first album. People still show up at clubs with that album for me to sign the cover.

You have to understand that everything can’t happen for you right away. If you stick to your guns and if you get back in the woodshed and you work at your craft on a daily, no matter what it takes to make the ends meet, and you work at it, and then you work, and you work, and you work. That’s the key to never letting up. To just stick to your aspiration.

It does come to fruition. Maybe sometimes not when you want it, but when it does come, you had better be ready. Because those opportunities don’t come as often as you might think.

In 2015 you said, “I think I want recognition for my work and for my contribution musically and the quality that goes with what I do.” Eleven years later, you’re an NEA Jazz Master. Does this recognition answer what you were expressing then?

Yes, it does.

The highest honor one can receive by our United States government and the American people, to be recognized as a genuine master of the music, which is an ongoing, unrelenting challenge, is to work at this craft and to try with everything you feel and know to render a musical offering at its highest quality.

That is not something you do by yourself. It’s not something that you do alone. There are many, many people along the way that you bring with you, the same way someone brought me along when I was 19 or 20 years old. I got to do the same thing for that little 19, 16-year-old, 20-year-old. Those musicians, those artists, those beautiful people are part of my journey too.

For whatever it is I’ve accomplished, without them I couldn’t have done it. This is not a singular effort.

There are certain things that are very singular about it. The discipline to sit and work and to learn and teach, and to learn from those you teach.

To have received this now counts for a lot. But that’s not why we do it. You don’t say, “Someday I’m going to be recognized as an NEA Jazz Master.” That’s not what we do.

But yes, it’s a great thing.

Let’s go back to late 1970 or early 1971, when you were 16 years old and made your first recording on an acetate disc. What did that 16-year-old imagine artistic life might look like?

We got this opportunity to make this record. The songs were called “The Price of Silence,” the A side, and the B side was “Boy, I’m the Girl for You.” So we go in the studio, I think it was Criteria, still a famous studio. We’re in Criteria Studios, we do these songs. And, of course, to acetate, we get the demo.

Stephanie and I, our families are tossing this acetate back and forth. You would have thought they would have given us two. They did not.

We actually believed that getting to school every day would be via limousine. We thought that we were going to be transported to our last year of high school in a limousine. We thought that we would be wearing the top, top, top, top fashion of the day.

We just had this idea that show business was the answer and was going to take us wherever we wanted to go for the rest of our lives. That’s what we thought.

Aren’t you happy it didn’t quite work out that way? Don’t you think you’re more richly rewarded this way?

I don’t have the personality for that. First of all, I’m not that kind of gal. Look, I love a beautiful thing. I love the beautiful vase and the beautiful car and a beautiful house and all those things. But it’s not my personality.

When people say, “Oh, you’re a diva,” I’m like, no, the diva is over there somewhere. Keep looking because the diva doesn’t stop here.

Maybe at some point when I was younger, I thought that was part of the persona that one should sort of carry in the world, but it’s never been the true me and it isn’t the true me. Fortunately, I’ve evolved and lived enough and had a few rough, rough patches in life.

I think of my mother as I speak to you now, and what a wonderful, wonderful mother I had, and how devastating it is to not have her around anymore. To this day, still devastating, thinking of her every day.

I feel very, very fortunate to be a Jazz Master, to still have a healthy voice, to really be able to come to the stage with musicians who I believe really look forward to those performances that we bring together.

I’m really grateful for those things. I do not take it for granted that the audience still wants to hear, that you still want to talk to me about my work.

Note: Carmen Lundy had very recently undergone cataract surgery before our interview. This accounts for her not always looking forward. It is with her permission that I reveal that information.

Watch the full interview which includes stories about recording her with her brother, Curtis, seeing Ella Fitzgerald, Betty Carter, her early days in New York, Roy Hargrove and so much more.

This review and interview was originally written and published by Craig Byrd for Cultural Attaché on August 26, 2026.

The arrival of Notes from the Wine Cellar, her deeply personal 17th album, coincides beautifully with her recognition as a 2026 NEA Jazz Master—the nation’s highest honor in jazz. The distinction celebrates everything Lundy has contributed over the past half century, while the album reminds us that her creative evolution is far from complete. If anything, Notes from the Wine Cellar finds her writing with greater freedom, imagination and insight than ever before.

