Two Artists with Omaha Ties Nominated for 2022 Grammys on Sunday Apr. 3
Tehillah Alphonso
by Leo Adam Biga
At 23, Omaha native Tehillah Alphonso is among the youngest nominees at the Apr. 3 Grammy Awards in Las Vegas. She’s an L.A. freelance composer, arranger, music director, session musician and background vocalist. The 2016 Omaha Marian graduate is nominated for her arrangement of the classic Sam Cooke tune, “A Change is Gonna Come,” for the choral group Tonality. She’s the lone woman and woman of color nominee in the Best Arrangement, Instruments and Vocals category.
“I’m genuinely just really excited,” Alphonso says. “I’m counting down the days at this point. My mom is flying in as my plus-one” (guest) to rock the red carpet at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
Alphonso was born in New Jersey to Nigerian-emigre parents. After a move to Ohio, she and her family (she’s the oldest of three sisters) resettled in Omaha. Everyone in her family is musical, but she’s the only one seriously pursuing music as a career.
In the Grammys’ 64-year history only a handful of women and one woman of color have won in two arrangement categories. Alphonso wants to change that narrative.
“I’m really hoping this is able to open more doors for women and women of color and people of color to be listened to and to be invited into this space. It’s not just about me. It’s about a whole population of people that’s been neglected in the music industry that need to be heard and that have so much to say and to offer.”
“I’m really hoping this is able to open more doors for women and women of color and people of color to be listened to and to be invited into this space. It’s not just about me.”
She made history as the first Black woman named Outstanding Graduate of the Popular Music Performance program at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music.
Breaking new ground, she says, “is awesome.”
She initially wrote her arrangement of the Cooke classic for the Los Angeles National Children’s Chorus, who knew her from mentoring work she did with them. When they sought a Black Lives Matter solidarity piece, she delivered. Tonality founder-artistic director Andrew Lloyd Blake also worked with the group and when the original arrangement proved too difficult for children, he asked if his adult choir could take it on. “And the rest is history,” says Alphonso, referring to Tonality’s viral video performance.
Terrace Martin Nomination
Alphonso isn’t the only artist with area ties nominated for a 2022 Grammy. Noted Los Angeles R&B musician and producer Terrace Martin, who spent summers in Omaha as a boy, is up (his fourth time) with pianist, composer, arranger and frequent collaborator Robert Glasper for the progressive R&B album Dinner Party: Dessert. The pair, who met in jazz camp, scored the new Fresh Prince from Bel Air.
Terrace Martin
“In the ‘90s my dad had the L.A. Blues Band in Omaha. It was very influential to me. I would go with him to his gigs. The saxophone player was my uncle, Richie Love. He really took me under his wing. They played all this different music. It’s never left me.”
Martin is a rare force in both jazz and hip hop, having worked with everyone from Snoop Dogg, Kamasi Washington and Kendrick Lamar to Herbie Hancock and Quincy Jones. He credits Omaha, where his veteran drummer father Curly Martin resides, as where it all began.
“In the ‘90s my dad had the L.A. Blues Band in Omaha. It was very influential to me. I would go with him to his gigs. The saxophone player was my uncle, Richie Love. He really took me under his wing. They played all this different music. It’s never left me.” The Martins often chilled at the home of the late musician, Preston Love Sr., whom Curly played with. “It was a house of jazz, a house of music. It was where I first heard Charlie Parker’s Round Midnight. Omaha is the root of all my endeavors musically. I keep Omaha close to my heart.”
Curly Martin
“He’s been around music all his life. From the time he was born all he heard was Coltrane and Miles. He didn’t have a choice.”
Terrace and Curly Martin Photo credit: Omaha performing arts
Terrace is well-versed with Omaha’s music landscape. “He knows all the cats,” says Curly. Father and son have performed at the Holland with fellow Omaha music veterans. The father never doubted his son would end up a player. “He’s been around music all his life. From the time he was born all he heard was Coltrane and Miles. He didn’t have a choice.”
In 2017 father and son were Grammy nominated for their R&B album Velvet Portraits recorded at Omaha’s Make Believe Studios. It contains a song Terrace wrote titled “Curly Martin.” He says doing the project meant the world to him. “My father is my biggest musical hero. He really is a true artist, master teacher and genius at the art. Doing it in the motherland, aka Omaha, made it full circle, man. I came back to the place where my musical foundation arose from.”
