Jazz singer LaVon Hardison says music makes her a ‘healer’

Olympia jazz singer LaVon Hardison will compete Monday for an opportunity to perform in Japan.

She’s one of six contestants in the adult division of the 12th annual Seattle-Kobe Female Jazz Vocalist Audition. One adult and one teen will travel to Kobe, Japan, where they’ll sing as guests at a jazz vocal competition in May.

Hardison is a big name locally, known for her engaging performances with swing guitarist Vince Brown and for her singing and acting in shows at Harlequin Productions. She also sings in both gospel and classical styles at local churches and performs, mostly in the Seattle area, with her own quartet.

But Monday will mark her first time on stage at Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley. Earlier this week, she was as excited about that opportunity as she was about the prospect of singing in Japan.

“Honestly, any opportunity to sing at Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley is awfully nice,” she said. “I’m tickled to be on that stage.”

But she does love the opportunity to travel. In 2009, she performed at the Sacred Music Festival in New Delhi, India.

During a phone interview Tuesday, Hardison was sitting in a guesthouse in New Orleans, where she’d just spent the past week immersed in that city’s legendary music scene.

“We haven’t even left,” she said, “and I’m like, ‘OK, how can we get back here?’ ”

It’s fitting, then, that Brown likens listening to Hardison sing to taking an amazing trip.

“It’s as if you’re traveling in a strange land, and you’ve stumbled across the greatest tour guide there is,” the guitarist said. “Every song is a journey, and you wind up in the most unexpected places.

“LaVon is one of the finest singers I have ever heard.”

And he’s not alone. In a review of her 2008 gospel album, “Everyday Gifts,” Victory Music’s Tom Petersen called Hardison “one of the best vocalists in these parts.”

Hardison also talked about singing, Northwest weather and more.

Q. What does singing mean to you?

A. Singing is life. Singing is healing. It heals me when I sing, and my hope is that it will heal others hearing me sing.

Here in New Orleans, I’ve been hearing the power of the voice and hearing the power of music. We went to a festival this past weekend, and we heard the Rebirth Brass Band, and people couldn’t keep still. They were dancing and smiling at each other and smiling at strangers. They were connecting. I’m proud to be a part of that.

I am an undercover healer. I just do it with sound. I think we underestimate the power of song and the power of music to transform.

When I sing in churches, most of the time the song is the preaching or the message. Sometimes we have to hear things that are hard to hear, but music softens the message a little bit. The message gets to the heart in a different way.

Q. How did you get started singing?

A. I suppose I have been singing since I was an itty bit. And, probably like most African-American folks, I started out singing in the church. I started out at 6 or 7.

My mother would take me out of school to go see musicals or dance or any kind of artistic thing like that. I got to see Eubie Blake. I got to see the original cast of “Ain’t Misbehavin’.” Music and arts have always been an important part of my life.

I studied classical music at Boston University and discovered I didn’t really have the temperament to be an opera singer. But the education I got about singing has served me.

I did a year there, and then like everybody in Olympia, I finished up my degree at Evergreen (State College).

Q. What you brought you here?

A. Love. I had met my husband Scott (Stevens) in Boston, and he came out here on his bike. He rode his bike from Boston to Olympia. I came out to visit him during the summer, and I was in love and it was magical and it was warm and it was dry and I thought, “Oh, this is the perfect place for me.”

The love part was great. The weather part was like, “Oh, really?”

But what I have found in Olympia is just an amazing music community. There are so many fine musicians in Olympia, and I get to work with Vince, and he’s one of them.

I feel very fortunate to live in a place that is so musically ripe, particularly in jazz.

Q. Where do you usually sing locally?

A. In town, my regular gigs have been with Vince, but we’ve taken a little time off, because I am going to cosmetology school.

Q. Really? That surprises me.

A. Oh, honey, it surprises me, too.

I wanted to have other skills. I originally wanted to go to become a barber. I changed over to the cosmetology program, because there are things cosmetologists can do that barbers can’t do, but I love the barber culture.

There is something about giving a guy a haircut, giving him a shave. He walks out, and his head is up, his back is straight, and all is right with the world. It’s such a simple way to align people and make them happy.

I used to think cosmetology would be about vanity, but it’s not: It’s about building people up.

It’s a lot like music. You listen to people and you connect them to your heart and hopefully they go out into the world feeling better about themselves and give more.

Q. How will that fit with singing?

A. Singing is primary. But you know what it’s like to be an artist financially. I wanted to find something that would give me the flexibility to pursue my first love.

Vince teases me and says, “You should be the singing barber.”

I’m not ready to do this, but I’ve had this thought that if I ever open my own barbershop, I could have a stage and serve drinks.

Last night as I was walking through the French Quarter, I passed a bar. There was a sign that said “free haircuts with $10 shots,” and I peeked into the bar, and there was a gentleman in a barber chair getting a haircut.

This story was originally published March 23, 2016 at 10:05 PM with the headline "Jazz singer LaVon Hardison says music makes her a ‘healer’."