Receiving the NEA Jazz Master designation was especially meaningful because it affirmed a path she has never compromised. “It’s an honor that they’ve been paying attention—that they’ve been seeing me do my thing all these years when I didn’t think they did,” she says. “Sometimes it’s your consistency. You hang in there for a long time. You keep learning, you keep teaching, you keep trying to make the concepts meet the performance, meet the audience, meet the statement. When you stick with it, people notice. You make an impact on people’s lives.”

That philosophy—consistency over fashion—runs through every measure of Notes from the Wine Cellar. Rather than revisiting standards or chasing trends, Lundy offers ten original compositions whose inspirations span decades of living, observing, questioning and refining. Romance, spirituality, racial identity, family, forgiveness, resilience and hope intertwine naturally, reflecting the perspective of an artist who has spent a lifetime paying close attention to the world around her.

Lundy laughs when listeners describe the songs as deeply personal. “I’ve always been taken aback by that,” she says. “Isn’t that what songwriters and composers do? We draw from our experiences rather than simply making things up.”

For her, songwriting has never been about documenting events as much as uncovering their deeper meaning. Many of these compositions began decades ago, some dating back to her arrival in New York in the late 1970s. Rather than forcing ideas toward completion, she revisited melodies, rewrote lyrics and reshaped harmonic structures until each piece finally revealed what it wanted to become.

“Thinking of You” beautifully illustrates that process. Written shortly after she moved from Miami to New York, the song emerged during a period when Lundy was determined to establish herself not simply as an interpreter but as a composer with her own artistic voice. Inspired by visionary artists like Billie Holiday, Betty Carter and Nina Simone, she realized early that creating original repertoire—not merely reimagining existing songs—would become the foundation of her career. That commitment has remained unwavering through seventeen albums, multiple Grammy nominations and now jazz’s highest lifetime honor.

She admired Billie Holiday not simply because of her unforgettable interpretations, but because Holiday had also given the world “Strange Fruit.” Betty Carter, Nina Simone and a handful of other visionary artists demonstrated that singers could create enduring original repertoire alongside brilliant interpretations. Lundy decided early that her own compositions would become the cornerstone of her artistic identity. That philosophy has remained unwavering throughout an extraordinary career spanning seventeen albums, multiple Grammy nominations, international acclaim and now jazz’s highest lifetime honor.

Listening to Notes from the Wine Cellar, one quickly realizes these songs were never written to satisfy commercial formulas. Some have quietly matured for forty years. Others are more recent. Together they form a remarkably cohesive artistic statement because every composition reflects the same patient, thoughtful creative process. Supported by an exceptional ensemble—including pianist Julius Rodriguez, bassist Jermaine Paul, drummer Terreon Gully, guitarist Andrew Renfroe and trumpeter Tatiana Tate—Lundy allows melody, lyric and harmonic sophistication to carry each story. The arrangements illuminate the compositions rather than compete with them, continually revealing fresh colors and textures.

Appropriately, the album’s title also arrived through quiet discovery rather than careful planning. While making room in her studio after boxes of vinyl copies of her Grammy-nominated Fade to Black arrived, Lundy rediscovered years’ worth of wine corks she had saved for her mixed-media assemblage artwork. As engineer Don Murray completed mixes nearby, she began sorting through them while discussing possible album titles with producer Elisabeth Oei. “None of them felt like they represented the entire project,” Lundy recalls. “Then suddenly it hit me. I thought, ‘This is ridiculously funny… Notes from the Wine Cellar.’”

The title became the perfect metaphor for music that had quietly matured over years before finally being uncorked. It also reflects the seamless relationship between her musical and visual artistry. Long admired as a painter, mixed-media artist, actress and filmmaker, Lundy has always allowed each creative discipline to nourish the others, with several recent album covers—including the striking cork assemblage gracing Notes from the Wine Cellar —created from her own artwork. “There’s no applause,” she says of painting. “There’s no searching for chords or melodies. It’s just quiet.” That quiet, she explains, often sends her back to music hearing entirely new possibilities.

That visual sensibility permeates the album itself. Rather than telling literal stories, Lundy paints evocative emotional landscapes filled with rainstorms, moonlight, changing seasons, birds yearning for freedom and shifting colors. Like her paintings, these songs reward repeated visits, revealing fresh details with every listen.

The album opens with the haunting “In the Rain That Day,” whose spacious piano, atmospheric textures and quietly sensual vocal create one of Lundy’s most evocative performances. As romance gradually gives way to uncertainty, her lingering question—“Why didn’t you walk with me in the rain that day?”—feels less like accusation than a wistful search for understanding.

