Legendary Detroit singer Freda Payne returns to headline jazz festival this weekend

Detroit-born R&B and jazz legend Freda Payne will return to the region this weekend to headline Southfield’s seventh annual Kimmie Horne Jazz Festival on Friday, Aug. 11.

The singer, who earned gold records in the 1970s for “Band of Gold” and Vietnam War protest anthem “Bring the Boys Home,” has returned to her jazz roots in recent years.

“I’m looking at it this way,” Payne explained. “A lot of R&B singers only have but a short period, and they either kind of fade into obscurity — unless you’re somebody with a great talent, like an Aretha Franklin or a Gladys Knight or Stephanie Mills — they kind of disappear, and I think going back into jazz gives me a longer lifespan in terms of my career.”

Payne fell in love with jazz at age 12, when her peers were swooning over 1950s rock 'n' roll musicians and jamming to early rhythm and blues. Her family piano teacher convinced her that she had a special talent as a singer.

“When I was 13,” she recalled, “I started entering talent contests in and around Detroit. And also when I was 13, there was a TV show called ‘Ed McKenzie’s Saturday Night Dance Party,’ and it was like Detroit’s version of Dick Clark’s ‘American Bandstand.’ I performed on that, in the talent contest, and I won. And I remember, that day, Sammy Davis, Jr. was the star guest, because he was performing at the Elmwood Casino, over in Windsor. Six months later, they called me back to participate in yet another contest on the same show, and I won again. So that gave me the validation that I needed to pursue a career being a professional singer.”

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As a teenager, she would win more talent competitions and record local radio jingles, attending the Detroit School of Musical Arts before heading to New York, where she made a splash that drew the attention of Quincy Jones and other big names she would work with. She was signed to the mighty Impulse! Jazz label and in 1964 released her first album, “After the Lights Go Down Low and Much More!!!” The stunning debut included haunting renditions of Thelonious Monk’s “’Round Midnight” and Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman.”

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The Sixties also brought major television appearances on programs such as “The Tonight Show” and “The Merv Griffin Show,” as well as opportunities for Payne to break into theater. In the 21st century, she’s returned to the stage — to great acclaim and award wins — playing jazz deity Ella Fitzgerald in “Ella: First Lady of Song,” which has traveled around the U.S. since 2004 and will spend four weeks at Rochester’s Meadowbrook Theatre in spring 2024.

Recent recordings and even clips from “Ella” show that, at 80, Payne’s voice is entirely unchanged from her gold record days; her high notes remain crystalline and pure, her tone youthful and filled with wonder. She even displays a nimble, highly unique talent for feverish scat singing a la Fitzgerald, a talent many fans likely still don’t know she possesses.

Speaking with the Free Press by phone on the way to a gym workout, Payne said of her Friday festival performance, "It’ll be a little bit of everything. Gotta do the jazz, and I’ve got to do maybe some Ella. And, of course, a little bit of R&B. ‘Band of Gold,’ for sure."

“It’s still a joy to sing it, because it’s brought me so many other rewards. It really has," she said.

The Kimmie Horne Jazz Festival runs Friday and Saturday, Aug. 11-12, and is free to attend. For the full lineup and more information, visit cityofsouthfield.com.

Contact Free Press arts and culture reporter Duante Beddingfield at dbeddingfield@freepress.com.