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Amanda King
A fast rising jazz chanteuse with dead-on musical smarts and a great voice!
About Me
Amanda is a classic chanteuse who performs little known gems from the
1930’s and 40’s, as well as jazz standards and popular songs from the
Great American Songbook. Possessing a smoothness of voice and surety
of style, she has been hailed in the New York Times as one of the nightclub
world’s “exceptional rising talents”. Combining the best of jazz and
cabaret by focusing on the words, the music, and the swing, Amanda
masterfully interprets the music she adores.
A native of Indianapolis IN, and having lived in New York, Paris and Los
Angeles, from an early age Amanda was a frequent actor in regional
productions and was one of the youngest Apprentices at the famed Actors
Theater of Louisville. Acting was her focus but music was always a part of
her life. A professional singer only since 2007 with her heralded debut in the
one woman show It's About Damn Time at San Francisco's New
Conservatory Theater Center, she found herself with a following that wanted
to hear more. In 2008, she continued to combine her theatrical and musical
gifts garnering critical acclaim as “Queenie” in Duke Ellington’s rarely
performed jazz opera, “Queenie Pie”, produced by the Oakland Opera
Theater. Later that year, Amanda performed with the prestigious San
Francisco Chamber Orchestra singing Gershwin songs arranged for the
orchestra by Bay Area jazz icon Jeff Neighbor.
In the last four years Amanda has performed for audiences large and small
throughout the greater Bay Area, Los Angeles, and New York including
appearances at the Empire Plush Room, Bimbo’s 365 Club, Jazz at
Pearl’s, Bliss Bar and the Herbst Theater. She has performed at the
Fillmore Jazz Festival, the North Beach Festival and the Castro Street
Festival. She has appeared numerous times at The RRazz Room in SF
with her last shows in May 2011 with “The Swing of Things”. The three
nights she performed, accompanying her were
entirely different groups of musicians who, with Amanda, played much the
same repertoire but offered very different interpretations. At the RRazz
Room in November 2010, Amanda’s show “Forgotten Women, Lost Songs”
again garnered critical raves including a superlative review in the San
Francisco Chronicle saying “King is unquestionably an emerging star. Her
instrument is both special and often irresistible”. She debuted this show in
October at The Metropolitan Room in New York City the night after she
performed to wild applause at the New York Cabaret Convention presented
by The Mabel Mercer Foundation at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater.
Having built a solid base in Palm Desert/Indian Wells, Amanda enjoys
repeat performances with the seven piece Desert Cities Jazz Band at
Vicky’s of Santa Fe. She has also returned to her hometown of Indianapolis
IN to perform in the critically acclaimed Indy Jazz Fest.
Amanda’s first CD “Chanteuse” celebrates the music she loves. Working
with her regular trio of well known jazz artists, Shota Osabe, Jeff Neighbor,
and Surya Nur Patri, Amanda’s labor of love and life was recorded at the
famous Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, California.
.
Listening and re-listening to the eleven cuts of Amanda King's
Chanteuse, one is drawn to the singer's up-beat approach and lyrical
line. King delivers whimsy in the soul and depth in the swing.
Rita Kohn, NUVO newsweekly