CARMEN LUNDY Uncorks a Lifetime of Truth and Reflection on Notes from the Wine Cellar

While jazz history celebrates countless vocalists who have transformed familiar standards into deeply personal works of art, Carmen Lundy has spent the better part of five decades taking a different path—expanding the American Songbook one original composition at a time. One of the rare jazz singers whose artistic identity rests as much on her gifts as a composer, lyricist and arranger as on her extraordinary voice, she has quietly created one of contemporary jazz’s richest bodies of original work.

The arrival of Notes from the Wine Cellar, her deeply personal 17th album, coincides beautifully with her recognition as a 2026 NEA Jazz Master—the nation’s highest honor in jazz. The distinction celebrates everything Lundy has contributed over the past half century, while the album reminds us that her creative evolution is far from complete. If anything, Notes from the Wine Cellar finds her writing with greater freedom, imagination and insight than ever before.

Receiving the NEA Jazz Master designation was especially meaningful because it affirmed a path she has never compromised. “It’s an honor that they’ve been paying attention—that they’ve been seeing me do my thing all these years when I didn’t think they did,” she says. “Sometimes it’s your consistency. You hang in there for a long time. You keep learning, you keep teaching, you keep trying to make the concepts meet the performance, meet the audience, meet the statement. When you stick with it, people notice. You make an impact on people’s lives.”

That philosophy—consistency over fashion—runs through every measure of Notes from the Wine Cellar. Rather than revisiting standards or chasing trends, Lundy offers ten original compositions whose inspirations span decades of living, observing, questioning and refining. Romance, spirituality, racial identity, family, forgiveness, resilience and hope intertwine naturally, reflecting the perspective of an artist who has spent a lifetime paying close attention to the world around her.

Lundy laughs when listeners describe the songs as deeply personal. “I’ve always been taken aback by that,” she says. “Isn’t that what songwriters and composers do? We draw from our experiences rather than simply making things up.”

For her, songwriting has never been about documenting events as much as uncovering their deeper meaning. Many of these compositions began decades ago, some dating back to her arrival in New York in the late 1970s. Rather than forcing ideas toward completion, she revisited melodies, rewrote lyrics and reshaped harmonic structures until each piece finally revealed what it wanted to become.

“Thinking of You” beautifully illustrates that process. Written shortly after she moved from Miami to New York, the song emerged during a period when Lundy was determined to establish herself not simply as an interpreter but as a composer with her own artistic voice. Inspired by visionary artists like Billie Holiday, Betty Carter and Nina Simone, she realized early that creating original repertoire—not merely reimagining existing songs—would become the foundation of her career. That commitment has remained unwavering through seventeen albums, multiple Grammy nominations and now jazz’s highest lifetime honor.

She admired Billie Holiday not simply because of her unforgettable interpretations, but because Holiday had also given the world “Strange Fruit.” Betty Carter, Nina Simone and a handful of other visionary artists demonstrated that singers could create enduring original repertoire alongside brilliant interpretations. Lundy decided early that her own compositions would become the cornerstone of her artistic identity. That philosophy has remained unwavering throughout an extraordinary career spanning seventeen albums, multiple Grammy nominations, international acclaim and now jazz’s highest lifetime honor.

Listening to Notes from the Wine Cellar, one quickly realizes these songs were never written to satisfy commercial formulas. Some have quietly matured for forty years. Others are more recent. Together they form a remarkably cohesive artistic statement because every composition reflects the same patient, thoughtful creative process. Supported by an exceptional ensemble—including pianist Julius Rodriguez, bassist Jermaine Paul, drummer Terreon Gully, guitarist Andrew Renfroe and trumpeter Tatiana Tate—Lundy allows melody, lyric and harmonic sophistication to carry each story. The arrangements illuminate the compositions rather than compete with them, continually revealing fresh colors and textures.

Appropriately, the album’s title also arrived through quiet discovery rather than careful planning. While making room in her studio after boxes of vinyl copies of her Grammy-nominated Fade to Black arrived, Lundy rediscovered years’ worth of wine corks she had saved for her mixed-media assemblage artwork. As engineer Don Murray completed mixes nearby, she began sorting through them while discussing possible album titles with producer Elisabeth Oei. “None of them felt like they represented the entire project,” Lundy recalls. “Then suddenly it hit me. I thought, ‘This is ridiculously funny… Notes from the Wine Cellar.’”

