Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Karla Harris. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Karla, thanks for joining us today. Do you wish you had started sooner?

While I’ve been singing professionally since high school, for the first 20 years or so I thought of music as more of a hobby than a career. Singing always felt natural and somehow essential inside me, but on the outside, I just labeled it as what I did on the weekends for fun. Looking back, I realize this was partly a defense mechanism because going for a career as a performer felt improbable, scary and inaccessible — something for people who were much bolder than I ever felt.

Then one day when I was 42 years old, I wrote down, “I am a singer.” It seems like such a small thing. I mean, of course I was a singer; I’d been singing out for a couple of decades at that point. But it really was an important soul affirmation. With it, I was saying, this isn’t just what I do, it’s who I am, what I’ve been given. Stating it, I gave myself permission to dream bigger. And when I did, something shifted. My musical development became more intentional, more focused. Doors of increasing opportunity opened, year by year. I walked through them, not always feeling completely ready, but with a sense of purpose, feeling at home in my artistic skin. Music had become my profession.

If I could go back in time, would I have done that sooner, pushed outside of my comfort zone at a younger age and gone for more, earlier? Well, to answer that would mean contemplating, “If ‘you’ hadn’t been ‘you’ back then, would you have done things differently….?” That doesn’t compute for me. I’m a big believer in embracing and honoring where and who we are at each leg of the journey, rather than wishing we’d been or done this or that way back when. Better to focus on the now and engage in what one loves to do in any capacity one can do it. If you’re doing, you’re growing, and you never know what comes next. And in hindsight, we can usually see how the timing of things in our own unique journey was, in the big picture, just right.

Karla, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

As a jazz vocalist, I’ve had the opportunity to perform for audiences at events such as the Sarasota Jazz Festival, Portland Jazz Festival, Oregon Coast Jazz Party, Nantucket Arts Festival, Atlanta Jazz Festival, a TED Talk, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts “Arts Across America” live performance series. In 2022 I was awarded a distinguished Jazz Road grant through the South Arts foundation, along with the Joe Alterman Trio.

My music is a nuanced blend of traditional and contemporary jazz and can be heard worldwide, including on Sirius XM’s Real Jazz. I was honored when critics called my 2015 album, Karla Harris Sings the Dave and Iola Brubeck Songbook, “a work of sheer elegance.” Greenlighted by the Brubeck estate, the project stands as the first studio recording dedicated to vocal versions of several Brubeck compositions with lyrics by his wife, Iola.

In 2019, I released the album Certain Elements, my first outing as songwriter. It reached #44 on the prestigious Jazz Week chart. Two of the album’s original songs achieved semi-finalist status in the International Songwriting Competition. Just recently, in October 2022, Moon to Gold, an album of standards recorded in-studio and live with the Joe Alterman Trio, was released. Early 2023 will see another new CD – an album of original music written in collaboration with renowned bassist Tom Kennedy.

My love for singing started first with a love for words and the power of their expression. As a young girl growing up in St. Louis, I’d spend early Saturday mornings with my pencil and notebook paper, writing stories. Afternoons would often find me transcribing lyrics from favorites in my parents’ eclectic album collection – Nancy Wilson, Barbra Streisand, Sammy Davis Jr., Billie Holiday, the Fifth Dimension, Aretha Franklin, and more. Each song was a story, and I fell in love with telling stories through song. To this day, it’s part of what drives me to make music.

My first taste of performing for a “real” audience came at age 10, when I sang a solo during a grade-school choral concert. In junior high, I joined my first band, and was in one band or another for the next few decades, until I began focusing on singing jazz. As a jazz vocalist, rather than being in one band, I sing in a variety of configurations with a variety of musicians. I am attracted to jazz because of the timelessness of the lyrics, the beauty of the melodies, the richness and variety of composition, the collaborative aspects of the music making, and the improvisation and freedom that is at the heart of jazz.

In 2017, I was invited to join the Kennesaw State University Jazz Studies faculty as artist-in-residence teaching applied vocal jazz. As initiator of KSU’s vocal jazz program, I’m involved with helping the next generation of singers learn this uniquely American art form, an effort I feel privileged to be part of.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

There is dichotomy in the fact that the more people respond to your art, the busier you become with activities outside of creating – marketing, media, building community, logistics, travel, development and preparation, etc. Not to mention tending to the physical and emotional health necessary to deliver artistically. Suddenly, you realize your creativity is feeling parched because, for me at least, creative juices tend to flow most freely when life is quiet.

When the activities of delivering your craft demand so much time that the solitude needed for creating your art becomes scarce or nonexistent, there is frustration. It’s confusing. People wonder why, when things are going great, the artist is out of sorts. This is why artists need others to help them with the non-creative aspects so they can maintain the balance that allows them to do what they do best.

By the way, could I just add as an aside that while it’s true some people are involved in careers labeled “creative,” I believe we’re all creatives. We’re all born to create, one way or another. Whether it’s a piece of music or a pie or a roller coaster or a quicker way to clean your oven or a spreadsheet design or a new way to tie your shoelaces. Whether it’s an act of kindness or an act of chaos. We’re all creating, all of the time.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

There is a woman who often comes to my concerts who has a demanding job that is filled with pressure and heavy news. She comes to listen with the intention of letting that heaviness go. She leaves feeling lighter. That is the power of music. It helps us translate and transmute our emotions. It’s a sacred thing to be a conduit for that. During those times when I’m wondering what it’s all about and if it matters, I try to remember this.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.karlaharris.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/karlaharrismusic/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/KarlaHarrisJazz
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzbNr1Vua5puTIUKgKxdtiw

Image Credits
Tracy Hoexter Photography Chris Graamans Photography Erik Voss