When jazz singer Nnenna Freelon lost her husband of nearly 40 years, she couldn’t see herself as a widow. The image brought to her mind someone diminished, not quite whole. “I didn’t see myself that way. I rejected that word for a very long time,” she said. “I rejected being a widow and widowhood and what I thought it meant.” But her new book, Beneath the Skin of Sorrow: Improvisations on Loss $27.95 (Duke University Press), released at the end of last month, and the album she released this past spring, Beneath the Skin, are part of a trilogy reflecting her grief journey. In the process, Freelon has found her Widow Song in a new form of creative expression, using her background on the bandstand.
Table of Contents
A Trio of Losses
The year 2019 was an emotionally devastating year for the six-time Grammy Award-nominated artist. Her husband, esteemed architect Phillip Freelon, died in July from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Mr. Freelon was renowned for creating significant spaces that celebrated our history and culture, most notably as the lead architect for the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Six months later, her sister Debbie passed away from lung cancer. In between those two losses, her dog, Basie, died one month after her husband.
Nnenna called the weeks and months after the funeral, the time for a redefinition of living without your mate. In what ways can we offer support to one another as a community?
“I was supported in ways I didn’t expect. When my husband passed, somebody I don’t know who cut my grass for about six weeks; they never knocked on the door and said, ‘Do you need your grass cut?’ I just looked out the window, and the grass was short. And the edges were done,” she recalled.
“That kind of loving kindness where someone thinks she doesn’t have time to worry about cutting grass. Or you go to your door and there is a beautiful casserole or cake. This is weeks after. These are the kindnesses, the simple things, that we can do.”
Grief Is a Multilayered Process
One of the things Freelon noticed is how grief shows up in us. “I want to suggest that your whole being grieves. Every part of you is grieving. Sometimes we attend to the heart— yes, the heart is broken. Maybe it needs some specific soothing, or a certain practice, music, or being in nature,” she explains.
“But your body is also grieving; it needs rest, good rest, not a catnap here and there. [Especially after] waking up at 3:30 am like we all do.”
And the grieving brain is constantly trying to process what has happened. Freelon notes that people go over and over things. Mantras, scriptures, or affirmations may help.
“It might be a surprise who shows up as helpful and who just shows up. Everybody is not helpful,” she suggests.”And you need to create boundaries, especially for those unhelpful folks.”
A Personal Project Becomes a Public Tribute
When Phil was diagnosed with ALS, Nnenna was planning to go back into the studio to record new music. “But when life calls you off the bandstand into boots on the grounds, that’s where you need to be,” she told Dr. Bob Lee in a 2021 interview.
She became his primary caregiver until his death. “How did Freelon find the strength, and even the time, to balance the conception and recording of these tracks with the strenuous demands of caregiving? “Some of [them] were actually recorded in a quiet space when I had a moment,” she told Jazz Times via Zoom from her Durham, North Carolina home.”
Still, the project wasn’t meant for public consumption. Freelon doubted whether it was good enough to put out. But those who heard it found it powerful. They convinced her to finish the project. Time Traveler (Origin), released in 2021, her 11th studio album, was her first in a decade. Then, it was nominated for a 2022 Grammy.
“This is the mystery and the divine energy of it. I wasn’t sure I could sing, honestly. Singing is a very emotional enterprise, very personal, and I was broken,” she told Lee.
“I also realized I had to be willing to be vulnerable, to trust my audience, and myself enough that whatever came up and out, if it was true and authentic, it was going to be alright.”
Freelon explained that she had to go inside her grief and find the joy inside her pain.
Big Love, Big Loss, Big Impact
It would take years before Freelon has the other two elements for the trilogy.
“I tried being strong, I tried my faith, and all the things the older women in my life say worked. And none of them worked for me. What did work was tarrying with my grief, improvising with my grief, sitting still long enough to let those feelings wash through me, changing the key,” the singer and composer said.
“That’s something I learned on the bandstand. Sometimes you’ve got to change the key. Swing with the rhythms. Don’t fight it. And if you feel some kind of way, go somewhere and sit down. Don’t try to be strong. Your children need to see you fall apart. They need to know you are human. Let them see your tears flow.”
It was from that perspective, the things she learned as a jazz musician, that the next two projects were born. The book Beneath the Skin of Sorrow, Improvisations on Loss, and the album Beneath the Skin.
The book is created like a large movement in four sections: Round Midnight, Stolen Moments, A Love Supreme, and Time Traveler. Each contains a collection of poems, memoirs, meditations, and recipes.
Freelon wrote the book she wished she had in the early days of her grief journey. It’s a smallish book, something to put on your nightstand, or in your purse; It isn’t a “how to do grief” book. “I am writing from a jazz woman’s perspective and also a universal perspective; I wrote that book, and I hope it can accompany people on their journey, no matter what it is,” she said.
The Language of Grief
While at a speaking engagement, the singer, still dissatisfied with the word “widow,” polled the audience for an alternative word. “Somebody raised their hand and said, ‘I want to suggest the word window. You are now a window into another world. You see things that others cannot see.’ And it almost brought me to tears,” Freelon says.
“That’s exactly what we are. Windows [some of us] may be stained glass, or may have a crack or two, may not be totally clear, may have some smudges on it, but we are windows. We are beautiful, black windows.”
The Widow Song
But yet in Beneath the Skin, an album of all original compositions, she has included The Widow Songs. Both of those projects are about what lies underneath the surface of things.
“Because one of the things I had to realize is that I have this whole world underneath the veneer of sorrow,” the singer said. “You’re at the funeral, there are tears, a veil over your face, and your head is bowed. But if we allow ourselves to continue to be curious about the things that can grow from grief.”
“You were given a tough pill to swallow. You’re going to have to decide how you want to walk from that point forward.” Freelon continued.
Beneath the Skin and the book are a part of the trilogy that started with Time Traveler. The singer agrees, “It’s a continuation of the journey. And it’s, it’s interesting. Sometimes you create art, and sometimes art creates you.”
