By Mekhi Abbott
Special to the AFRO
mabbott@afro.com
It was an otherwise ordinary day in New York City when a chance meeting changed the trajectory of Jean Baylor’s life forever. The singer was in search of a drummer for a showcase in which she was scheduled to perform when she crossed paths with musician Marcus Baylor. What would result from that connection was something neither her nor her future husband would have expected.
“We met on a Tuesday afternoon in front of the legendary jazz club, The Blue Note in New York City…. I remember he was walking down the street and he gave an unhoused gentleman some money, and I was like ‘Oh, that was really nice.’ But he admitted a couple months later that he saw me looking and that is when he took the money out,” said Baylor.
Jean and Marcus Baylor now have a fruitful marriage and sonic connection that has resulted in them receiving critical acclaim and a myriad of awards. But it is their love and affinity for music that has been the foundation for their partnership in life and their profession.
Love
If you ask most people, they would advise you not to mix business with pleasure. The Baylors, however, have been able to blend their marriage and musical vocations to create The Baylor Project — a seven-time Grammy-nominated and NAACP Image Award-winning musical duo.
“Music brought us together,” said Jean Baylor.
Prior to the inception of The Baylor Project, both Jean and Marcus were working musicians in groups that had already seen great success. Marcus Baylor was formerly a drummer for the Grammy Award-winning band The Yellowjackets. Jean Baylor was one-half of the platinum-selling R&B duo, Zhané.
Jean Baylor, a New Jersey native and Temple University graduate, can thank fellow Northeastern native and musician Orrin Evans for connecting her with the man who would go on to become her husband and business partner.
“I was doing a showcase for ASCAP , and I needed a drummer. Orrin Evans, a good friend of ours, was on the gig… So I told Orrin that I need a drummer and he’s like ‘Yo, I just ran into my boy, Marcus Baylor. He used to play for The Yellowjackets.’ So I paged him,” said Jean Baylor.
It was not long before the professional connection blossomed into a romantic relationship between the two musicians, who have now been married for 22 years.
“There was a vibe from the first time we met,” said Jean Baylor. “But Eric Robertson (rapper and songwriter) told me during the actual showcase that he thought he saw fall in love from the way he looked at me.”
Partnership
Balancing both their marriage and their creative partnership has led to some bumps in the road, but Marcus and Jean Baylor have done a good job juggling both.
“It’s chemistry,” said Marcus Baylor. “I’m a sports guy, so of course you have your ups and downs. You have your disagreements. But at the same time, there’s nothing like doing music with your best friend.”
In fact, both Marcus and Jean Baylor use their background in athletics to push each other and it allows them to engage in friendly competition. Jean Baylor was a Division 1 lacrosse player at Temple and Marcus grew up playing basketball.
“Everything with him is a sports analogy. We’ll be talking about business strategies and he’ll be like, ‘You see, when Kobe was on the Lakers…,’” said Jean Baylor. “But definitely requires space. It requires understanding each other’s strengths and weaknesses and how to kind of supplement those things. He’s like a visionary…. He’s a marketing guy and that’s his space. I’m like the art director. I handle more of the administrative stuff.”
One of the things the Baylors admittedly struggle with, however, is knowing when to detach themselves from work.
“When you’re a business owner—like we run our own label and do everything independently—a lot of times it could be hard to find balance because you’re steadily pushing to get to the next level,” said Marcus Baylor. “There’s a lesson learned every day. There always new goals.”
Music
If you look at how accomplished The Baylor Project is today, you would likely be shocked to hear that the duo almost never came to fruition.
“I came out the shower and I said, ‘Hey, we should start this band called The Baylor Project. In jazz, you know, just getting back to that style.’ But she said that it was a dumb idea,” said Marcus Baylor.
The Baylor Project is more than just a jazz duo, though; they are soul, they make gospel music and they received their third Grammy nomination for Best Traditional R&B after releasing their single “Sit on Down.”
In March, The Baylor Project got the opportunity to perform at the Library of Congress. Curated by music specialist and concert producer Claudia Morales, the sold-out performance received a warm reception from the Washington crowd.
“When I curated this series, I looked for different jazz styles, different segments of what jazz is supposed to be. When I booked the Baylors, I really loved their uniqueness. They include jazz, they include gospel. They represent the Black experience. It is not one segment or silo; it is so many things,” said Morales. “The audience really connected to truth, and that is a testament to their reach. Everything was in sync and everything was so meaningful.”