07
Aug
2013
Jessica Hernandez had a good story to tell about being signed by the venerable jazz label Blue Note Records. She canceled a meeting with the company's president in New York, and instead had him fly to Detroit to hear her in a loft space she created above her family's bakery.
She got a record deal.
That was a few years ago, and recently her tale turned more typical. Warner Music Group acquired the label from Universal (a deal that was finalized in July), and Hernandez - who had been working on her debut album - found herself in the classic music-industry lurch.
He's performed alongside such talents as Wynton Marsalis and Mel Tormé, and worked as personal assistant to jazz great Dick Hyman. He's toured nationally and internationally, landing everywhere from Paris' Bilboquet Jazz Club to Los Angeles' Playboy Mansion. He's been featured on Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion, and the soundtracks for The Aviator, Ghost World, and Boardwalk Empire.
