Results for "Vocalist"

Laura Marks

Laura Marks sings with the same quiet intensity and sensuality that informs her paintings. Her cool, restrained style draws the listener into a shared intimacy. Coming from an artistic family, she has been singing all her life and was exposed to classical music, jazz, folk, rock and blues at a very early age. Over the last few years Laura has performed jazz and Latin music at various clubs around Toronto including The Rex, The Reservoir Lounge, Hugh’s Room, Lula Lounge, The Trane Studio, 120 Diner, Jazz Bistro, Music In The Atrium, The Kingston House, Free Times Café, Mandy's Bistro, Ten Feet Tall and the Emmet Ray

Maria Romero

Born: February 22

Maria Romero was born in Granada Southern Spain. Since childhood she has been profoundly interested in music, perhaps influenced by her mother, a classical piano teacher at the provincial faculty. Over many years she participated as a soloist in 'La Presentacion' under the magnificent direction of Dame Elena Peinado, the choir performing throughout much of Europe. As a student, Romero studied classical vocals and saxophone, but her real calling was toward vocal improvisation, and in particular black music. Over the years this natural tendency has come to define her unique style. At 18 she was selected to perform vocals for 'The Granada Big Band' and it is from here she focused more intensely on the versatility of Jazz and the use of the voice as an instrument

Melissa Lauren

Born: July 24, 1980

Melissa Lauren is an accomplished young singer and songwriter making her mark in the Toronto music scene. With a strong influence in jazz and blues, Melissa has developed an original style of her own melting together old school sounds with modern flare. Melissa’s latest album, “The Other Side”, will be released in March and is a collection of original compositions and standards. A tribute to the jazz and swing sounds that shaped her musical style, the album offers a variety of classic sounds, mixed with modern pop sensibilities. The singer’s love for swing and jazz music started when she started performing with the Toronto All-Star Big Band; she continued singing with them until 2004

Nicolas Bearde

Born: September 15, 1960

Recording artist, Nicolas Bearde is an award winning vocalist, whose silky baritone sound, wit and engaging rapport draws the audience into his live performances. Nicolas has 6 CD's out on his own label, Right Groove Records. His most recent album, “I Remember You : The Music of Nat King Cole" released on August 30, 2019, featuring special guest and sax great, Eric Alexander, rose quickly to the Top 20 on the Jazz Week Charts, garnering rave reviews at home and abroad. 

Nicolas is also the featured vocalist on sax legend Vincent Herring's chart-topping  CD, “Hard Times"  as well as the vocalist and narrator with Vincent’s "Story of Jazz Orchestra"  a 10 piece ensemble of jazz luminaries( Eric Alexander, James Carter, Jon Faddis, Jeremy Pelt, Steve Turre, Mike LeDonne, Kenny Davis and Carl Allen) who travel the world presenting Jazz music's 100+ year history. 

Harry Belafonte

Born: March 1, 1927

Harry Belafonte, Jr. is a humanitarian and political activist known best as a singer from the 1950’s who started the craze for Caribbean inflected music. “The Banana Boat Song” became his signature song. Born in New York City of a Jamaican mother and Martiniquan father in 1927, Belafonte was sent to live with his grandmother in Jamaica from 1932 to 1940. When he returned, he worked as an assistant janitor in a building. He was given two theatre tickets from one of the tenants and subsequently took acting classes in New York. He took classes with Marlon Brando and Sidney Poitier and performed at the American Negro Theatre.

Bhi Bhiman

Bhi Bhiman is an American original, and yet he seems transported from an era when songs were more important than the pretty faces that delivered them. His rich, bellowing tenor can soothe or explode at a moment’s notice. His lived-in, knowing delivery belies his years. His songwriting, too, is quick to captivate. Bhi’s mix of humor and deep empathy puts him in the company of distinguished (and much older) lifelong songsmiths like John Prine, Nick Lowe and Randy Newman. And Bhiman’s technical, emotive guitar playing rises to the challenge that his striking voice presents. It’s fitting, then, that there truly is, as far as anyone can tell, only one Bhi Bhiman

Emma Smith

Born: December 23, 1990

Emma Smith's star is on the ascendant. With diverse and extensive experience performing everywhere from the 02 Arena to the leading jazz clubs of New York City, collaborating and recording with the likes of Michael Buble, Robbie Williams, Georgie Fame and Seal along the way, Emma Smith has created a formidable reputation as a powerful and expressive artist in UK jazz. Now with her first new solo album in 10 years, Emma Smith is set to make an indelible mark on the European and international musical landscape, by showcasing a body of work that perfectly demonstrates her prowess as a rising star with one of the very best voices in the business.

Kristina Morales

Born: March 14, 1986

With an incandescent brilliance, rising star Kristina Morales' voice shines across the heart of the city of New Orleans with illuminating clarity and burns with heart-wrenching warmth. She electrifies and charms her audience with a vulnerable passion and is commended by musicians and audiences alike for her use of vocal instrumentation while still giving lyrical color with a delicate seamlessness. A native of New Orleans, Kristina grew up in the heart of the French Quarter in her parent's restaurant. There in the glow of the city, she was exposed to cultural and sophisticated music at a very young age

Rocio Guitard

Born: January 8, 1972

Whether belting out lyrics like a powerhouse or interpreting sensitive ballads, Rocio Guitard is a superb singer. Her latest CD, JazzDance, is a revelation for she reinvents standards in surprising ways, and shows that jazz can be both creative and accessible, danceable yet quite unpredictable. Born in Germany and raised in Spain, Rocio remembers hearing Beatles songs in her parents’ car. She learned virtually every Beatles song by heart, sang along and, when she was bored with that, she harmonized. Rocio started playing the recorder when she was three, moved on to other instruments when she was six, and at eight began studying piano and music theory at the Royal Conservatory in Madrid, graduating when she was 13

Wannetta Jackson