Up until the moment that the Hollywood Bowl’s stage started to rotate, bringing her band face to face with some 15,000 jazz fans, Aneesa Strings hadn’t felt the least bit anxious.
The first in a series of high-profile summer gigs, her Father’s Day set at the Hollywood Bowl Jazz Festival wasn’t just a triumphant arrival into the big leagues for the Oakland bassist and vocalist. It served as a dramatic measure of the vast distance she’d traveled in the past year.
“I wasn’t nervous at all, until that stage started turning,” said Strings, who makes her Yoshi’s debut as a bandleader on Aug. 23, headlining at the storied club she frequented as a teenager.
“It was a top-tier experience, but before the gig I was cool,” she said from her home in Los Angeles. “I definitely knew the weight it had. We rehearsed 30 hours to make sure that we put on a performance that matched the Bowl’s legacy.”
For Bay Area music fans who’ve followed Strings since her days at the Oakland Jazz Workshop and the SFJAZZ High School All-Stars (when she was known as Aneesa Al-Musawwir), it’s not a surprise that Strings is presenting her music on major stages alongside Robert Glasper, Kamasi Washington and Cory Henry. But her social media-powered rise over the past year evolved out of her worries that she was drifting into career doldrums in her early 30s.
The first time she posted a video on the site then known as Twitter was in late 2021, when she recorded herself at home playing and singing “Fever.” The response was gratifying.
“Of all the social media platforms it’s the hardest to break through on, but I got like 14,000 likes and half a million views,” she said.
Her following gradually grew as she posted occasional pieces, but last year she hit a dry patch with gigs. Substitute teaching by day, she wasn’t doing much performing, so every other day she started posting home recorded videos singing everything from Gershwin to Chaka Khan, accompanying herself on either electric or double bass. When her version of Too Short’s “Blow the Whistle” went viral, she knew she was on to something important.
“It started as a really fun project when I was frustrated with where I was career-wise,” she said. “I’m getting older. I can wait for someone to discover me, but how else do you get yourself out there? Get on the internet and give it away! What would happen if I did this straight up and raw?”
What happened was that Strings blew up. Established artists, her heroes, started reaching out to her, and she signed with a booking agent.
“People I’d chased around for years, or wanted them to acknowledge and recognize me, now we’re on the same festival lineup,” she said.
At Yoshi’s she’ll be laying it down with pianist Brandon Cordoba, her key musical partner since they met at USC in 2011, New Orleans-reared drummer Wayne Matthews, and background vocalists Dominnique Green and Cornell Lamar.
Fostering an abiding passion for R&B and soul, Strings has honed a repertoire that encompasses a century of American music filtered through her propulsive prowess.
Her music reflects the broad-spectrum education she absorbed growing up in East Oakland. She played jazz at Skyline High School and got conservatory training via UC Berkeley’s Young Musicians Program.
Strings credits SFJAZZ Director of Education Rebeca Mauleón with helping her pull together her 2014 debut album “A Shift in Paradigm.” Released after she’d graduated from the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music, the project showcased her vocals on the single “Simpin’,” (which was produced by her professor at USC, Patrice Rushen).
SFJAZZ continued to play a key role in her career after Strings earned a master’s degree from Michigan State and moved back to Oakland. A last-minute call from Mauleón to play a walking bass line for Christian McBride as he took the Miner Auditorium stage with his big band in 2017 led to a two-year stint touring with vocalist José James playing the music of Bill Withers.
She was living in New York briefly before the pandemic when the charismatic Nashville vocalist/keyboardist Kandace Springs hired her for a Blue Note Records 80th anniversary tour. As fun as they were, those were side gigs, and now she’s savoring every moment in the spotlight.
“I feel like I’ve been a student for so long, it hasn’t fully settled in that I’m cool now,” she said. “You have to prove yourself over and over again, and now, wow, you guys like me?”
Judging by the music she’s been presenting, Strings will have plenty of opportunities to get used to the feeling.
Contact Andrew Gilbert at jazzscribe@aol.com.
ANEESA STRINGS
When & where: 7 & 9 p.m. Aug. 23 at Yoshi’s, Oakland
Tickets: $36-$69; yoshis.com
