Sheila Jordan and Cameron Brown

Sheila was designated a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts in 2012.

Sheila Jordan and Cameron Brown have been performing in the unique and intimate setting of the bass and voice duo for almost 25 years.

Sheila is a pioneer of the genre. She sat in with Charles Mingus almost seventy years ago and just the two of them performed “Yesterdays.” Sheila was hooked on the transparent sound, the freedom, and the opportunities for creativity and adventure which this setting provides.

Here is a typical sample of the press reaction to their critically acclaimed debut CD on High Note Records, “I’ve Grown Accustomed to the Bass:”

"Jordan is the bravest — and likely the most musically creative — of jazz singers, not just for singing with minimal accompaniment, but for her incredible spontaneity, sometimes improvising rhyming lyrics as well as musical lines, testing musical boundaries as well as her own range… The centerpiece is a half-hour medley that pays tribute to Bird, Mingus, Monk, Lester Young and Billie Holiday, and Brown is with her all the way. He has all the cardinal virtues — solid time and intonation, the ability to pick just the right note — and he manages to define the formal essence of the music. This is a performance rich in reference to a long life lived in jazz, animated by equal parts wit and love, by a vocalist who has never stopped testing what being a jazz singer might really mean.”

Stuart Broomer