GRAMMY NEWS: The Baylor Project Earns Fourth GRAMMY® Nomination with 'Generations' (Be A Light)

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Generations, the second full-length album by The Baylor Project has been nominated for a GRAMMY Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album. This is the fourth GRAMMY nomination for the renowned duo, and second nomination in this category. The 64th annual GRAMMY Awards will take place on January 31, 2022.

The Baylor Project features vocalist Jean Baylor and drummer Marcus Baylor, who present nine original compositions and two covers on Generations. The record, released in June, celebrates the Black experience, its nuances and layers, and the universality of the human condition. While the majority of Generations was recorded prior to 2020, the coronavirus pandemic kept the project from reaching completion until 2021. The record features an overabundance of first-call collaborators including special guests Kenny Garrett, Dianne Reeves, Jazzmeia Horn, Jamison Ross, and Sullivan Fortner.

"We are extremely excited and grateful to have received our 4th GRAMMY nomination for Generations. Creating this body of work was an honor and labor of love that required us to dig beneath the surface to tell the story of who we are, " said The Baylor Project in a statement.

Musically, Generations pulls from married musical partners Marcus' and Jean's varied backgrounds rooted in the church, and steeped in soul, jazz, gospel and blues. Storytelling has always been central to The Baylor Project's creative output, and they have shown a particular adeptness at making their personal stories universally felt. They accomplish this and then some on Generations, which presents as a soulful sonic story quilt intentionally released on the eve of Juneteenth during Black Music Month.

Generations was released via their own independent record label, Be A Light, making this recognition all the more impressive. Their fourth GRAMMY nomination follows a 2020 nod to the single "Sit On Down" in the Best Traditional R&B Performance category and two 2017 nominations from their debut recording, The Journey, in the Best Jazz Vocal Album category and Best Traditional R&B Performance for the single "Laugh And Move On." A critical and commercial success, The Journey debuted at #1 on the iTunes Jazz Chart and #8 on the Billboard Jazz Chart upon release. Since its release in June, Generations collected parallel praise from top tier media outlets worldwide, including NPR, WBGO, Glide Magazine, a 4-star mark from Jazzwise and an 11-week run in the Top 5 of JazzWeek's radio chart.

The Baylor Project is made up of two music industry veterans. Before forming The Baylor Project in 2013, Jean Baylor burst onto the scene in the mid-1990's as part of the groundbreaking R&B duo Zhané. Marcus Baylor first rose to prominence in the early 2000's as the drummer for the world-renowned, GRAMMY Award winning fusion group The Yellowjackets. Both Marcus and Jean have performed and toured with various jazz legends, ranging from Kenny Garrett and John Scofield to Marcus Miller and Harold Mabern.

The Baylor Project is proud to be nominated alongside Kurt Elling and Charlie Hunter, Nnenna Freelon, Gretchen Parlato and Esperanza Spalding.

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