April May Webb performs at Wichita’s Orpheum Theatre on Saturday, April 26, as part of the Wichita Jazz Festival’s Grand Finale.
Webb, who grew up in Newton and studied under Laurence Olivier Award-winning vocalist Karla Burns, won the 2024 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition, delivering an otherworldly take on John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” and spotlighting her compositional prowess with the original “Cottonwood Tree.”
After studying at Wichita State University, Webb moved to New Jersey to attend William Paterson University. She formed Sounds of April and Randall (Sounds of A&R) with her husband, Julliard graduate Randall Haywood.
Haywood will join Webb for Saturday’s performance, as will her brothers, Nathan and Jacob Webb, and pianist Yayoi Ikawa. Also performing on Saturday are Matt Wilson & Good Trouble.
Webb recently spoke with KMUW about her early years in Kansas, her musical development, and how she prepared for the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
When did you start singing?
Definitely in church. I have two older brothers as well, and we actually had a family band growing up. I was on vocals and piano, and then I had one of my older brothers, Nathan, he plays the drums, and then my other older brother, Jacob, he plays the bass. Our group was called Webb 3. [Laughs.] We kind of stole it from the Jackson 5. We performed all around Newton and Wichita at different churches and different small events. We got our start performing in church and then it kind of expanded from there.
How long did it take you to figure out that this is what you wanted to do, that this was your passion?
It’s funny because it seemed like music was it from the beginning, and I kind of wanted to not do it for a while because I felt like this was the thing I was supposed to do. I thought, “Ah, I think I’m going to move to California and be an interior decorator.” I said that for the longest time, but that didn’t happen. I kind of knew from very early on that music was going to be something that I was going to pursue professionally. It just seemed that the path was leading in that direction, so from very, very early on [I knew]. In third grade, I started taking piano lessons and then when I was in middle school, I started taking vocal lessons. It was like my whole life revolved around music in some sort of way or fashion. I just fell in love with it once I yielded to the powers that be that this is what’s going to be my calling. [Laughs.]
Were your parents musical, too?
My mom played classical piano for the longest time. My dad, not so much. We must get all of our musical attributes from my mother! [Laughs.]
When you decided that this is what you were going to do, were your parents supportive?
Yeah, they were. They were very supportive. We had a very supportive family. When RadioShack was in business, he definitely kept them in business even longer because he would go to RadioShack and buy all the amps and the keyboards and stuff and just bring them to our house. We had so much equipment. So, we had a very supportive family, but they didn’t realize that us actually pursuing music would ultimately mean all of us leaving and moving away! My older brothers moved away first. They went to William Paterson. That’s the reason I decided to go there. But when I left home, my family was, like, “Everybody’s gone!” [Laughs.] That was the thing they didn’t really think about when putting us all into music classes: If you’re going to pursue this to the highest degree, sometimes you gotta leave home and go where it is happening in your field.
Did you start gigging right away after graduation, or did you have to work jobs to kind of piece everything together until music started to take off?
I was gigging during school because there are a lot of opportunities there. They were low-level gigs, but they were still gigs to work out your sound. By the time that I graduated, I had formed the band that I have that’s going to be performing at the Wichita Jazz Festival with my husband. We put together our group, Sounds of A&R, by that time. We were starting to work on our music and our album, and we were doing gigs.
I [also] started teaching right after college. I started teaching music at a private school just to make sure the lights were still on. I did that for about five years, and then I was able to leave that position and pursue music fulltime.
When I moved to New Jersey, I really started establishing myself immediately, going to the clubs, going to the jam sessions, networking, talking to people, even the professors would have you on their gigs. If they liked you, they would [do that] which was very helpful because you could see how this thing was supposed to be done and [it was also important to work] with people that were better than you. That’s the one thing that you learn, especially when you leave such a small community like Newton and you feel like you’re really good. You go somewhere and you realize, “Oh, I’m not as good as I thought I was!” [Laughs.]
It humbles you. It’s a good thing to have happen because you immediately get humbled, and you start trying to develop your own sound and your own craft and what makes you stand out from other people. Because you realize that there’s always going to be somebody that can sing better than you, that can play better than you, but what’s the thing that makes you unique? What’s the thing that makes you stand out? What do you have to bring to the table? Those are the things that I had to learn, especially when I got up to the New York/New Jersey area.
What makes you stand out to me is your phrasing. I think your phrasing is amazing. You don’t sound like a contemporary singer. To me, you sound like a singer from an earlier era.
Thank you.
You’re welcome. What do you think makes you stand out?
