jnj: You are the youngest daughter of Leslie Arthur Hutchinson aka Hutch. And I'm sure you'll read it everytime someone writes something about you...just like Taka Boom is always mentioned as Chaka Khan's little sister or Curtis Lundy as Carmen Lundy's brother. How do you feel about your heritage and the fact that your dad is always mentioned?
Emma Hutchinson: My father achieved a great deal. He was a great singer and pianist and he found that the best way to become successful in a racist society was to reject his origins and reinvent himself. I think he paid a high personal price for his success and I get the impression he only realised this later in his life, when the white elitist society he had aspired to, and imagined himself to be a part of, made it clear that he was not one of them and never would be.
It still feels new to me when people mention my dad. He died when I was only four years old and I did not know him at all. When I was a child he was never discussed at home and for many years I was unaware of who he was. Because inter-racial relationships were taboo when I was born (my mother was white) and because I was illegitimate, I was sent to live with foster parents. When I was brought back to live with my mother, my extended family were told that I had been adopted and were not told the truth until 1999. When I was a child my mother gradually started to play my father’s old 78’s and I became aware that he was a musician, but there was an unspoken agreement that he was not an acceptable topic of conversation. In fact, it was not until I was 11 years old that I found out anything about him by reading the back of a record sleeve at my grandparents’ house. Everything I have learned about him has been from other people who knew him or who have written about him. Charlotte Breese, who wrote his fascinating biography Hutch a few years ago, is a good friend of mine, and through her work I have come to know a great deal more about my father and met many of my half-brothers and sisters, whose existence I was not even aware of until the early 1990’s.
After so many years of secrecy, I am happy for people to talk to me about how much my father meant to them as an artist and the influence that he had on their lives. But I am very much my own person and I think people accept me for myself and my work as a musician speaks for itself. My father interpreted other people’s songs, and as much as I enjoy doing that, what interests me most is writing and performing my own songs.


jnj: You've spent some time in Hollywood with your then husband. How do you feel about living in Tinseltown and what effect has it had on your life?
Emma Hutchinson: Living in Hollywood was an amazing experience. I had some of the best and worst times of my life there. It generally seems to be bad experiences that make you grow as a person, so in that sense they are not negative and I am thankful for them. I have some very good friends in LA. We laughed a lot and they were also there when I needed them.
I think I was extremely naÏve when I went there and I "wised-up" a lot. It broadened my world-view, as any travelling does, and made the world seem a lot smaller. My then-husband was an actor and I saw behind the façade that is Hollywood and the movies and understood that it was an industry and a business like any other. So I don’t believe the hype!
My ex-husband encouraged me to rediscover jazz and it was hugely rewarding to me as a musician to be exposed to the jazz scene in LA. I have been extraordinarily lucky to have that experience.


jnj: Why did you return to Europe after your marriage break-up?
Emma Hutchinson: Many reasons! I didn’t have a Green Card. Staying in the USA would have involved long-term immigration issues and I was too ill to deal with them - shortly after I separated from my husband I was diagnosed as having Graves’ Disease and became seriously ill. I had just spent 6 months in the UK taking care of my mother who died from cancer and was extremely stressed. I came home to enable myself to heal and to be nearer my family, who became all the more important to me after my mother died.
I like living in the UK, and Bristol is a great city. Although I have good friends in the States, overall I was not at home in a society founded on consumerism where it’s every man and woman for himself/herself. I believe in the Welfare State, education for all and the NHS. But pretty much everywhere seems to be going the way of the American model these days.


