Home » Member Page

Nina Sheldon

From the New Yorker: "Nina Sheldon plays like a demon and sings like a living doll."

About Me

Nina Sheldon, Jazz Pianist and Vocalist Phone: 845-679-4041 Email: [email protected]; Address: 113 Meadow Court, Woodstock, NY 12498 After a detour into the medical arts, Nina’s returned to active performing. In June, she backed up alto player and former Mingus sideman John Handy at the Healdsburg Jazz Festival, led a quartet at California’s ’08 Benicia Jazz Festival, opened the ‘06 Russian River Jazz Festival, and has been invited back to play the Benicia Festival in 2010. In New York, she and Illinois Jacquet’s tenor man Hugh Brodie co-led a band at the ’07 Wall Street Jazz Festival. Marian McPartland featured her on NPR’s “Piano Jazz” in ‘04, and this past March, on NPR’s “What Is a Jazz Singer?” Bobby McFerrin said that she sings with “attitude and authenticity.” Also in 2009, she’s led trios at NY state jazz havens Justin’s in Albany and the Stockade in Schenectady. The Jazzed Media label released Nina’s new CD, “Harvest”, on April 14. John Menagon (Dewey Redman) is on bass, Bob Meyer (John Abercrombie) plays drums. Ray Charles’ great tenor man, David ‘Fathead’ Newman, is featured on several tracks. The trio will play at Smalls in NYC on October 20th. During the ‘70s and ‘80s, Nina led bands at the Newport Jazz Festival and the Kool Jazz Festival and powered the Village Gate’s house band for 4 years, opening for Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus, Art Blakey, and Stan Getz. Credits include the Montauk Jazz Festival, Kansas City Jazz festival, and Guadeloupe Jazz Festival with Clifford Jordan and Joe Chambers. At the Blue Note in Paris, she led a quartet opposite bop innovator Kenny Clarke. Jazz was flourishing in NYC ― she toured with Johnny Hartmann, played with Sonny Stitt, George Coleman, Jane Ira Bloom, Bobby Shew, and led duos and trios at New York City’s Sweet Basil, Bradley’s, Knickerbocker, and Zinno’s with sidemen Al Foster, Eddy Gomez, Cecil McBee, and Buster Williams. Her album, ”Secret Places,” which featured Dave Liebman and Eddy Gomez, was named one of the top 20 jazz releases of 1987 by Dr. Herb Wong, president of Concord Records. “Brilliant application of lyrics to the bop tradition . . . a strong first album,” said Jazz Times. John S. Wilson of the New York Times called her playing “brilliantly swinging” and remarked on her “strong presence as pianist, singer and writer of lyrics that are funny, outrageous and even wistful.” According to the New Yorker, Nina “plays like a demon and sings like a living doll.”