Swedish vocalist Jade Ell has built a multifaceted career spanning commercial songwriting success, private instruction, solo releases and participation in three separate groups. Her approach to music took shape across repeated international relocations that supplied both experiences and thematic material for her work. Raised in Karlstad, she played piano and performed in jazz venues plus her local church choir while still a teenager. Extensive travels followed, including a period herding sheep in Israel and another spent at the Swedish Consulate in San Diego. During her time in the United States she reconnected with relatives in Chicago, whose encouragement prompted her to treat music as a profession. In 1992 she moved back to Sweden and enrolled for vocal training at Stockholm’s Kulturama school. After completing the program she cut an initial demo and returned to America. At a post-ceremony gathering following the 1996 Grammys she met musician and producer Richard Péay, whose interest led to ongoing collaboration that helped define her personal sound. To prepare her debut album she again went to Sweden and teamed with songwriter Jorgen Elofsson on Promises and Prayers, issued in 1999. The record contained the single “Got to Let You Go,” which earned substantial rotation on Swedish and Danish stations and was named Record of the Week by The Tip Sheet, along with “Rivers, Colors & Miles.” Following the 2002 release “Shallow World,” she delivered her second album, the Mats Hedström-produced Methods (of a Hostage Negotiator), in 2005. She also translated Douglas Pashley’s Spin: The Musical during those years. Continued work with Hedström yielded the hit “Feliz Cumpleaños,” included on RBD’s Latin Grammy-nominated and chart-topping 2006 album Nuestro Amor. The pair supplied material for artists based in Mexico, Denmark, Japan and Australia. Ell’s art-rock project Xanima, whose sound recalled the work of Enigma, Evanescence and Kate Bush, appeared in 2009 with the album Inside Warrior. The group later issued the 2011 single “For the Glory of the Young” and the 2014 album Prototype: Homo Sapiens. In 2010, recording under the name Ellen—identical to that of her biological grandmother—she self-produced the solo album Mourning This Mourning, whose songs drew directly from that family connection. Another ensemble, Band of Jade, placed Ell on piano and vocals and released the single “How to Find Xmas” in 2012. With Hedström she formed the folky-pop duo Tiny Tornado, whose debut album Echoes and Rhymes arrived in 2013. She continues to conduct private lessons and songwriting workshops at European music schools.
