- Hello, I'm Linda Yohn, host of The Swing Set on 90.9 WRCJ FM.

Tonight on Detroit Performs Live, we are featuring the 47th annual Detroit Jazz Festival.

Every Labor Day weekend, the Detroit Jazz Festival fills the city with music.

The stages of the festival feature world-class artists, Detroit jazz legends, up and comers, and everything in between.

It's a celebration of the impact this American art form has had on the world.

Tonight, we're featuring performances by the Himiko Kikuchi Tottori Young Lions Trio, led by the incomparable pianist Himiko Kikuchi, and by Sequoia "REDWOOD" Snyder, a pianist and composer who blends jazz, soul and hip hop into a sound all her own.

From Heart Plaza in Detroit, please enjoy the Detroit Jazz Festival on Detroit Performs Live.

- [Announcer] Funding for Detroit Performs is provided by The Kresge Foundation, the Fred & Barbara Erb Family Foundation, Gregory Haynes and Richard Sonenklar, and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

(upbeat music) - Being live is, you know, you can't replicate that in the studio.

There's so many, you know, I don't even know how to put words to it, but just the way that you connect and have the chemistry with the musicians around you from being on the stage together and the audience, the audience is a big part of it.

They give a lot of energy.

It's just a really kind of spacey thing that I can't describe.

- How do the band members all communicate?

Like letting you know my solo is over.

- I know for me, if I'm getting ready to end my solo, usually by the end of my solo, I'm pretty into it.

So I'm kind of, and once I start looking up, they pretty much know, okay, she's coming out of the solo.

And the same thing for other band members.

Sometimes you give them the googly eyes.

The more you play with the same people, the less you have to do to communicate with them because you understand their mannerisms.

- Exactly.

But there's another side to you that's really coming through now, and that is as a singer and lyricist.

You hid it for a while, didn't you?

- Yeah, how did you know?

Yes, I did.

Actually, I had been singing.

I was just talking to somebody about this earlier.

So I had been singing all my life before I started playing piano.

When I actually started going to Duke Ellington in high school, I was a vocal major and I didn't play piano.

So I had, as a vocal major, we had a piano elective class and that's how I started playing piano and I fell in love with it and I was getting good at it pretty fast and it was just consuming me.

I always wanted to play the piano, but actually having the opportunity to and being able to learn and actually understand how to read the notes, I was completely enamored and I ended up changing my major by sophomore year.

So in that journey of, I always say ever since I changed my major to piano in high school, life has been a blur because I started playing pretty immediately professionally.

And in that journey, I kind of lost my relationship with singing.

Yeah, but the past couple years I've been rekindling that.

- Do you find that bringing that singing back and you have to use your body differently when you're singing.

You got to be here, but you got to be here.

Do you feel more unified?

Do you feel more whole?

Do you feel more fulfilled?

- I definitely feel more like myself, you know what I mean?

Because I believe the people.

There's just a common saying that says, whatever your dreams were when you were a little kid, those are your real dreams.

That's what you really want to do.

And so knowing how I was a little kid, singing all the time, wanting to be Michael Jackson, wanting to be Stevie Wonder, to be singing and playing and doing my music, it feels like me.

And it feels like right, like I'm being true to myself.

And yeah, it definitely feels fulfilling.

(jazz music begins) (jazz music continues) ♪ Hand in hand ♪ ♪ Have I lived to see the milk and honey land ♪ ♪ Where it's a dream and love forever stands ♪ ♪ Or is this a vision in my mind ♪ (jazz music continues) ♪ The law was never passed ♪ ♪ But somehow all men feel they'll surely free at last ♪ ♪ Have we really gone this far in space and time ♪ ♪ Or is this a vision in my mind ♪ (jazz music continues) ♪ I knew not one who makes believe ♪ ♪ I know the leaves are green ♪ ♪ They only change to brown when autumn comes around ♪ ♪ I know just what I say ♪ ♪ And today is not yesterday ♪ ♪ And all things happen in theme ♪ ♪ But what I'd like to know ♪ ♪ Is could a place like this exist so beautiful ♪ ♪ Or do we have to take our wings ♪ ♪ Fly away ♪ ♪ To visions in our minds ♪ (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) (audience applauding) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) ♪ I am not one who makes believe ♪ ♪ I know the leaves are green ♪ ♪ They only change to brown when autumn comes around ♪ ♪ I know just what I say ♪ ♪ Today is not yesterday ♪ ♪ And all things happen in theme ♪ ♪ But what I'd like to know ♪ ♪ Is could a place like this exist so beautiful ♪ ♪ Do we have to take our wings and fly away ♪ ♪ To the visions in our mind ♪ (jazz music continues) ♪ Visions in our mind ♪ ♪ To the visions in our mind ♪ ♪ To the visions in our mind ♪ (jazz music continues) (audience applauding) (jazz music begins) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) (audience applauding) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) (jazz music ends) (audience applauding) - [Announcer] Funding for Detroit Performs is provided by The Kresge Foundation, the Fred & Barbara Erb Family Foundation, Gregory Haynes and Richard Sonenklar, and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

(upbeat music) (bright music)