She may have pipes that hearken back to a bygone era of big band, jazz and swing, but 22-year-old Chelsea Palermo said her influences aren't limited to such luminaries as Satchmo and Ella.
"I sing almost everything and I listen to everything because you get different influences," said the singer, who lives in Rumson and grew up in Bergen County.
"The modern vocalists (I listen to), I would say, are Celine Dion, Gwen Stefani, Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey, Christina Aguleria," she said. "I like George Benson; I also like Tony Bennett, though that's more of an older one. I like a lot of more modern ones, too. I like Usher."
Palermo released her debut album, "All About Love," last year, and will get to show off her repertoire of more than 200 songs with upcoming shows at 8 p.m. Thursday (Aug. 21) Tim McLoone's Supper Club in Asbury Park, 6 to 10 p.m. Friday (Aug. 22) at Ocean Place Resort in Long Branch and 2:15 p.m. Sept. 6 at Jack's Music in Red Bank.
The singer recently chatted with Metromix Jesey Shore about her new album and how one cassette tape helped shape her musical path.
How was it growing up and being into, presumably, much older music than your peers?
Well, my grandmother introduced jazz to me at age 5. I was in her Mustang convertible, and she'd received a free cassette tape with Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald and she heard me imitating them, mimicking their scat singing abilities. That's how it really evolved, and then I was in a choir and the director said, "How does this girl know how to scat at this age?" And my mom's like, "I don't know." He said, "She has a lot of talent in scat singing," so I auditioned for NJPAC Jazz for Teens, and the rest is history.
Do you remember what the first jazz song you fell in love with was?
I didn't really have a first jazz song, per se; I had my favorite artists, Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald, who were my two biggest influences, though.
And how do you think they impacted your sound, your singing style?
Well, I only listen to the best because I think it helps you grow as an artist if you listen to the best. How did it make a big impact? Well, I just loved the music so much; it was more of a passion. It’s such a big passion -- that’s what it came down to. My mom would do some tap dancing and she listened to it a lot, so I just kept listening to the style, so much so that it was a big influence on my singing -- that's the big impact.
When you were making your album, how did it feel having a whole big band at your disposal, backing you up?
It was fun, but it was a lot of hard work, rehearsing constantly, and it took a couple of months to actually get this CD done because we were in Bennett Studios in Englewood, with Tony Bennett’s son, Dave Bennett. He was the engineer for my CD, so that was a really exciting experience. The studio was really nice inside, and it was the same one that Tony Bennett performed in -- and it was the same set-up that he had: It was live.
How did that feel?
It was nice, actually, because it was so relaxed. Everyone was relaxed at one point, and it just flowed.
And you released that through your own record company?
Yeah, A Major Records.
What prompted that decision, for you to put out the album on your own?
Well, there were many reasons because the artist would make more of the money, unlike the record companies try to give the artist as little as possible when you’re first starting out, and on a business level, it's actually smarter.
Do you think your old-school type of sound is going to give you any difficulty in breaking through to mainstream success?
Not necessarily. We have this one song called "Mean to Me," and we added a hip hop flair to it, and it was very successful. … We didn't change the lyrics -- we just changed it rhythmically in the very beginning to the song, and I do sing other styles besides jazz. I sing R&B, I do sing pop and I do sing opera. I sing some other styles, and I think, since I’ve listened to a lot of music, I don’t think there would be a problem with me being a crossover artist. Actually, I think there’s longevity in that.
