“I Won’t Dance” | NVCC Jazz Ensemble ft. Grace Comeau

I WON’T DANCE Performed by the NVCC Alexandria Jazz Ensemble Featuring vocalist Grace Comeau Produced by Fox & Anchor Sound Productions A jazz performance nearly left on the cutting-room floor finally finds its voice. Originally recorded on April 4, 2022, I Won’t Dance was captured as part of a live NVCC Alexandria Jazz Ensemble session celebrating the American jazz tradition and the songwriters who shaped it. When the intended vocalist was unable to complete the session, the performance remained unfinished and ultimately sat unreleased. More than two years later, vocalist Grace Comeau stepped in. During a break from Westminster Choir College, Comeau returned with Fox & Anchor Sound Productions to complete the missing vocal performance on August 24, 2024. A classically trained vocalist whose work spans opera, choral music, performance, and music education, Grace brought a playful elegance and expressive phrasing to the arrangement, finally giving the recording the voice it had been missing. The result is a performance completed across two moments in time: a working jazz ensemble preserved as it was originally captured, joined years later by the artist who ultimately allowed the piece to leave the cutting-room floor. Composed by Jerome Kern, I Won’t Dance has its own history of rediscovery. First written for the 1934 musical Three Sisters, the song was given new life for the 1935 film Roberta, with revised lyrics by Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh, and became forever associated with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Nearly ninety years later, this recording experienced a small resurrection of its own. What began as an unfinished session became a celebration of collaboration, preservation, live musicianship, and the enduring ability of a great song to find another life.