The title became the perfect metaphor for music that had quietly matured over years before finally being uncorked. It also reflects the seamless relationship between her musical and visual artistry. Long admired as a painter, mixed-media artist, actress and filmmaker, Lundy has always allowed each creative discipline to nourish the others, with several recent album covers—including the striking cork assemblage gracing Notes from the Wine Cellar—created from her own artwork. “There’s no applause,” she says of painting. “There’s no searching for chords or melodies. It’s just quiet.” That quiet, she explains, often sends her back to music hearing entirely new possibilities.

That visual sensibility permeates the album itself. Rather than telling literal stories, Lundy paints evocative emotional landscapes filled with rainstorms, moonlight, changing seasons, birds yearning for freedom and shifting colors. Like her paintings, these songs reward repeated visits, revealing fresh details with every listen.

The album opens with the haunting “In the Rain That Day,” whose spacious piano, atmospheric textures and quietly sensual vocal create one of Lundy’s most evocative performances. As romance gradually gives way to uncertainty, her lingering question—“Why didn’t you walk with me in the rain that day?”—feels less like accusation than a wistful search for understanding.

That introspective mood yields to the joyful momentum of “No Better Love” and “Thinking of You,” where playful phrasing and buoyant improvisation reveal another side of Lundy’s artistry. Throughout the album, she continually reminds us that she has long conceived of her voice as another instrument, improvising with the fearless imagination of a gifted horn player while always serving the song.

Love itself never exists in isolation here. It continually intersects with larger questions of identity, spirituality and human connection. “Love and Freedom” beautifully equates authentic love with liberation, while the quietly profound “Another Color” approaches race through poetic imagination rather than slogans, asking listeners whether love itself would change if we were born another color. Lundy trusts her audience to reflect rather than simply react.

The album reaches its emotional center with “Get to the Church on Time,” inspired by her father, who passed away at ninety-four. His religious convictions often prevented him from fully embracing his daughter’s musical calling, believing jazz belonged outside the boundaries of faith. Rather than writing with resentment, Lundy transforms decades of unresolved questions into an extraordinary meditation on grace and acceptance. “I needed to come to terms with it somehow,” she says quietly. “He believed I was singing the Devil’s music, never realizing the Devil doesn’t have music.” That unforgettable line captures the spirit of the composition. Beneath its gospel-infused grooves and soaring horn arrangements lies something far more universal than autobiography: a reminder that healing often begins not with answers, but with acceptance.

Elsewhere, Lundy revisits “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” originally recorded on her intimate 2010 solo project Solamente. Surrounded now by her exceptional ensemble, Brazilian rhythms and buoyant piano transform the song into a vibrant celebration of liberation. Likewise, the luminous “New Moon Rising,” inspired by conversations about lunar cycles and renewal, reflects Lundy’s remarkable ability to transform everyday observations into poetic, spiritually expansive compositions.

The closing “Ain’t Nothing New but You” arrives as the album’s joyful affirmation. After traveling through heartbreak, reconciliation, social reflection and spiritual searching, its message feels beautifully earned: after a lifetime spent seeking meaning, perhaps love itself remains life’s greatest wonder.

That spirit of continual growth extends far beyond the recording studio. Alongside seventeen albums, Lundy has spent decades mentoring younger musicians through universities, masterclasses and educational programs including Harvard University, UCLA and Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead at the Kennedy Center. Teaching and performing, she says, have always informed one another.

Perhaps that lifelong commitment to originality, education and artistic integrity explains why the NEA Jazz Master honor feels so appropriate. Over more than five decades, Carmen Lundy hasn’t simply preserved jazz traditions—she has quietly expanded them, proving that one of the music’s brightest futures still belongs to fearless original composition.

Ultimately, Notes from the Wine Cellar is far more than another exceptional jazz recording. It is a richly layered artistic statement from a composer, vocalist, visual artist and educator whose curiosity remains as vibrant today as when she first arrived in New York determined to carve out her own place in jazz history.

“I want listeners to feel the music and be lifted up, inspired, motivated,” Lundy says. “I want them to hear the communication between the players and how each artist interprets these songs while contributing to the overall performance. If they come away feeling inspired—feeling that connection—then we’ve accomplished exactly what we set out to do.”