Jesse Palter

During the 2020 lockdown while sidelined from gigging and regular income streams, Jesse Palter was determined to stay in a positive mindset. She engaged by putting a home recording rig together so that she could record a few singles about the pandemic. Reaching out to her friend Jake Bass, they did some virtual collaborating and put the finishing touches on two of her soulful and upbeat infectious tracks, “Better Days” and “2020 Vision.”

She also realized that Nothing Standard, her swinging, soulful retrospective jazz album that was sidelined when she signed with Artistry Music/Mack Avenue, needed to come out. At the time, the label chose to launch her as a pop/rock artist. Jesse is proud of her 2019 album Paper Trail and considers it “a huge part of my musical journey.” But free now from the confines of a label machine, she reveals her innermost truths as the talented jazz vocalist and songwriter that she’s always been.

“Nothing like a pandemic to press the pause button on life and force you to rethink everything,” Jesse says. “With the shows and income stripped, I went through a phase of ‘Can I keep doing this emotionally and financially? Thinking and rethinking, I figured it was time to revisit “Nothing Standard” and reconnect with my roots. This record is also a way for me to present a work of sincerity to my loyal fans.”

The collection, featuring eight dynamic Jesse-penned originals and tasteful re-imaginings of the famed show tune “Happiness” (from “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown”), “Hey Jude,” and the tender piano/vocal encore “When the Sun Comes Out”, Nothing Standard was produced by Jesse with Chris Dunn (Christian Scott, Jazzmeia Horn, Kurt Elling, Taylor Eigsti, Rita Coolidge, George Benson & Al Jarreau).

The singer is backed by a stellar rhythm section featuring the soulful and hard-grooving trio of pianist Michael Jellick (Christian McBride, Sean Jones, Stanley Jordan), and past Thelonious Monk International Jazz Bass Competition (renamed Herbie Hancock Institute) winner Ben Williams, (who was later part of Pat Metheny’s Unity Band). Both were part of the original Detroit based Jesse Palter Quartet that performed frequently. The trio also features drummer Gregory Hutchinson, (Dianne Reeves, Joshua Redman, Eric Reed Ray Brown, Joe Henderson) one of the singer’s true musical heroes with whom she had done select festival dates. The trio gracefully accompanies Jesse, navigating the compositions that comprise the poignant musical ride of "Nothing Standard". “My aim going into the studio was to simply capture the heartbeat of the songs I had worked so hard on with Michael Jellick, and to leave space for whatever inspiration will come to the listener”.

While working as an indie pop artist, Jesse’s foundation and expansive history as a jazz performer has been downplayed, but it’s a crucial part of who she is as an artist. A musical theatre kid who played oboe and trumpet in her middle school jazz band, she attended the University of Michigan as a jazz vocalist and enrolled as a jazz and contemplative studies major. During her college years, she honed her stagecraft with several gigs throughout her home region of Detroit, leading The Jesse Palter Quartet to four years of prominent jazz awards at the Detroit Music Awards. She was selected to be part of Christian McBride’s Jazz Aspen program and had the chance to study and/or perform with greats like Geoffrey Keezer, Avishai Cohen, Sean Jones, Dianne Reeves and Marcus Belgrave. Jesse later embarked on extensive touring with Jellick and Williams before joining forces with acclaimed keyboardist Sam Barsh in the pop, jazz and soul duo, Palter Ego. Palter Ego's music has been featured on a variety of television shows and commercials including All State, The Real World, 90210 and Keeping Up With The Kardashians.

The vibe Jesse creates on Nothing Standard harkens back to her early days in Detroit (“my home base,” she says) as a “music-obsessed 13 year old” hearing Miles Davis for the first time – while also wholeheartedly entrenched, like most kids that age, in the pop music of the era. “I loved the improvisations Miles did on Kind of Blue and could sing back every note on that record from start to finish. As both an interpreter and singer of her own material, Jesse draws from a grand tradition of male and female influences – from Betty Carter, Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday to Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra and Johnny Hartman.

The lead single from “Nothing Standard” is Jesse's brisk, buoyant and whimsical circle of life tune “Spinning Round”, which vocalist Sara Gazarek recorded (with a colorful Geoffrey Keezer arrangement and solo) on her Grammy nominated 2019 album Thirsty Ghost. Jesse was also delighted when another vocalist she admires, Cecile McLorin Salvant, told her she performed it at the Village Vanguard. “There is nothing more exhilarating than when other artists think enough of my songs to record or sing them live”, Jesse says. “That said, I’m equally as excited for people to finally hear my original version.”

True to the album title, the collection does not feature Great American Songbook standards. But Jesse clearly aspires to write songs with the intelligence, depth, and timelessness the standards represent. She opens the record with the artfully phrased romp “Dealin’ With You (You Better Know)” – and closes with an equally spirited song “Time to Go/Curtain Call”. Along the way, she graces us with sweet and sly romance “I Wanna Keep You Forever” and “My Sweetie and I”, a dramatic, percussive breakup song “Thought It Through” and a poignant, uplifting song of encouragement “Hold My Hand”, written for a friend battling addiction. Another piece, the lyrical ballad “Small Not Tall,” vividly and emotionally displays Jesse’s ability to conjure a hard-hitting narrative using mostly single verbs (“waking, sleeping, breathing, watching, thinking, doubting”).

“Sometimes the road to being the most honest version of yourself is a messy, beautiful scribble rather than a carefully planned straight line, but that makes the journey all the more worthwhile,” Jesse thoughtfully muses about her work. “I feel that for me, the best way I can move forward as an artist now is to acknowledge where I came from; and that means getting Nothing Standard out there, and working on how I can be the artist I was destined to be.”

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