Rochelle Rice celebrates the release of her new album tonight at AMP.
Rochelle Rice‘s reputation within the local jazz community has been growing steadily over the past several years. In addition to jazz gigs in a number of different groups, she served as the primary vocalist for House of Soul (the now defunct dance band), was named an artist-in-residence at Strathmore, and serves as a soloist at All Souls Church, Unitarian.
The obvious next step for an artist in her shoes would be to put out a recording, and Rice is doing just that with her new EP, Wonder. She will celebrate its release tonight with a performance at AMP.
“We all want to leave our mark. We all want to establish that we were here and leave a legacy,” Rice told DCist in her distinctive accent, the result of being raised in the U.K. and the Carolinas. “For me, I’m not leaving millions of dollars, so part of my legacy is my music. I feel like these six songs really represent who I am up until this point.”
There is a rich set of experiences that fold into Wonder. Rice joined a choir at age 3, and recalled the director telling the other parents not to bring their children to the adult choir because she was the only child who was able to sing the parts. After growing up with community theater and school choral ensembles, she studied classical voice at East Carolina University. Rice arrived in the District to pursue a graduate degree at Howard University’s prestigious music program, where she not only honed her skills, but learned to see her music in a broader context.
“Dr. Saïs Kamalidiin, who ran the graduate program at Howard, imparted to us that we had to give a voice to people’s emotions,” Rice said of her HU experience.
This outlook expanded even more when she became a mother, and she is committed to using her talents to not only reach people emotionally, but also to use her voice in pursuit of social justice.
“Right now in our world, there are many things that point toward developing your emotional self and being in touch with your feelings, but there is a lack of humanity in the decisions that we make,” Rice explained. “I’m hoping that my music will help people get in touch with that humanity and some of those feelings that they aren’t able to give words to.”
These themes are prevalent throughout Wonder, for which Rice composed four of the songs. In an effort to write as simply and honestly as possible, she spent a lot of time listening to country music and the way artists in that genre write and tell stories. Rice also takes pride in being a performer to whom the audience can relate and join for a journey. Her goal during the writing and recording process was transferring this connection to the recorded medium.
Helping Rice in that effort were some of D.C.’s finest jazz musicians. Her collaborators included pianist Mark Meadows, bassist Romeir Mendez, drummers Mark Prince and Dante Pope, saxophonist Brent Birckhead, and the Invoke String Quartet. For tonight’s show, Pope will serve as the lone percussionist and Elijah Balbed will be the featured saxophonist.
“My music requires that we are synced and people bring their whole selves to the bandstand,” she said of any potential bandmates. “The people I chose do that.”
Rice is already working on material for her next recording, and she already sees the music changing as she evolves as a person and a musician. That said, she is all about sharing the experience that is Wonder.
“We’re going to dance. We’re going to party,” she said of tonight’s performance. “We might do a little laughin’, a little cryin’. It’s going to be a really nice show.”
Rochelle Rice & Co. perform tonight at AMP. 6:30 p.m. doors/8 p.m. show. Tickets $20-$30.
