INQUIRER Global Nation

OAKLAND, California—Many jazz artists and aficionados consider jazz as the immigrant’s music—embracing and stirring into a big pot the many styles, elements, and talents coming from musicians from all over the globe.

Charmaine Clamor, recently hailed as America’s leading Filipina jazz and world music vocalist, believes the “Filipino spice” may have found its renaissance in this pot in recent years, through the hybrid genre she created, “Jazzipino.” It’s a blend of the soul and swing of American jazz with Filipino music, languages, and instruments. It’s the perfect pairing of her two great loves, Charmaine says, of jazz and her Filipino soul, and it has catapulted her into the American jazz stratosphere.

Now living in Los Angeles, Charmaine was born in the Philippine town of Subic in Zambales, and her mother, a soprano singer inculcated in her a deep love for the Great American Songbook and Filipino music. She remembers that growing up, their home was filled with jazz and opera, alongside Philippine kundimans (torch songs), harana songs (serenades), and folk music.

In 2007, Charmaine’s second album, “Flippin’ Out” made the Top 5 on both JazzWeek’s World and Traditional Jazz radio charts simultaneously. And in 2008, her third album, “My Harana: A Filipino Serenade” made the Top 10 in the world music charts, making her the first Filipino to place two consecutive albums in the Top 10 world music radio charts.

In this harana album, which includes an enchanting duet with multi-awarded Philippine jazz artist Mon David, “Minamahal, Sinasamba (Loving You, Adoring You),” she also made history by being the first Filipina artist to actually record these sacred serenades traditionally recorded by men.

Charmaine says she wants to revive this “tradition of courtship through music, to hopefully bring back passion and help make the love field equal among men and women, to empower women to also initiate that romantic connection and not just wait for the men to come to them.”

She has been featured in several Filipino-American, Philippine, and mainstream media including NPR (National Public Radio), BBC World (British Broadcasting Corp.), the Los Angeles Times, among others and she has become one of the Philippines’ newest singing icons.

Charmaine has also received numerous prestigious awards here and in the Philippines including, the “Philippines Pride—Best Jazz Singer” recognition from Famas—the Philippine equivalent to the Oscars—and a 2009 Asian Heritage Award in the Performing Arts.

She has headlined several jazz festivals in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Manila, and venues throughout Asia. She recognizes she is continuing a long legacy of Filipino jazz legends who made their mark in America and have collaborated with brilliant musicians. These include the “Wild Man” pianist Bobby Enriquez; legendary pianist and composer Tateng Katindig; Danny Barcelona, who was Louis Armstrong’s drummer; and Mon David, one of Charmaine’s collaborators and winner of the 2006 London International Competition for Jazz Vocalists.

Charmaine works closely with many of them and the new crop of artists as a founding member of Jazz-Phil USA, a non-profit organization that promotes jazz musicians of Filipino descent in the United States.

Carlos Zialcita, executive director of the San Francisco Filipino American Jazz Festival introduced Charmaine during the special performance at Yoshi’s. He also shared with the audience the greatest contributions of Filipinos to jazz. According to Zialcita, early Filipino migrants were able to break ground in the jazz scene.

In previous media interviews, Zialcita explained that Filipinos had been living in Louisiana since the 1700s.

“There had been a settlement of Filipinos—known as Manilamen—that lived in Louisiana,” he said. “Filipinos were right there, right in the mix of Bourbon Street (New Orleans) and before long, we were members of the best bands in Bourbon Street.”

Back in the Philippines, Zialcita said, the jazz tradition was starting at the turn of the 20th century. According to him, Filipinos learned jazz from African-American Buffalo soldiers during the Spanish-American War in 1898, and the Philippine-American War until 1915.

“The Buffalo soldiers stationed in the Philippines were comprised mostly of African Americans who came from the South, perhaps including New Orleans,” he pointed out.

“They took in Filipino musicians and introduced them to the new forms of music developing in the United States, namely jazz, blues, gospel, and many others.”

Michael Konik, founder of FreeHam Records which produced Charmaine’s first three albums, likens the "jazzipino" phenomenon to Brazil’s bossa nova in the 1960s which, before then, he said, nobody in America had heard.

“On American jazz radio, nobody’s heard somebody singing in Tagalog before, nobody’s heard a kundiman before, and now they’re hearing Charmaine,” Konik enthused.

And no one perhaps is more thrilled with the global advancement of Filipino culture through Jazzipino than Charmaine herself.

“I want our culture, our languages to be sung like the Portuguese, Spanish, or French …. so why not Tagalog,” she beamed.

You'll hear Charmaine's warm contralto and her signature Pinay sass and sultry soul in her song, "My Funny Brown Pinay," a remake of the classic "My Funny Valentine." She said the song is a very personal story of hers, explaining that growing up kayumanggi (brown-skinned and flat-nosed) in the Philippines, she had always felt small, almost like a second-class citizen.

But it was here in America that she found her voice and felt her true Pinay beauty being celebrated. She says young Filipinas have come to her with tears in their eyes, after watching her show, saying they have felt the same. And many women of color from all over the world have written her as well, saying they felt empowered with this song.

Charmaine is on her way soon to Manila, where she will launch her very first Philippine album, “Jazzipino” under Viva Records, one of Manila’s biggest music labels. This multi-record, multi-year deal makes her the first and only jazz artist to join the Viva family. Her debut RP album which will contain her most popular “kundimans” and “haranas,” will be released on September 12 and Vic Del Rosario CEO of Viva Communications Inc. looks forward to it saying: "It was a joy to discover somebody like Charmaine Clamor who is giving Filipino music a new life with the Jazzipino sound. And I am very honored to welcome her to the Viva roster of talents. Thank you, Charmaine. You do your country proud."

Meantime, Charmaine will be working on her fourth US album, a Jazz/Jazzipino album to be launched early next year.

“Many people are asking me where Jazzipino is going, and how it is going to evolve, and I hope I can answer that with this next album,” Charmaine quipped.