That introspective mood yields to the joyful momentum of “No Better Love” and “Thinking of You,” where playful phrasing and buoyant improvisation reveal another side of Lundy’s artistry. Throughout the album, she continually reminds us that she has long conceived of her voice as another instrument, improvising with the fearless imagination of a gifted horn player while always serving the song.

Love itself never exists in isolation here. It continually intersects with larger questions of identity, spirituality and human connection. “Love and Freedom” beautifully equates authentic love with liberation, while the quietly profound “Another Color” approaches race through poetic imagination rather than slogans, asking listeners whether love itself would change if we were born another color. Lundy trusts her audience to reflect rather than simply react.

The album reaches its emotional center with “Get to the Church on Time,” inspired by her father, who passed away at ninety-four. His religious convictions often prevented him from fully embracing his daughter’s musical calling, believing jazz belonged outside the boundaries of faith. Rather than writing with resentment, Lundy transforms decades of unresolved questions into an extraordinary meditation on grace and acceptance. “I needed to come to terms with it somehow,” she says quietly. “He believed I was singing the Devil’s music, never realizing the Devil doesn’t have music.” That unforgettable line captures the spirit of the composition. Beneath its gospel-infused grooves and soaring horn arrangements lies something far more universal than autobiography: a reminder that healing often begins not with answers, but with acceptance.

Elsewhere, Lundy revisits “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” originally recorded on her intimate 2010 solo project Solamente. Surrounded now by her exceptional ensemble, Brazilian rhythms and buoyant piano transform the song into a vibrant celebration of liberation. Likewise, the luminous “New Moon Rising,” inspired by conversations about lunar cycles and renewal, reflects Lundy’s remarkable ability to transform everyday observations into poetic, spiritually expansive compositions.

The closing “Ain’t Nothing New but You” arrives as the album’s joyful affirmation. After traveling through heartbreak, reconciliation, social reflection and spiritual searching, its message feels beautifully earned: after a lifetime spent seeking meaning, perhaps love itself remains life’s greatest wonder.

That spirit of continual growth extends far beyond the recording studio. Alongside seventeen albums, Lundy has spent decades mentoring younger musicians through universities, masterclasses and educational programs including Harvard University, UCLA and Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead at the Kennedy Center. Teaching and performing, she says, have always informed one another.

Perhaps that lifelong commitment to originality, education and artistic integrity explains why the NEA Jazz Master honor feels so appropriate. Over more than five decades, Carmen Lundy hasn’t simply preserved jazz traditions—she has quietly expanded them, proving that one of the music’s brightest futures still belongs to fearless original composition.

Ultimately, Notes from the Wine Cellar is far more than another exceptional jazz recording. It is a richly layered artistic statement from a composer, vocalist, visual artist and educator whose curiosity remains as vibrant today as when she first arrived in New York determined to carve out her own place in jazz history.

“I want listeners to feel the music and be lifted up, inspired, motivated,” Lundy says. “I want them to hear the communication between the players and how each artist interprets these songs while contributing to the overall performance. If they come away feeling inspired—feeling that connection—then we’ve accomplished exactly what we set out to do.”

This review was originally written and published by Jonathan Widran for The JW Vibe on August 20, 2026.

This is Prince-level commitment to each and every aspect of the project. Given this investment, it is not a stretch to imagine that the songs themselves are just as personal—and they are. The first track, “In the Rain That Day” (Harry Whitaker, Lundy) is a bittersweet revery of a romantic past, made especially haunting by Renfroe’s guitar and the singer’s multiple vocals. The musical setting is more film score than jazz melody, but its beauty is undeniable. “No Better Love” dives headfirst into that romance with abandon, declaring “there’s no better love than what I’ll give to you…,” and that abandon is highlighted by Rodriguez’s keyboard work and Gully’s raucously rhythmic drums.

On “Thinking of You” Tate’s trumpet and the simmering joy of Lundy’s voice intertwine as the passion builds. The wordless passages of “Love and Freedom” (and elsewhere on the recording) are a hypnotic blend of chant and scat and blossom into the joy and hope on “the other side of the rainbow…like an unforgotten dream.”

“Another Color” poses the question, “Is there a hue more true than others?” as it grows into a more mature and complex evocation of the classic, “Being Green,” leading to the conclusion that “the color of my heart is all you have to see.”  The poetry of Lundy’s lyrics throughout is a unique blend of simplicity and depth as it floats above the hypnotic melodies.

