Tacoma singer’s soaring voice adds life to Portland’s Pink Martini

There was at least one show-stopping moment in the virtual New Year’s Eve concert by Portland’s Pink Martini:

Singer Jimmie Herrod rose high in the air in front of bandleader Thomas Lauderdale’s 35-foot Christmas tree as his voice soared, singing “Tomorrow,” the optimistic classic from “Annie.”

It was a memorable performance, enough so that it seemed worth finding out more, and it turns out the singer — who’s been touring with the acclaimed “little orchestra” since 2017 — was born and raised in Tacoma, graduating from Mt. Tahoma High in 2009.

It’s no surprise to hear that Lauderdale became a fan upon first meeting Herrod in 2017.

“Jimmie came down to the loft,” the bandleader told Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Eric Slade in a 2018 interview, “and it was like, ‘Whoa, what an incredible presence, what an incredible voice.’ It just sort of soars. It’s transcendent. It’s smooth. It’s just — it’s otherworldly.”

Herrod (pronounced “huh-ROD”) remembers receiving compliments on his voice when he was a child and unfailing support from his dad, also named Jimmie Herrod. But he said his singing then was for himself, not audiences.

“There was always music on in the house, even first thing in the morning,” he told The Olympian. “I was always singing in the house as a kid.”

Music was a way to express things he couldn’t have put into words, he said.

“It wasn’t necessarily easy growing up and being who I am — a gay Black guy — in Tacoma,” he said. “There were aspects of myself that I couldn’t share in that time and place, but I would put on my headphones and listen to albums and sing, practically shouting. It was a way to express things.”

These days, Herrod, who now lives in Portland, is sharing what he wants to express through his solo music, accompanying himself on piano. In 2018, he released the solo album “Falling in Love and Learning to Love Myself.”

“The dream at the end of the day is to be performing my own music and making my living doing that — in addition to sometimes doing other things,” he said.

Among those, of course, is working with Pink Martini. Before the pandemic, he was touring steadily with the band Lauderdale calls “a rollicking around-the-world musical adventure,” traveling to Asia, Europe and Israel.

Among his other high-profile gigs were the National Symphony Orchestra’s “50 Years Over the Rainbow: A Judy Garland Celebration,” held in June 2019 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and an October 2017 performance with Seattle’s ODESZA on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”

Since coronavirus pretty much stopped live performances, he’s continued teaching, done some writing and acting, and sung at occasional private or live streamed performances, including a December concert streamed from Portland jazz club The 1905.

Though he always loved to sing, Herrod used to be hesitant about doing it in public unless he could “hide” in a choir. That changed when he had trouble finding an after-school job and his mom, La Tonya Canada, who now lives in Texas, suggested he put his musical gifts to work.

“My mom was like, ‘You need to get a job,’ ” he said. “She had this great idea that I could perform at physical rehabilitation centers and senior centers and ask them for a small fee,” he said. “I had set up a network of six or seven different places where I’d perform each month. That was my job in high school.”

He came to feel comfortable performing and discovered that he loved not only singing but connecting with the people he met.

“That was that ‘aha’ for me,” he said. “ ‘Oh, I really do love this singing thing. I should try to continue doing that.’ ”

And he did, earning a bachelor’s degree in music composition from Seattle’s Cornish College of the Arts in 2013 and a master’s of music in jazz studies from Portland State University in 2016.

Though he loves the Northwest, he moved to New York City at the start of 2020.

“I told myself I was going to do the thing that people do: ‘I’m young, and I’ll move to the big city,’ ” he said. “Of course, last year did not go according to anyone’s plan.”

So he’s back in Portland, dreaming of — and singing about — “Tomorrow.”

Hear Jimmie sing

The New Year’s Eve concert is no longer available, but you can hear him sing “Tomorrow” in a video recorded in 2019 at the SFJazz Center in San Francisco or on “Tomorrow,” the EP he recorded in 2018 with Pink Martini.

This story was originally published January 14, 2021 at 5:45 AM.