Nnenna Freelon recently released her 11th album and first studio album in a decade, despite—but also, in a sense, because of—her personal travails of the last five years. After her husband, the noted architect Philip Freelon, was diagnosed with ALS, Nnenna became his primary caregiver. It was a devastating three-year decline as the neurodegenerative disease rendered him increasingly helpless until his death in 2019, the year of their 40th anniversary.
Out of the crucible of that experience, the celebrated soul-jazz singer and six-time Grammy nominee has crafted Time Traveler (Origin), a tribute to her husband. It is filled with love songs, including standards and 1970s soul hits they adored, but, in typical fashion, all reinvented and refracted through the prism of her jazz sensibility.
How did Freelon find the strength, and even the time, to balance the conception and recording of these tracks with the strenuous demands of caregiving? “Some of [them] were actually recorded in a quiet space when I had a moment,” she told JazzTimes via Zoom from her Durham, North Carolina home. “But, because I wasn’t able to focus all my attention, I doubted whether it was good enough to put out. It took the encouragement of some people very close to me to say, ‘Girl, this is powerful, you need to finish this project.’ And my husband also did not want his diagnosis of ALS—which is the worst—to stop me from living. He said, ‘You are a healer in song. Don’t stop doing what you’re doing.’”
Freelon started her recording career in her late thirties, winning contracts with Columbia and (later) Concord Records. Two of her albums on the latter label, 2001’s and 2005’s , received Grammy nominations. She also has written and starred in musical theater productions, gives master classes and workshops, and is a longtime advocate for education and the arts.