“Get to the Church on Time” is a raw, bluesy memory of faith and parents and children that splinters into a a raggedy, powerful mix of gospel, jazz and big band (with horn arrangements by Lundy and darkly evocative Hammond B3 by Rodriguez). Lundy delivers one of her best vocals on the thrilling “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” rising over the ever-building accompaniment like a stone skipping on water, lifting spirits along with her.

A magisterial piano solo leads into an incantation of the “New Moon Rising” by the singer, whose gentle flute colors and helps to define the poetry of the lyrics.  The album closes with “Ain’t Nothing New but You” describing her lover as “the last wonder of the world,” in a deep, personal declaration of passion modernizing our expectations of what a love song is.

Carmen Lundy’s Notes from the Wine Cellar is a powerful statement by a true Master of Jazz which inevitably takes on a valedictory air as song after song, performance after performance, present the many colors and depths of one of our great jazz vocalists in full flower.

This review was originally written and published by Gerry Geddes for BistroAwards.com on August 9, 2026.

Twice nominated for a Grammy for Modern Ancestors and Fade To Black, Lundy is also the recipient of the RoundGlass Music Award, as well as the 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award in Jazz by Black Women in Jazz and the Arts. She was awarded the inaugural Centennial Medal of Honor in 2023 from the University of Miami as a distinguished alumna; among her other awards and recognitions, especially rewarding was Miami-Dade’s County Office of the Mayor and Board of County Commissioners proclaiming January 25th “Carmen Lundy Day,” along with handing Ms. Lundy the keys to the City of Miami.

Throughout her journey, Lundy has kept her focus on how she can expand her beloved art form. “Some of the greatest contributors to the music that we call jazz are no longer with us, so what do we do?” she has said. “We can ‘boo-hoo’ or we can pick up the torch and the mantle and keep pressing.”

Learn more about her legacy.

Congratulations, Carmen, for receiving the Jazz Legacies Fellowship from the Mellon Foundation . We are proud to honor and celebrate the groundbreaking musicians who have shaped the very nature of jazz.

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Eugene Holley Jr. | Hot House Jazz, November 2022

Miami-born, Los Angeles-based vocalist, composer and lyricist Carmen Lundy appears in two shows in her old New York stomping grounds. On Dec. 16, she is going to perform selections from her new Grammy-nominated CD, Fade To Black, at Aaron Davis Hall. The concert, presented through a grant from Chamber Music America, features Carmen backed by pianist/keyboardist Julius Rodriguez, keyboardist/organist Matthew Whitaker, bassists Ben Williams and brother Curtis Lundy, drummer Terreon Gully, and guitarist Andrew Renfroe. On the 17th and 18th, Carmen leads a quartet at The Side Door Jazz Club in Old Lyme, Conn.

All of those musicians, with bassist Kenny Davis instead of Ben, play on Carmen’s recording, along with trumpeters Giveton Gelin and Wallace Roney Jr. and tenor saxophonists Camille Thurman and Morgan Guerin. The CD’s 11 compositions, all by Carmen, reflect what she went through during the pandemic: the dying of loved ones, the isolation of lockdown, police brutality, racial unrest, and the spiritual power of love.

“I could not really ignore the horror of someone being murdered on live TV,” Carmen says. “I couldn’t ignore watching people explode into the streets behind [those atrocities] when we were deep into a pandemic, or having to say goodbye to a young brother who didn’t get the vaccine … having to say goodbye to his sister, having someone dear and close be diagnosed with cancer, or having to address the political social issues. So I decided not to look the other way.”

The selections on Fade To Black – the follow-up to her 2021 Grammy-nominated album Modern Ancestors – are the musical manifestations of what Carmen saw and felt during the pandemic. They range from the elegiac opening number, “Shine a Light,” the bouncy “So Amazing,” and the rhythmically complex “Lonesome Blue Butterfly” to “Daughter of the Universe,” a quiet storm praise song to the power of the sacred feminine. “Ain’t I Human” is a passionate, Coltranesque composition inspired by freedom fighter Sojourner Truth’s suffrage era speech, and the powerful, evocative “Say Her Name” is a mournful dedication to the parents of the children and young adults killed by the police.