jnj: Please tell me how you teamed up with the musicians on your Hummingbird album and why you've founded the Emma Hutchinson Quintet and the Emma Hutchinson Blues Band. What are the differences in the musical style of the Quintet and the Blues Band and will there be a blues influenced album?
Emma Hutchinson: When I returned from Los Angeles I lived in Bath (in south-west UK) for a year. Once I regained my health I started singing at local jazz jam sessions and going to gigs to find out who was who on the scene and chat with the musicians. That’s how I met Rob, Valère and Guy. And Rob was always going on about what a great musician Gary was, so I went to see Gary’s jazz quartet perform live, and loved his playing. They are the core band featured on Hummingbirds and in addition to being really talented musicians they are genuinely nice people and dead funny. The Emma Hutchinson Quintet was the first band I formed in order to start gigging. We performed jazz standards, but they tended to be the more unusual ones because I find it easier to interpret lesser-known tunes in my own way and I don’t like singing anyone else’s version.
The Blues Band came about because I love singing the blues and people kept asking me to do more of it! There was no one on the local scene performing jazz blues, so it filled a gap in the market.
Hummingbirds is a blues-influenced album. The blues has influenced all popular music; at least, all the music that I like.


jnj: Recently you have teamed up with singer Bernie Hodges to form Hutchinson Hodges. Why do you work with so many musical groups instead of concentrating as an artist on your name per se?
Emma Hutchinson: The first reason is financial. On the jazz scene a sax player can play in loads of different bands and be earning every night of the week. It’s not the same for singers. When I first became a full-time professional musician I needed/wanted to work as much as possible. But I was unknown on the scene and many jazz singers anyway have a bad reputation for being divas and not real musicians, so no-one was gonna be calling me to book me for gigs!
I’m quite versatile as a singer in that I can sing jazz/soul/funk/blues etc so I decided to start several bands in a variety of musical genres that played different kinds of venues. The Quintet did straight jazz gigs and could be broken down into a duo, trio or quartet, according to the size of venue. The Blues Band could be booked into both jazz and blues venues and Bernie and I started Hutchinson Hodges because we love all the Louis Armstrong/Ella Fitzgerald duets and thought they would be great for weddings and the corporate events market. People loved the demo so much they want us to make a Hutchinson Hodges album! And last year I started my Groove Trio - which can play the trendy funky bars and clubs as well – because I wanted to sing some really challenging material that stretched me as a singer.
The end result is that I’m working quite a lot! Gigging with my other bands has helped fund the Hummingbirds project - I’m not yet at the stage where I earn enough money from performing/selling my own music to concentrate solely on that.
Of course, as a musician I am learning all the time by studying and performing different genres of music and by working with different musicians. It feeds into my own music and makes it what it is.


jnj: You cite very many artists and musical genres as your influences...are there any artists and musical genres you don't like at all?
Emma Hutchinson: I’m not into thrash metal or really hard-core misogynistic rap.


jnj: You've released your album Hummingbirds independently on your Flying Jewel imprint. You've told me that you're looking for a licensing deal with an independent label to get a wider distribution but to remain independent at the same time. Are there any good news you could tell the visitors of jazz-not-jazz?
Emma Hutchinson: The good news is that I love the album, the band loves the album and everyone who hears the album, loves the album! The reviews (including yours, thanks Dirk!) are great. The bad news is that so far record companies are saying that my music doesn’t fit into any one genre. Which is true, and not bad news at all! It’s what I like about it. I guess that’s why Norah Jones, Jamie Cullum and Diana Krall are struggling to make it though. Their music is just so hard to market and their crossover appeal is obviously not making the record companies even more money. I have been offered a publishing deal. I haven’t decided where to go with that yet.


jnj: Right now you do a lot of live gigs in the Bristol area. Do you plan a UK or even Euopean tour to promote your album?
Emma Hutchinson: I’m working on the UK tour. A European one would be even better if anyone out there wants to help promote it!


jnj: I've heard you're already working on a new album. Please tell me more about it. What can be expect and when will it be released?
Emma Hutchinson: I’ve written 6 songs for the new album and we’re playing them at live gigs. With the new material I feel that we’re developing a more identifiable sound as a band. When you hear a track off the next album you’ll say “Isn’t that Emma Hutchinson?”. It’ll be released when I’ve got enough songs that I’m happy with to go on it, and when I have enough money to record it!