After receiving her first-ever Grammy nomination last week, for her sophomore album Journey in Black (2023), beloved D.C.-based vocalist Christie Dashiell gave credit to the city that she has called home for the better part of two decades.

“It feels amazing,” Dashiell told CapitalBop, referring to her nomination in the Best Jazz Vocal Album category. “It feels less like it’s me getting this nomination, and more like this is the community getting this nomination: the D.C. music community, my band, my parents, my friends, Howard.”

She added: “This is for all of us.”

The nomination is only the latest accomplishment in what has become one of the most prominent careers of any D.C.-area jazz musician in recent memory.

Journey in Black features an all-star cast of musicians, including Romeir Mendez on bass, Allyn Johnson on keyboards, Christie’s brother C.V. Dashiell III on drums, Shedrick Mitchell on organ and Marquis Hill on trumpet. These are not just session musicians, but a tight unit with which Dashiell has been working for years. “It means so much to have a band that has been not only my musical partners, but also my life partners,” she said.

A set of seven original tunes and two freshly arranged standards, Journey in Black (which was also recognized as one of CapitalBop’s top D.C. jazz albums of 2023) provides the most holistic portrait of Dashiell’s artistry to date. She said that as soon as she began post-production, she knew the collection she had assembled was special.

Journey in Black “has all kind of musical themes and generational themes, like love, legacy, joy, grief,” the singer said. “I was like: Okay, this is really strong.”

The Recording Academy nod makes Dashiell the first area-based jazz vocalist to receive a Grammy nomination since 2004, when Shirley Horn earned her ninth Grammy nod for May the Music Never End. (Horn is the only D.C.-based vocalist to win this award, having done so in 1999 for her album I Remember Miles.)

Dashiell, 36, credited a strong group of women supporters and mentors – particularly Dianne Reeves, Terri Lyne Carrington and her own manager, Michelle Taylor – with helping to nurture not only her music, but the environment in which that music has been able to bloom. “It’s the women that have really given me the access and support, and more than anything, the confidence that I could actually do this,” she said.

Dashiell has also recently received two awards aimed specifically at lifting up women and non-binary voices in jazz: Chamber Music America’s Performance Plus grant and New Music America’s Next Jazz Legacy fellowship. She said those prizes were helpful in allowing her to bring this album into the world. “Historically, we don’t get some of the same support and the same light shone on us that others outside of that community do,” she said of her female counterparts in jazz.

Though the nomination announcement took her by surprise, Dashiell said that she had felt confident since she was a child that her voice in music could merit a high level of recognition. “For a long time, I knew that this was something that would happen for me, in a really strange way,” she said. “I always felt like I had something special, and something to offer this world, from an artistic place. And I knew that one day people would see it and feel the same thing. But it took a really long time for me to get there, and not let the doubt put a damper on the belief I had.”

Still, Dashiell was floored when the announcement arrived. “Every night when I go to sleep, I have to look at it just to make sure that it actually happened.”

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