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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

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