Results for "San Francisco Bay Area"

Katerina Brown

Born: July 16, 1982

Born in 1982 in a small town outside St. Petersburg, Katerina Brown was drawn to music as an infant. Jazz and American records were still hard to come by in the waning years of the Soviet Union, but she soaked up her father’s albums by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. Studying classical music throughout her adolescence, she started performing in local clubs as a teenager, singing mostly blues and standards. Ambitious and eager to learn more, she moved to St. Petersburg at 19 and quickly fell in with a cadre of young musicians who loved and played jazz. A savvy bandleader by 21, she started performing regularly at the Red Lion Blues Club, which was owned by an American, and spent the next five years working steadily around the city as a blues singer

Laura Karst

Music critics and fans praise Laura Karst’s warm and smooth alto voice, her interpretation of lyrics as a true storyteller, and her versatility as a singer of a wide range of jazz styles, and in a variety of languages. She can swing hard and scat, or get an infectious bossa nova or samba groove going, and she will hold you emotionally captive as she sings her ballads.

San Francisco Bay Area jazz vocalist Laura Karst used to surprise her audiences when they learned that, by day, she was the chair of a prominent college’s French department, up until her retirement in 2017

Chip Boaz

Chip Boaz plays Latin Jazz with the bass on top. Six string bass highs and lows form the foundation for your musical experience. Melodic bass solos glide through a sea of Afro-Cuban rhythms and electronic sounds. Strong bass lines anchor contemporary sounds in the landscape of both Afro-Cuban and Jazz traditions. Infectious grooves inspire your feet to dance and your ears to listen a little closer. It's Latin Jazz with an emphasis on the low end, created to move you! Chip built the foundation for his musical explorations through early years of academic study. Chip’s teenage life was spent in high school bands and at-home garage bands, which inspired him to turn his passion for performance into a career

Robert Kennedy

Born: February 27, 1966

Robert Kennedy plays jazz organ, piano, and accordion in freelance solo and group settings, and is the accordionist in the acclaimed group Mission Hot Club.

Born and raised in the American South, Robert has lived and worked in the San Francisco bay area since 1988. He played piano in the Stanford University Jazz Band and studied jazz piano with the great jazz pianist, band director, and educator Bill Bell. Robert helped found the groups Hip Pocket Jazz Quintet and Double Funk Crunch, and has had the pleasure of playing venues such as Yoshi's, the Boom Boom Room, the Agenda Lounge (back in the day) and the SFJAZZ Miner Auditorium with renowned players such as Nancy Wright, Calvin Keys, Will Weston, Terrence Brewer, and many more, playing jazz, blues, R&B, and rock and roll. Among his many inspirations Robert counts the playing of Jack McDuff, Billy Childs, Larry Goldings, Herbie Hancock, and Tony Monaco.

Tim Leong

Joan Minor

From San Francisco and Paris, Jazz vocalist Joan Minor interprets Jazz standards with soul-stirring veracity. As a solo performer, she has performed worldwide in the U.S.A, Europe and Africa, particularly San Francisco, New York, Berlin, Zermatt, Athens and Paris, where she is now based. Her first CD ‘Integrity Matters’, which was recorded in Paris, warranted praise by the iconic Blues legend, Mr. B.B. King. Joan is formally trained in voice, violin and piano and has deeply studied the Jazz masters. She broadened her Jazz expression under the tutelage of Patti Cathcart, New York Broadway artist June Smith, Phil Matson and the legendary Barry Harris

Joan Torres

Bassist and composer Joan Torres has lead the Jazz Fusion ensemble All Is Fused since 2011. With 3 albums released to date, multiple award nominations, and the Vox Pop award for the Fusion Album category of the 14th Annual IMAs, the ensemble has been described as going "far beyond complex musical ideas managing to weave in a true sonic narrative" in their music (Music News 2016). Throughout several releases they have appealed to genre and non-genre fans alike. Since childhood, Torres grew as a musician, developing a deep interest for Jazz music that has guided his compositions for over a decade

Dee Bell

Born: July 16, 1950

A dusky vocalist whose warm sound evokes the breezy sophistication of ‚50s West Coast jazz, Dee Bell first came to the public‘s attention with her 1982 debut, Let There Be Love, featuring legendary saxophonist Stan Getz. A regular presence in the Bay Area, Bell spent several years away from performing before returning to consistent work in the 2010s. In 2014, she debuted her ongoing collaboration with Brazilian pianist Marcos Silva on Silva Bell Elation.

Born in 1950 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Bell was encouraged to play music from a young age, and started out on clarinet. She also sang, and from age ten onward performed in an a cappella trio. After high school she attended Indiana University, where she earned her bachelor of science in arts education. While there, she further honed her vocal skills studying with noted opera singer Eileen Farrell. Interested in nutrition, she initially pivoted away from the arts, instead founding the Earth Kitchen vegetarian restaurant in 1972. During this period, she lived in a two-room cabin on the edge of the Hoosier National Forest, where she often spent her off hours singing outdoors. In 1978, she moved to Northern California with hopes of pursuing her singing career. It was there, while waitressing at the Sausalito restaurant Trident on the San Francisco Bay, that she befriended jazz guitarist Eddie Duran and began sitting in with his trio. Around the same time, a chance encounter with Stan Getz at the famed Keystone Korner nightclub led to Bell recording her debut album, Let There Be Love. Released on Concord in 1982, the album showcased Bell alongside Getz and Duran. A second album, One by One, followed in 1984 and featured a guest appearance by trumpeter Tom Harrell.

Anne Sajdera

Born: November 5, 1965

As a pianist, composer bandleader and accompanist, Anne Sajdera is a creative force whose music encompasses an unusually far-flung array of traditions. With musical roots spanning the globe, she melds American and Brazilian jazz to her training in European classical music, creating an utterly personal sound that’s melodically verdant, harmonically sophisticated and rhythmically compelling. Her first release, Azul (Bijuri Records, 2012), was co-produced by Ray Obiedo and featured a performance from percussion legend Airto Moreira, earning a spot on JAZZIZ Magazines Top Ten Critic’s Poll for 2012, and inclusion in Latin Jazz Corner’s Great Latin Jazz Albums for the same year

The Bach's Beach Vision Of Jazz Heaven

by Arthur R George
June 17, 2018

Heaven for some is a baseball diamond in an Iowa cornfield. For Pete Douglas, it was a house on a beach with a jazz club in his living room, a would-be heaven also for anyone who dropped in. Douglas passed on, in 2014 at age 85, sitting at his desk overlooking the Pacific Ocean. But his ...