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-S2E4: Let Us All Be Windows w/Nnenna Freelon
In a deeply intimate conversation, Stone Written host Dr. Rhon (@DoctorRMB) sits down with Grammy-nominated American jazz vocalist Nnenna Freelon to discuss her new book and album, exploring how jazz improvisation, deep listening, and ancestral presence shaped her journey through loss.
They reflect on grief’s non-linear nature, the healing power of creativity and community, and the ways memory, music, and everyday rituals open pathways from sorrow to hope.
Nnenna Freelon, born July 28, 1954. Freelon was born Chinyere Nnenna Pierce to Charles and Frances Pierce in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She has a brother, Melvin, and a sister named Debbie. As a young woman, she sang extensively in her community and the Union Baptist Church and at St. Paul AME. She recalled, "I started singing in the church, like so many others...."Nnenna graduated from Simmons College in Boston with a degree in health care administration. For a while, she worked for the Durham County Hospital Corporation, Durham, North Carolina.
In 1990, Nnenna Freelon went to the Southern Arts Federation's jazz meeting and met Ellis Marsalis. "That was a big turning point. At that time, I had been singing for seven years. Ellis is an educator, and he wanted to nurture and help. What I didn't know at the time was that George Butler of Columbia Records was looking for a female singer. Ellis asked me for a package of materials. I had my little local press kit and my little tape with original music. Two years later, I was signed to Columbia Records." She was in her late 30s when she made her debut CD, Nnenna Freelon, for Columbia in 1992. The label dropped her in 1994, and Concord Records signed her in 1996.
In 1979, she married architect Philip Freelon. She and her husband raised three children, Deen, Maya, and Pierce, before she decided to perform professionally as a jazz singer. Their son, Pierce Freelon, is a hip hop artist, a Visiting Professor of Political Science at North Carolina Central University, and the founder of the website Blackademics, for which he has interviewed many notable figures such as Angela Davis, Maya Angelou, Nikki Giovanni, and Jesse Jackson. Deen Freelon is a Presidential Professor in the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, studying social media and politics. Daughter Maya Freelon Asante is a visual artist.
Nnenna Freelon's special instrument
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