w Eddie Green; from The Best of the 4th Annual Brooklyn Folk Festival

Jessy Carolina is a contemporary Jazz singer with a real old-timey singing voice. Perhaps her greatest performance has been on the soundtrack to 2013's similarly old-timey Bioshock Infinite, whereon she sang the legendary title menu version of "After You've Gone" (regrettably not given an official release):

She also sang the in-game rendition of the delightful original Bluegrass song "Wild Prairie Rose":

And she was the little girl singing "Fortunate Son" too:

Today we have a live recording of another Jazz standard, performed by Carolina and her band the Hot Mess at the 2012 Brooklyn Folk Festival (they say all music is folk music after all). This version of "A Good Man is Hard to Find" starts out bare and understated, very judiciously putting Jessy's vocals up front before the rest of the band eventually comes in...

After a recent period of health issues, Jessy and her most latest band the Holy Crow Jazz Band are back performing in their native Greater L.A. area. This is the kind of group that's really worth seeing live, and hearing...

And speaking of live, this year's Brooklynn Folk Festival is November 10th - 12th and they're celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Smithsonian's Folkways record label with some very big names - among them, Ramblin' Jack Elliott and Peggy Seeger. If you're in the New York area it sounds like it's going to be a weekend to remember...

The Brooklynn Folk Festival has been celebrating Folk and Americana since 2009, and has featured some great performers in its time. Also appearing on the 4th annual festival album are the fabulous Piedmont Bluz duo (non-concurrent footage):

and Blind Boy Paxton (also a member of the Hot Mess):

They got some good stuff nowadays...

For more like Jessy Carolina, her cross-country rivals Tuba Skinny have appeared here a couple of times. And there's also the Central Avenue Jazz Festival in LA tomorrow, Saturday the 23rd. It's free as hell, and possibly not hot as hell this year...