One of the things that I absolutely love is songwriting. I love to write my own material. Out of all the shows that we’ve done and from the feedback that we get from the audience, most of the time the feedback is, “Oh, I really connected with that song,” or “I, too, experienced that.” I find that I gravitate toward people that share their journey and their stories. The people that I gravitate to, the people I like to listen to, the brands that I like to purchase, comes from a connection that I establish with somebody. I always say that there’s no better story to tell than the one that you’re living. That’s the one that you actually know that you’re experiencing, that you’re feeling. I feel like everybody has a story to tell. Everybody has a unique voice in whatever field that they’re in. For me, personally, I just love telling stories. My own stories.
Can you tell me a little bit about how your vocal style developed?
My background is in gospel, but when I went to New Jersey I was studying jazz. At the time, Mulgrew Miller, who was a very prolific jazz pianist who passed away while I was attending school there, taught ensemble classes that I took from him. I remember singing, and he said, “You have a great sound. Who are you listening to?” I named some pop singers, and he said, “Uh, you need to listen to Sarah Vaughan.” She’s one of the giants as far as vocal jazz is concerned.
I really started homing in on her sound and her phrasing and the way that she articulated words and notes. From there, I had a foundation. You do want to make the sounds your own, but I think a lot of the way that I sound now comes from studying jazz music. I’ve studied all kinds of music. I was in music theatre, I studied classical music, I was doing gospel, but if you can learn how to sing jazz, you can sing anything. That’s how I truly feel. It’s such a complex genre, and it’s filled with so many nuances. I just find myself being very grateful that I had the right instructors and the right teachers to point me in the right direction of who I should be listening to and who I should be studying.
It's important because your lyrics have meaning. I heard someone say recently, “If you’re going to sing, have something to say and if you’re going to have something to say, make sure people can understand it.”
Yes! Diction, making sure that the words are clear is important to me. People want to know the story; they want to know the song. You can have a beautiful tone, but if nobody knows what you’re saying it just doesn’t come off as well.
You just recently won the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition.
I did. Let me tell you something: That was a very unique experience and one that was 10 years in the making. I had been applying to the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition since 2014. I first got into the finals in 2021. That year I took second. I did not win. I was pretty content with second. I thought, “That was good!” I had recently started working with some new management, and they were, like, “Have you done the Sarah Vaughan Competition?” I said, “Yeah, I took second!”
They were, like, you should apply again and try it one more time because they let you do it twice if you didn’t win. I said, “OK, I’ll apply. I’ll do it again.” I had gotten into the finals and thought, “OK.” This time when I got into the finals, I said, “I’m going to take a different approach.”
I really thought about it, and I said, “What’s the hardest song that I can sing?” I was really thinking about this, and this [John] Coltrane tune came to mind called “Giant Steps,” which is notoriously difficult not only for vocalists but for instrumentalists. A lot of vocalists don’t sing this song. I said, “Oh! ‘Giant Steps,’ I’m going to do that one.
My husband, I will always give him his props, he is a world-renowned trumpeter. When he was 15, he was the youngest person to join the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. He’s toured all over the world. I said, “I need your help on this one. I said, “I want to do ‘Giant Steps.’” He said, “We don’t have time for that!” [Laughs.]
[Laughs.]
I said, “Well we’re going to try.” He really did. He coached me and really helped develop my improvisation and working through the changes and things. I remember [that] at one point he was really brutal, and I said, “Thank you so much for your time. I’m going to relinquish your duties!” [Laughs.] He said, “No, you asked me to be your coach, and we’re going to see this through to the end!” I’m glad that we got through it because it ended up working well for us, and I ended up winning that competition through hours and hours of meticulous practicing.
They let you do three compositions. They don’t tell you what they have to be. You get to choose them on your own. I started with “Giant Steps” and then I wanted to end with an original song that I wrote. Every time that I perform, I always like to do something that is my own. This particular song, “Cottonwood Tree,” was one that I had recently written. It’s a song that I wrote about my journey of moving from Newton to New Jersey to pursue my dreams and my career.
Once again, after the competition, everyone is, like, “Oh, that ‘Cottonwood Tree’ song!” It makes me feel so good. That’s the highest compliment, when the thing that you put out into the world is the thing that resonates with people.
For this show in Wichita, you’re going to be with your husband then your brothers, so you’re back to this family band thing that started it all.
It’s funny how that works. I do not take it for granted, being able to perform with my family. It’s such an amazing thing that we’re not only in music and that we’re pursuing it at the highest level and that we get to do it together. It’s such a beautiful thing.
