Rochester Jazz Festival

By naming her 2016 album Heart of Memphis, Robin McKelle was already paying heartfelt tribute to Southern soul. The gesture was far from incidental: it was at Stax Records, founded in Memphis in 1959, that the raw, organic, and deeply spiritual aesthetic of “Memphis soul” took shape.

For her appearance at the RJF 2026, the homage becomes even more explicit, as she revisits classics inseparable from the label’s legendary catalog. The Stax sound—marked by blazing horn sections and punchy, tightly locked rhythms—stands in sharp contrast to the smoother, more pop-oriented style crafted in Detroit by its rival, Motown.

Like her predecessors Carla Thomas, Otis Redding, and Isaac Hayes, Robin McKelle possesses a rare ability: she instinctively nestles her voice within the very spirit of the Memphis sound, breathing new life into an ethos and spirituality that time has scarcely faded.

It is therefore an absolute pleasure for her to present this project this year at the Rochester International Jazz Festival, reuniting her renowned band, The Flytones, and bringing this vibrant celebration of Stax soul to the stage with renewed energy and authenticity.