The Grammy recognition was the first for the father. “It was a good feeling, We had fun doing it, too. It was cool. It’s a good album,” Curly says.
Curly skipped the Grammys that year to work on some tracks. He may or may not make the event this weekend. Terrace will be there. They plan sharing the stage at west coast venues and booking L.A. recording sessions this spring.
Nebraska musicians in the news
Nebraskans are gaining recognition in music outside the Grammys, too:
Broadway musical theater performer Q. Smith is killing it in Come from Away.
Singer-songwriter Jocelyn, a Showtime at the Apollo and Undercover Boss veteran, is representing the state in NBC’s American Song Contest.
Hector Anchondo is gigging again after winning the 2020 International Blues Challenge during the pandemic.
Viral violinist and Husker alum Ezinma has played with Beyonce's all-female band, as well as Stevie Wonder, Joshua Bell and Yo Yo Ma. The Decca Records artist just released a new EP, Classical Bae.
Playwright Beaufield Berry’s Buffalo Women: A Black Cowgirl Musical Dramedy, with music by J. Isaiah Smith of Omaha, makes its regional premiere at the Blue Barn Theatre May 26 - June 19.
stage-screen actor John Beasley will make his Broadway debut in the musical The Notebook in 2023.
Left: Jocelyn. Photo credit Iron Mike Savoia. Right: Hector Anchondo. Photo credit Laura Carbone
The freshest face in this constellation of emerging and established stars is Alphonso. The Grammy nod is the latest turn in her fast tracking career. Mere months after graduating USC she arranged the track “Silent Night” on Earcandy’s debut album with Republic Records. She’s since performed with other major artists in recording sessions for TV and movie soundtracks, including the hit Disney animated film Encanto.
“Things have accelerated so quickly that everything I was hoping would happen down the road is happening now,” she says.
Since her nomination became public, she says, “the caliber of the music I get to write and the caliber of the people I get to work with has increased. Opportunities that weren’t accessible to me because I wasn’t known in the industry are now being opened up. That’s been the biggest change— just getting to be able to open up my music and my talent to a bigger audience.”
Having already achieved in two years what she figured would take much longer, she says, “This is the first time in a really long time I’m not really sure what I want to do (next).”
Her multi-skill versatility offers options across genres and mediums in L.A.’s intensely competitive music business, where, she says, “It seems everyone is competing for the same five spots. If the pandemic and music industry has taught me anything, it’s that I’m really in control of nothing. I’m letting things play out and making myself open to any opportunities that come. As they come, maybe I’ll have a clearer vision of what I want to do. But right now I’m okay not knowing, not working towards anything yet.
“I do know I want to be able to bring more people into the industry to make it a more accessible place. That’s my goal in this whole process.”
She ascribes her own rapid ascent to the growth she made at prestigious arts camps, programs, workshops she auditioned for and won invites to while still in high school and to the rigorous preparation she received at USC.
Curly Martin is thrilled to see an Omaha youngblood making her mark so soon on the scene. If the 78-year-old could advise her it would be to never take anything for granted.
“You’ve got to practice your craft every day for the rest of your life, and I mean every day. ”
“The main thing she has to do is just stay on top of her game. You’ve got to practice your craft every day for the rest of your life, and I mean every day. You’ve got to stay on it. That’s the name of the game. There’s no time to slack off at all. That’s what I tell all young musicians.”
Terrace Martin advises, “Focus on what you love and don’t take no for an answer.” He adds what Herbie Hancock told him: “Fall in love with challenges and be obsessed with breakthroughs.”
Even six decades into his journeyman career, Curly says. “All I think about is music every day. I’m always doing something in music.”
“Focus on what you love and don’t take no for an answer.”
The mature-beyond-her-years Alphonso knows she’s beaten the odds as a working musician.
“Everyone is moving here (L.A.) to try to do the music thing because it’s the center of the industry. Not everyone makes it. People have to work jobs to make ends meet. I am so aware of that fact.
“I’m just grateful I’m able to do what I love full-time as a career. That’s all I can ask for.”
