Jazz Articles about Roberta Donnay
About Roberta Donnay
Instrument: Voice / vocals
Article Coverage | Calendar | Albums | Photos | Similar ArtistsRoberta Donnay: Blossom-ing!
by Pierre Giroux
Pianist, vocalist and composer Blossom Dearie may have been diminutive in stature and voice but certainly never in talent. She began her career in New York in the mid 1940s and then moved to Paris in the early 1950s to form the vocal group The Blue Stars, which eventually morphed into the Swingle Singers. Returning to the US in the 1960s, she began a solo career and gained international recognition through her wry interpretation of unusual song choices as well ...
read moreRoberta Donnay: Blossom-ing!
by Jack Bowers
Blossom-ing! is vocalist Roberta Donnay's tribute to one of the most memorable jazz singers who ever lived, Blossom Dearie. She does so via sixteen songs associated with Dearie including Billie Holiday's “Billie's (or Blossom's) Blues," retitled here “Roberta's Blues." After leading with that one, Donnay lends her tremulous little-girl voice (eerily similar to Dearie's) to one of Dearie's best-known themes, “Peel Me a Grape," before scanning the others. Unlike Dearie, Donnay doesn't accompany herself at the piano, ...
read moreRoberta Donnay & The Prohibition Mob Band: Bathtub Gin
by Dan Bilawsky
Roberta Donnay is a Jazz Age preservationist, guardian of Depression-era sounds, and extender of traditions, but her music isn't covered with cobwebs or dated in any way. On Bathtub Gin, this singer-composer puts a new coat of paint on the songs of the '20s and '30s, contributes originals sympathetic to the sounds of those times, and conjures thoughts of life during prohibition. Across fifteen tracks, Donnay and her group--the aptly-titled Prohibition Mob Band--deliver snappy statements, sly songs, ...
read moreRoberta Donnay: What's Your Story
by Michael P. Gladstone
Bay Area singer Roberta Donnay has an usual past for a jazz vocalist. She already has several albums and a fan base, but according to her website these songs have been in the category of electro-chill-ambient jazz, smooth jazz, trance music, acid jazz, etc. Her initial jazz vocal experience was at the 2003 Monterey Jazz Festival, where she appeared with saxophonist Dave Ellis (who appears on this album), but What's Your Story is her first recorded venture in jazz singing. ...
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