Jazz Articles about Champian Fulton

About Champian Fulton

Radio & Podcasts

Slide Hampton, Joe Pass, Woody Hermon & Champian Fulton

by Joe Dimino
June 18, 2023

From the always evolving pianist Champian Fulton, we begin the 807th Episode of Neon Jazz with a celebration of live music off her 2023 album Meet Me at Birdland. We follow that up with the legendary pianist Erroll Garner doing his rendition of “Lullaby of Birdland." From there, we dig into some vocal jazz with new music in Lauren Henderson, Roberta Donnay and Janice Borla. In between, we hear classic cuts from Slide Hampton, George Gershwin and Joe Pass. The ...

Album Review

Champian Fulton: Birdsong

Read "Birdsong" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
August 27, 2020

Champian Fulton was introduced to alto saxophonist Charlie Parker during her stay in the womb. The New York-based pianist/vocalist's father, Stephen Fulton held a high opinion ("The most beautiful music that ever was") of Charlie Parker With Strings (Verve, 1950), so he made a cassette tape of the recording and played it during his wife Susan's pregnancy: The sound waves of Charlie Parker and Orchestra traversing maternal flesh to burst into the domain of amniotic fluid to find their way ...

Album Review

Champian Fulton & Cory Weeds: Dream a little...

Read "Dream a little..." reviewed by Martin McFie

by Martin McFie
December 27, 2019

As pianist and vocalist Champian Fulton says, “ A duet is a unique setting." Released from the need for arrangements, she and alto saxophonist Cory Weeds were free to roam, relaxed into the music without even drums or bass to consider. A pianist and singer is more used to the isolation of solo performance, but an alto saxophonist stands out in solo sections too. For his part in this Vancouver, BC, recording, Weeds remarked, “This is a live recording made ...

Live Review

Champian Fulton at The Jazz Corner

by Martin McFie
December 23, 2019

Champian Fulton The Jazz Corner Hilton Head Island December 20-21, 2019 By the time Christmas comes around, those old seasonal songs are worn out. They are exhausted by overexposure in elevators, shopping malls, and streamed everywhere for a whole month of every year. In complete contrast, a breath of sharp, fresh air breezed into The Jazz Corner, when charming Champian Fulton dropped into Hilton Head island with her quartet. They stopped on their way ...

Album Review

Champian Fulton: The Stylings Of Champian

Read "The Stylings Of Champian" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
October 30, 2018

Pianist/vocalist Champian Fulton may be the most charming person in the world. Even a short sip of her extensive internet presence (especially YouTube, with performances and interviews) reveals an artist who radiates the joy of creation with a luminescent personality. Her music reflects that personality, and--like the sounds of of Bud Powell and Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong--it lifts the spirit high. And swing? Like the best of them. The Stylings of Champian is Fulton's tenth ...

Album Review

Champian Fulton: Christmas With Champian

Read "Christmas With Champian" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
October 19, 2017

Pianist/vocalist Champian Fulton may be the only kindergartner in history to take a Charlie Parker CD into school for show and tell. The effect of her presentation on her classmates is uncertain, but she fought the good fight. Now, almost three decades after the “Bird Goes to Kindergarten" incident, Champian Fulton can be found on the bandstand and in the recording studio, coming into full bloom as a top tier jazz artist, with nine previous studio albums in ...

Album Review

Champian Fulton & Scott Hamilton: The Things We Did Last Summer

Read "The Things We Did Last Summer" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
August 5, 2017

Sometimes it's destiny. In the case of pianist/vocalist Champian Fulton: Her father, Stephen Fulton, is a jazz trumpeter who, early on, exposed his daughter to the sounds of classic jazz, to the exclusion of the then current popular sounds. Also, legendary trumpeter Clark Terry, Stephen's friend, hung around the Fulton house from Champian's earliest days, and slipped into a mentoring role for the young woman as she became a professional in her pre-teen years. But most tellingly, upon entering kindergarten ...