The audience at Jazzmeia Horn’s concert last Friday night heard a form of singing – and in particular, of jazz scatting – that probably most had never before and certainly not live.

The adventurous Horn has rewritten the rules on both vocal technique and the scatting vocabulary, extending the reach of both. It made her vocal presentation at the Melbourne Recital Centre nothing short of sensational.

Jazzmeia Horn, Melbourne International Jazz Festival 2024. Photo © DUNCOGRAPHIC

This reviewer first heard Horn in New York back in 2017 when she was just coming to attention in the jazz world. Two years earlier she had just won the coveted Thelonious Monk Institute Jazz Competition. What impressed me back then was her use of vocal techniques and sounds that I hadn’t heard jazz singers draw on before. Hearing her last Friday at the Melbourne Recital Centre, what registered most for me was how she has continued to evolve and expand her range of vocal techniques.

The Grammy-nominated Horn was performing for the Melbourne International Jazz Festival, and previewing her latest and fourth album, Messages. She wrote the material based on personal experiences, and explained to...