On this episode of Meet Me in Music, host Neil Salsich sits down with award-winning jazz vocalist, bassist, bandleader, and composer Janet Evra for a conversation about immigration, discovery, the St. Louis jazz scene, and building an international career from the Midwest.

Janet shares how a gap year that brought her from Gloucester, England to Principia College in 2006 evolved into a lifelong home in St. Louis. What started as a singer-songwriter path inspired by Joni Mitchell turned toward jazz almost by accident — first through a life-changing encounter with a Getz/Gilberto bossa nova record as a teenager, then through her husband Will, when the two of them decided, early in their marriage, to simply start playing the jazz songs they both loved. That decision led Janet to buy a bass off Craigslist and teach herself an instrument that's now central to her sound.

The conversation explores place, community, and the tension between staying rooted and reaching beyond it. Janet discusses her forthcoming album of Burt Bacharach music, recorded at Midtown Sound House in Grand Center and set for release ahead of a September 25th show at City Winery, as well as her online video series St. Louis Music Box, which has connected her with Grammy-winning collaborators far beyond St. Louis.

Neil and Janet also dive into the global life of jazz — from Django Reinhardt and Édith Piaf's wartime Paris to bossa nova's journey from Brazil back into American pop — the realities of touring internationally as a St. Louis-based artist, and why building bridges beyond your hometown scene matters as much as being rooted in it. Along the way, they talk singing craft, scat, and the bass players and vocalists who shaped Janet's ear.

More than anything, this episode is about welcome — finding a hometown 5,000 miles from where you started, discovering an art form later in life than you'd expect, and using music as a bridge between St. Louis and the wider world.

They discuss:

• Leaving Gloucester, England for a gap year at Principia College in 2006
• Falling into jazz almost by accident, through her husband Will
• Buying a bass on Craigslist and teaching herself to play
• Growing up in a "hi-fi" household with her dad's records — Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, and more
• What's good (and not-so-good) about the St. Louis jazz scene in 2026 — Blue Strawberry, Pepper, Webster University's jazz program
• Why St. Louis musicians struggle to break out and tour nationally and internationally
• Singing in French, Portuguese, and Spanish, and building a genre-hopping international sound
• Her bossa nova album Love in Rio and the forthcoming Burt Bacharach record
• St. Louis Music Box, her online collaboration series with Grammy-winning guests
• The vocalists and bass players — from Ella Fitzgerald to Esperanza Spalding — who shaped her musical ear
• What she misses (and doesn't) about England, and what St. Louis vs. Europe taught her about pace of life

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