The day before the photoshoot consisted of a lot of rainfall and flash flood warnings were issued in a few areas. Out of worry, I messaged the owner of the location I booked for the the photoshoot with concerns on how the wet weather would affect the location. He assured me that there was no need for worry because the cabin sits on top of a hill. For the moment I felt at ease and a little foolish for getting worked up. The following morning crept up on the horizon and was taking its time to rise. After a wake and bake session with a bowl of cereal, I washed up, put on clothes, hopped in the car and headed towards Dallas. The location that was booked for this occasion was deep in a secluded neighborhood engulfed by trees. After a right turn and up a hill, I found myself at the bottom on a grassy hill with very small cabin sitting at the very top. The cabin was well furnished; it had air conditioning, a fridge, a stove, a bed, bathroom, and condiments. After a brief tour I took myself on, a grey suv pulled up and stepping out of the driver’s seat was Alex Blair; the full figured, curvaceous R&b/ Jazz singer I recently discovered on Instagram. She came dressed for the occasion: for the shoot I wanted her in something similar to 70’s fashion. With the help of her stylist and friend Sydnie Long, she was strutting in this brown suede dress with dark navy floral shirt, large hoop earrings, hair done & pinned back with a insect pendant, platform type heels, sunglasses and other accessories I may be missing.

It was on a sleepless, idle night when I came across Alex’s Instagram page. John Coltrane was playing his tunes through my speakers and I was searching for more jazz music to end the night with. I guess you can say stumbling onto her page was a coincidence. On the bio, it states that she had her music on Spotify so I typed her name in the search bar and shuffled. Moments later, I found myself reminiscing about the days in the mid 90’s; my mom would ride around with the windows down in the summer, cruising down Royal Lane blasting the radio station 107.5, the Oasis, an R&b/ jazz station at the time. Alex’s voice is distinguishable, feminine and vulnerable. If you listen carefully, you would be able to sense that she carries a cool, very chill demeanor about herself, behind her voice. To this day, the more upbeat song “I Need Your Love” and the soothing and sensual tune for secret lovers “Faithful” are on repeat whenever I turn on one of my playlists. At some point, I felt compelled to figure out who the woman behind the voice was.

Music has been embedded in Alex’s DNA since birth. A native of Portland, her immediate family is full of artists and musicians. Her dad is a drummer and singer and plays in “probably the top wedding band in New England”, Alex says. Her mom is an artist that loves oil painting and sculpting and also attended theater school. Her brothers are musicians as well. With starting piano lessons at the age of six, there was a never a moment where Alex wasn’t surrounded by music.

At school, Alex started to get heavily involved in the band programs and started playing the saxophone in the 5th grade. In middle school she figured it would make sense to experiment on different instruments, in hope of one day becoming a band director. She played the euphonium at one point, different variations of saxophone and the trombone. In her sophomore year, she started to take singing seriously and auditioned competitively at South Portland High School. In the midst of landing a couple of solo parts, the school’s band director noticed her singing skills and was impressed. From there she was offered to start singing for the jazz band, which lead her introduction into jazz. During her time in South Portland High, she loved the band program. They won a lot of competitions and traveled a lot. The choir program on the other hand was unsatisfactory. Alex did theater competitively as well. The school had a pretty big budget on musicals as well. In her junior year, the school decided to do “High School Musical”, the 2006 Disney Classic movie. The musical department ended up typecasting the actors & actresses and gave Alex the roll of the chubby girl in the movie. That left Alex feeling awful about herself. The following year, her senior year, she was offered the lead role in the musical “Hello, Dolly!”. The timing of the musical interfered with a jazz competition she was going to attend. She made the decision to attend the competition and the school ended up moving the date of the musical so Alex was able to attend both events.

After high school, she attended Ithaca College in Upstate New York for about a year and a half. She started off her studies in Music Education but quickly realized that didn’t want to teach classrooms. This caused her to switch to a performance degree and majored in Jazz Studies, where she felt more comfortable singing. In retrospect, it didn’t seem as if Alex wasn’t too pleased with her stay at Ithaca, “The Jazz school at Ithaca wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. When I initially went there, I was going because one of my favorite vocal group, NY Voices, attended there” she says, “ but the program was very different from when they went there. She describes her teacher as “backwards and stuck in her ways.” She then asked her high school band director for advise on where else she should go for school and the band director expressed to her that his dream school to attend was UNT (I never had knowledge of UNT having an amazing Jazz program until recently). That prompted Alex to check UNT out and sent in an audition tape. The outcome lead to her receiving a scholarship. After her move to Texas, she started school in spring 2011 and she went on to graduate in the summer of 2014.

A move out of Denton and into the big city of Dallas proved itself necessary for the jazz singer. The first area she landed in was the Bishop Arts District, by herself, across the street from her friend Joey, at the time. Her stay there was short lived because the owner of the building she lived in ended up selling out to a larger, corporate company and caused a $400 dollar increase on rent. After that it was time to relocate to Lewisville.

Shortly after the second move, she began to record the ep that I listen to occasionally. There was little to no budget on the production of this ep, which is a common trend that has occurred in this generation of artists. Everything was done in an at-home studio, expect for the drum track, it was recorded at a separate studio. With three engineers and no money back the project, she put her focus on the visual. “ Yea we spent a huge chunk of change on the video and it was a lot of fun!” The process of making the ep was very much enjoyable, all of her best friends participated in the making of it as well.

The first song recorded was Taste. She recalls living with her ex in Lewisville at the time when the song was conceived . They were recently gifted a piano from their boss, which she describes as “wild”. As she was sitting at the piano and playing a chord progression, they started singing along and event created the hook for “Taste”. She really liked the vibe and style of the song and decided to keep it. One of Alex’s goals was making sure each song was different from the rest. “Each song has a story, it has a story, it has a feeling.” Alex expresses. The track “Guide Me” is one of her favorite tracks. At that time in her life, she was going to a rough patch, as things she was surrounded by were “questionable”. In her words, the song “Faithful “ is a precursor to Guide me. “It’s [Faithful] the last song on the ep so it’s the least amount of views...but it was interesting because it was more story telling and less catchy hooks.” Overall, during the process, she enjoyed the amount of fun she was having making music and enjoying it with the people she loved.

At this time, she had a full time job teaching private lessons to high school students and eventually helping them land shows. Her job was 6 days a week and making pretty good money. Alex came to a realization after one of students that she got a gig for, ran late and ending up not performing. She figured instead of getting her students on shows, put herself onto these shows. Dallas was the first place she reached out to for paid gigs. In the beginning, she started out performing at small coffee shops. Her first real opportunity to perform with a band was at Drugstore Cowboy in Deep Ellum, which is now closed. A gentleman by the name of Duane Berry gave Alex the opportunity to perform right before Cure for Paranoia every week at Drugstore. For those who don’t know, Drugstore Cowboy has open windows on the side of the building and they were usually open. People would come from across the street, around the corner, from restaurants to match a face to Alex’s singing voice. These days, if she’s not on tour, you can find her at The Mitchell every Thursday night, The Freeman twice a month and Twlight every other month. The plan on coming out with new music is imminent.

When asked about her recent modeling career, she stated that she doesn’t consider herself a “real” model but she is offered paid opportunities. Initially, she wanted content for her music and Instagram. After she started collaborating with friend and photographer Paul, she gained more followers on Instagram. This helped her gain opportunities from Forever 21 and Adam & Eve lingerie.

To visit her website, click her image below