StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Introducing Kandace Springs

(Editor's note: Though many events in St. Louis next week have been canceled due to concerns about COVID-19, as of this writing Jazz St. Louis has not announced any cancellations, so this article is written with the assumption that next week's shows will proceed as scheduled. If that changes, this post will be updated, and info will be posted on StLJN's Twitter feed and Facebook page.)

This week, let's take a look at some videos featuring singer, songwriter and keyboardist Kandace Springs, who will be making her St. Louis debut with performances starting Wednesday, March 18 and continuing through Sunday, March 22 at Jazz St. Louis.

Springs, 31, grew up in a musical family in Nashville, and first came to wide attention after moving to New York City and signing with Blue Note Records in 2014. After releasing a self-titled EP that year, she subsequently has put out two studio albums on Blue Note, Soul Eyes (2016) and Indigo (2018), and comes to St. Louis right before the release of her third, The Women Who Raised Me, on Friday, March 27.

The Women Who Raised Me features Springs performing her versions of songs associated with well-known singers including Ella Fitzgerald, Roberta Flack, Astrud Gilberto, Lauryn Hill, Billie Holiday, Diana Krall, Carmen McRae, Bonnie Raitt, Sade, Nina Simone, and Dusty Springfield.

With that in mind, today's collection of videos consists mostly of Springs interpreting familiar songs, starting up above with her version of "People Make The World Go Round," taken from the first episode of saxophonist David Sanborn's online series "Sanborn Sessions" released in January of this year.

After the jump, you can see Springs singing "As Time Goes By" at a gig last August at the Nashville Jazz Workshop, sitting in with saxophonist Kirk Whalum and pianist Lori Mechem's trio.

Next, there are two videos from 2017, a version of "At Last" recorded at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival in the UK, and a performance of "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" for the French TV program Le Grand Studio RTL.

Those are followed by a direct-to-camera performance of "Autumn Leaves," recorded in 2016, and a full set of Springs fronting Germany's WDR Big Band in 2018 at the Leverkusener Jazztage festival.

For more about Kandace Springs and The Women Who Raised Me, read her interview in the January 2020 issue of DownBeat.

You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...