Jackie Allen’s rendition of “Born to Be Blue” is unlike anything I’ve heard. The vocalist downshifts the tone to the chthonic, where its heart really lives. Something I love about interviewing people in advanced stages of their careers is witnessing them at the farthest heights their power, artistry, and vision have taken them. Hearing Jackie plumb darkness and depth, searching for herself and connection, she carves out a world and offers it to us.
Jackie grew up in McFarland in a musical family. She enrolled at UW–Madison thinking she’d study theater but switched to jazz. Bassist and professor Richard Davis built a curriculum for her in the absence of a vocal program, nurturing her fiercely and leaving her affected. “He really believes in me. I need to believe in myself.”
After college, Jackie landed a regular gig at Milwaukee’s Wyndham Hotel with organist Mel Rhyne, an original member of the Wes Montogomery Trio. Confidence came slowly, and she recalls the turning point. “I remember hearing a Sarah Vaughan interpretation of something and thought I wouldn’t do it this way. Then I thought, what the hell am I saying? I’m saying I would sing this differently than one of the best jazz singers ever. So I thought, oh my God, I’m starting to come into my own.”
Jackie moved to Chicago, commuting to Milwaukee on Mondays to teach at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. She took note of recommended gigging musicians and reached out to them. An early gig at The Moosehead led her to owner Roger Wolf, a jazz lover Jackie convinced to put up $10,000 for her self-produced debut, Never Let Me Go. A local label picked it up, and she was invited to play the International Chicago Jazz Festival. She got a manager and began getting calls to do lucrative jingle work, which funded her next record, The Men In My Life. Label A440 picked it up along with follow-up Love Is Blue.
In Chicago, Jackie began a formative partnership with Judy Roberts, dubbed “the first lady of jazz in Chicago” by Chicago Tribune. Jackie modeled herself after Roberts’ stage presence. “She had a way of connecting with people and owning wherever she went.” Of working alongside Roberts, “It was like heaven. You never felt so confident because she was so supportive no matter what. I could make any kind of mistake, and she was there catching me.”
Around the same time, Jackie reconnected with Hans Sturm, a bassist and fellow UW–Madison alum who’d loved her for years. The two eventually married and developed a bass-and-voice duo act. Hans began writing work specifically for her.
Five months pregnant, Jackie was connected to Dan Cleary, who once managed Nat King Cole and Natalie Cole. Taking Jackie on, Cleary arranged an audition with Bruce Lundvall, president of Blue Note Records, the country’s premier jazz label, that’d occur just after Jackie gave birth to her son, Wolfgang. In what would be to any other person the most demanding moment of their career, Jackie felt something unexpected. Standing in Lundvall’s New York office, surrounded by photos of Miles Davis and other famous artists he’d signed, Jackie thought, “There’s nothing I can do to convince him to sign me. All I can do is be me, and they either like it or they don’t. It took the pressure away. … Once you’ve had a child, it’s so much bigger than, ‘oh, I want to be a jazz singer.’”
The deal nearly fell apart. Lundvall’s advisor said the label couldn’t afford a new signing. Cleary pushed back. “Who’s in charge here? Are you the boss or is this other guy the boss?” Lundvall overruled and signed her, even buying her two prior A440 records for roughly $100,000. Jackie’s manager said it couldn’t have gone better. “You were perfect. You just did your thing.”
However, Blue Note never promoted the record. Jackie’s manager had pushed her toward a poppier sound, hoping she’d be the next Norah Jones. In hindsight, “I would’ve been wiser to stay in my lane, doing the jazz thing. Chasing something is not wise.” The album underperformed, and Blue Note never released the acquired catalog or recorded with her again. Still, Jackie doesn’t see it as a failure, holding onto the Miles Davis line, “It takes a lot of years to sound like yourself.”
Jackie and Hans relocated to Muncie, Indiana, where he taught full-time. She made the four-hour drive to Chicago every other week to teach at Roosevelt University and gig. Jackie also toured internationally in China, Taiwan, Paris, Germany, Morocco, and Brazil, often bringing Wolfgang and her family for childcare. In Muncie, Jackie and Hans recorded a live album with the Muncie Symphony Orchestra, its first such collaboration.
Next, Hans accepted a position at University of Nebraska–Lincoln, so the family moved again. At Doane University, Jackie created Torch Singer 101, a no-experience-required community course for adult beginners culminating in a live club performance with standing room only until COVID ended it. She also became a regular at Jazz in June, Lincoln’s outdoor concert series drawing 4,000 to 5,000 people.
Jackie’s influences run from Nancy Wilson’s phrasing to Shirley Horn and Joni Mitchell, whose creativity and late embrace of jazz Jackie credits with giving her “permission to do kind of anything I wanted.” In a song, Jackie stretches and bends time. On backphrasing, living far behind the beat, she says, “I’m really playing with time, and that’s where I think I live, where there’s a wonderful rhythm surrounding me. There’s this expanding and contracting of time, and that, to me, is such a wonderful way to play.”
Now retired and with Wolfgang having graduated, Jackie and Hans are heading back to Chicago. It’s bittersweet given how good Lincoln has been to them, but they’re eager for the energy again. Music is Jackie’s way to express herself fully and give to others. With her eyes on Chicago, even with apprehension, a knowingness in her craft is resolute. “Sometimes I think, ‘Oh, I’m 67 years old, I’m gray in the hair. Who wants to see an old white woman on stage?’ I get caught up in that. But every time I perform, I get renewed. ‘Oh yeah, I know what this is, why I do this.'”