Long before Nayo Jones even thought about making a name for herself as a jazz singer, she was a 10-year-old Phoenix girl studying classical flute with a jazz musician/disciple for a father.
"I would come home and my dad would make me play jazz," Nayo says. "Because I played classical all day at school."
Doc Jones, a music educator who plays saxophone and keyboards, says, "Well, you know, being a jazz musician, I'm classically trained as well, and I knew she had something a little bit more than what she was doing. The school system always makes you stay at the level you're supposed to be at, but she was playing what we call grown-people music then. She was playing Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, that kind of stuff, because she could read. She could sit down in the band and read those parts. I knew she would be able to play. And it came out right."
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