Roberta Donnay

Musicians can take on the role of anthropologist, curious about what came before in music and how musicians reflected their world around them. Award- winning vocalist and songwriter Roberta Donnay is that rare species of musician who almost lives in another time, as she and her Prohibition Mob Band exist to revive the Jazz Age of America.

After two very enjoyable CDs of music from the 1920s-30s, Roberta Donnay and her Prohibition Mob Band continue their exploration of early jazz and swing with a tribute to one of the most influential figures in all of jazz. Donnay is possibly the first female singer to record a full-length project devoted exclusively to Louis Armstrong.

For My Heart Belongs To Satchmo, Roberta Donnay & the Prohibition Mob Band revive 15 songs from Armstrong's career. Avoiding the obvious hits, Donnay performs both superior obscurities and personal favorites.

"'My Heart Belongs To Satchmo' is such a joyful project for me," adds Donnay, "I wanted to capture the heart of Satchmo and the love that we have of his music." Ms. Donnay, her arrangers, and the musicians of the Prohibition Mob Band succeed at paying a loving tribute to the great Satchmo.

- Scott Yanow, jazz journalist/historian

Featured performers on the recording are Donnay’s Prohibition Mob Band: John R. Burr, piano; Sam Bevan, bass; Deszon Claiborne, drums; Rich Armstrong, coronet/trumpet; Sheldon Brown, clarinet; Mike Rinta, trombone, Matt Baxter, guitar. Guest artists: Annie Stocking, background vocals on "Pennies From Heaven".

"Bathtub Gin", listed as One Of The Best Albums 2015 in DownBeat Magazine, is another significant achievement in Donnay’s colorful and productive career as a producer, performer and songwriter. Always writing, Donnay has had many of her songs selected for multiple TV and film placements and has served as a music supervisor for movies. Also a producer and a journalist, Donnay understands how music can help tell the story of issues and events. Her song "One World,” an ASCAP Composer Award-winning song, was selected as a world-peace anthem for the 50th Anniversary of the United Nations and was the theme for World Aids Day in South Africa.

A longtime resident of the Bay Area, Donnay has been a singer and percussionist with the iconic band Dan Hicks and The Hot Licks since 2005- 2016 and also performs still with "The Hot Licks". Her own band, The Prohibition Mob Band, is well known out west and tours frequently.

Shares Donnay, I’m honored to have the opportunity to record and perform this music, to carry forward a piece of this legacy, and I hope I can inspire others to re-discover this music and the reasons we fell in love with jazz.

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Album Review

What's Your Story by Michael P. Gladstone
Bathtub Gin by Dan Bilawsky
Blossom-ing! by Jack Bowers
Blossom-ing! by Pierre Giroux

" She is an endangered species." - Dr. Herb Wong

With her singularly enticing sound, few contemporary vocalists are as well suited to dustily vintage material as jazz-blues stylist Roberta Donnay. She affectively proved so three years ago when, teamed with her Prohibition Mob Band, she surveyed standards from the 1920s and ’30s on the charming A Little Sugar. Now she’s back for more. – Jazz Times

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. - All About Jazz

" She is an endangered species." - Dr. Herb Wong

DOWNBEAT MAGAZINE 4 stars **** Stylistic kind to flappers of the anything goes 1920s, Roberta Donnay has a silky, clean voice that is a small marvel of geniality, rarely dipping into touchy-feely cuteness. She's drawn to material from the canon of American songs recorded between the two world wars. So, on her fourth album, the San Francisco-based singer and arranger takes the measure of Bessie Smith's risque "Kitchen Man", the Boswell Sisters' finger- snapping "Put The Sun Back In The Sky", and bonbons associated with, among others, Josephine Baker, Peggy Lee and the unjustly obscure Annette Hanshaw. Donnay's sassy charm also envelopes her own retro-fun compositions, including the swing dance jamboree "Happy Feet". All the while, the well- groomed, jazz-inclined Prohibition Mob Band motors along spiritedly. – DownBeat 2015

Vocalist Roberta Donnay turned the swank Bel Air nightclub into a Roaring 20s speakeasy as she brought back the music and moxie from the Golden Age of jazz with her Prohibition Mob. As she’s displayed on her two albums, Ms Donnay’s allegiance is to the easy and accessible two beat swing of Tin Pan Alley, the kind that Al Capone might have enjoyed after a night of going out with the boys. - Jazz Weekly

Born in the wrong era, this little cup of sugar is here to remind us of the outspoken voice of women in society. – Whiskey Fest

"In keeping with our Women's History Month theme, we found two current singers who are investigating music of the 1920s and '30s and making it relevant today: Roberta Donnay and Diana Krall."- Linda Yohn, WEMU 89.1 Jazz.News.Blues.

Donnay's voice could make any classic material sound wondrous and timeless, but the fact that she digs so deep into American musical history — makes A Little Sugar not only sweet, but a recording that will stand the test of time.- All Music Guide

Once in awhile, a talent comes along that’s an undeniable force of nature. Roberta Donnay, the driving wheel behind Roberta Donnay and the Prohibition Mob Band, fits that description. - Music and More Arizona

Donnay takes old school jazz, makes it new cool and most of all makes it fun. It swings and it swings hard. Old school has never sounded better and Roberta Donnay is certainly a name to remember! (5 stars) — Brent Black's @Critical Jazz blog

"Her engagement with the lyrics, her supple sense of time and her soulful, little-girl timbre remind you of Billie Holiday." - Mike Zwerin, International Herald Tribune

"Mill Valley resident Roberta Donnay has long been one of the Bay Area's standout pop singer-songwriters. Now she's going home - to jazz. Her new compact disc, "What's Your Story," produced by the legendary Orrin Keepnews, is a revelation - soothing and seductive, softly scintillating. Her beautifully phrased vocals manage to be both innocent and worldly, subtle yet deeply moving. A versatile singer, Donnay can deliver the goods in swinging or slow and sultry style. Donnay makes every song her own." - Paul Freeman, Palo Alto Daily News

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