Betsy Ezell has spent her life immersed in music. She grew up singing in choirs and playing in orchestras; she studied jazz in college while pursuing an English degree and later sang with a few bands and church music groups. But despite her background, she was always reluctant to try her hand at songwriting. “I had this fear that it wouldn’t be good,” she says.
Songwriting remained a lingering goal as she grew her career and raised her two children. But when she turned 35 in 2014, she started worrying that she would miss her chance. So that year she picked up a guitar and just started writing. “Self-condemnation and self-judgement — that totally held me back,” she says.
Ezell teamed up with pianist Becca May Grant and bassist Laurie Lang and started playing as a group, and in 2018 Ezell applied for and received a grant from the Greater Madison Jazz Consortium. This provided partial funding for a project Ezell called Feminine Blue — songs aimed at exploring and celebrating women’s perspectives in jazz and within current cultural movements.
“The jazz scene here in Madison has been very male driven,” she says. “It felt intimidating.”
After Ezell received the grant, her songwriting pace “shifted into high gear,” and the trio expanded to include Richard Hildner on guitar and Chris Sandoval on drums. “It caused the sound to evolve in the perfect way,” Ezell says. The Betsy Ezell Quintet recorded with Buzz Kemper at Audio for the Arts last fall, and the group will release its debut album, Voices, at the North Street Cabaret on Jan. 25 at 8 p.m.
The sound is difficult to pin down — there are elements of soul, gospel, rock and bossa nova. But the songs are woven together by themes of womanhood, motherhood and empowerment. Ezell says the election of President Donald Trump and the #MeToo movement provided inspiration for the music.
“It felt like such a positive way to channel some of that anger into reflecting on what happens when women collectively march or speak up,” Ezell says. “Positive things do happen.”