Though Carmen’s cool and caressing contralto is the beacon that shines through on this recording, it is her work as a composer that gives her music the extra dimension that is not heard when a singer is merely singing standards. “The compositional part of my expression as a jazz vocalist is the most important part of my narrative right now,” Carmen declares. “I want the jazz audience to ask singers to include music of this time in their repertoire.” Carmen draws compositional inspiration from Mary Lou Williams, Antonio Carlos Jobim and Stevie Wonder.

Carmen started playing piano at age 6. She and her brother sang in church with her mother, who also performed in her family group, The Apostolic Singers. “Curtis and I are eleven months apart,” Carmen remembers. “We benefited from going to church seven days a week, and from having a mother who sang beautifully for her entire life with the same five, six, seven or eight women.”

Carmen originally enrolled in the University of Miami to study opera, but switched to jazz at the urging of pianist Dave Roitstein, who is currently the Jazz Program Director at California Institute of the Arts. Carmen was in school with several future jazz stars including Hiram Bullock, Bobby Watson and Pat Metheny. After years of gigging in Miami, Carmen moved to New York in 1978 (she received her degree in 1981), and worked with a wide variety of musicians including Kenny Barron, Ray Barretto, Walter Bishop Jr. and Ronnie Matthews. She released her debut album, Good Morning Kiss, in 1985 and moved to Los Angeles in 1991.
Carmen’s artistry extends beyond music. She is a videographer, and her documentary, Nothing But The Blood: The True Story Of The Apostolic Singers of Miami, premiered at the DTLA Film Festival in Los Angeles in September. She is also a visual artist. Her artwork graces the album cover of Fade To Black, and her sculptures were shown at the Shifting The Narrative: Jazz and Gender Justice exhibit at Detroit’s Carr Center in October. She sees her artwork as a way for her to renew her music with new vitality.
“I think that over time, I needed to get away from the music,” Carmen confesses. “It’s a part of knowing and learning who you are, and coming back fresh.”

Carmen Lundy performs at Aaron Davis Hall on Dec. 16, and at The Side Door Jazz Club on Dec. 17-18.

Carmen Lundy Does It Her Way

Carmen Lundy, an enduring jazz vocalist, graduated from University of Miami with a music degree and moved to New York at age 24 in 1978. During her Jazz Festival set Saturday evening, she told the audience she started out like most jazz singers, covering classic tunes, and she sang a couple of bars from “My Funny Valentine” to make the point.

But, Lundy added, that’s how you start out. In 1985 she composed her first song, “Good Morning Kiss,” which she performed as her encore. Since then, she has focused almost entirely on performing her own work, with her 15th album, Fade to Black, about to be released.  Unlike most jazz vocal performances, only her dedicated fans could mouth the words to her songs, yet Lundy’s passionate renditions and regal presence commanded the audience’s attention.

Love songs made up most of Lundy’s set list, with titles such as “The Island, the Sea, and You,” “Lonesome Blue Butterfly,” “Meant for Each Other,” “So Amazing,” and “Don’t You Know How I Feel.” She added some Latin influence in “Ola de Color” (Spanish for heatwave), gospel in “Burden Down, Burden Down,” and a call for love and compassion in “Kumbaya” (her own jazz composition, not the familiar hymn by the same name).

Lundy also has not shied away from the political, and the new album has a cut titled “Ain’t I Human?” that goes after those who would take away her right to vote and her right to choose. (“Nothing you can do to keep me down.”)

Ably backed by Julius Rodriguez on piano, Andrew Renfroe on guitar, Kenny Davis on bass and Kendrick Scott on drums, Lundy proved why she has been such a major presence for more than 40 years, even without a funny valentine.

A really majestic album from the great Carmen Lundy – one of our favorite jazz singers of all time, and one of the few who’ve just kept growing and changing as the years move on! As with all her recent records, Lundy put the whole thing together herself – a tremendous effort as a composer and arranger, with a musical vision that’s far greater than the early records that won us over in the first place – as Lundy handles piano and guitar next to her vocals – in a lineup that has additional trumpet, tenor, guitar, and organ – plus bass from brother Curtis Lundy, with whom Carmen first recorded at the start. The scope of Lundy’s songs moves far beyond the usual jazz subject matter – deeply personal, and always very powerful – on titles that include “Say Her Name”, “Ain’t I Human”, “Daughter Of The Universe”, “Rest In Peace”, “Privacy”, “Shine A Light”, and “So Amazing”.