Emmerald: You’re a new front vocalist on the West
London so-called broken-beat scene. What is your
background?
Deborah Jordan: My father was a musician. He was a
bass player and lead vocalist in a 60s traditional
rock and roll band. So with him, there was always
music on around the house. My mom’s Italian and she’s
a music lover as well, so I had this amazing mix of
Italian music on one side and soul and R&B on the
other. I played recorder some in school, but eventually decided
that I wanted to play flute, so my dad got me a flute
and I trained classically on that. I never really
had any formal vocal training. That was just
something I used to do for fun as a hobby. I never
thought it would be a job or career for me. I
reckoned that flute or piano would be my focus. Once
I got to London for university, I was working on a
music degree but I started letting the flute go a
little for singing. I met Robert Mitchell there and
started getting into different types of jazz. That
made me realize that there’s this whole heap of stuff
that I hadn’t tried and loads of stuff that I needed
to learn. I ended up taking a couple of voice lessons
and singing a bit more seriously and working in
studios. I sang with the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus
which was a volunteer professional choir, and we sang
beautiful pieces like Verdi’s Requiem, I met some
amazing singers like Willard White, the opera bass
singer, and I managed to get lots of information and
tips from people like that that I met along the way.
Emmerald: You’re still working with Robert Mitchell
today, right?
Deborah Jordan: Yes, I joined his band Panacea and have been
doing vocals with them for about three years.
Emmerald: What style of music does Panacea play?
Deborah Jordan: It’s very hard to define Robert’s music. It’s an
original contemporary jazz group, but he was
classically trained, so there’s a lot of that
influence there. It’s very jazz influenced as
well, so you can never quite pinpoint it into one
particular area. Robert’s a very forward-thinking
composer and definitely has this amazing facility with
complex cross rhythms as well as melodies that are at
mad intervals and don’t quite fit properly. It’s been
a huge challenge for me as a singer because I wasn’t
used to doing that kind of material. Sometimes I think I’m
doing the right thing with it, but I’m not sure. I feel like
I’m chasing my tail and trying to make sure I’m
sitting with the rest of the band, but it’s such
fabulous music and I’m completely passionate about it.
It’s been fantastic working with him.
Emmerald: Were you an original member of that band?
Deborah Jordan: No. Robert and I met at university, he was a
year above me and studied music as well. After we
graduated, we lost touch. About seven years later,
I’d heard he had a debut album and was doing a launch
party. I went along with a friend wondering whether it was the same Robert Mitchell, and as it turned out, it was. We talked for
a bit and eventually he asked me to join the band.
Emmerald: What are the next moves for Panacea?
Deborah Jordan: We recorded an album at the end of August in
2004. We had some issues with editing and all, so the
release was held up. Hopefully we’ll have the album
out before the late summer/early autumn of 2005. It’s
a completely new batch of songs with some fantastic
guest artists like Eska and Norma Winton who’s a
British jazz legend. We’ve been touring around London
and we’re hoping to get more across the country once
the album is out. And of course, we’d like to get
over to the States. I think it’ll be released on the
F-ire label which is a musician’s collective that the
sax player in Panacea set up.
Emmerald: What is that collective about?
Deborah Jordan: It’s an organization by musicians for musicians.
The goal is to look after musician’s interest so they
don’t get bullied by the bigger labels. They won the
BBC award for innovation last year, so they are doing
really well at the moment.
