Results for "Vocalist"

Wayne Powers

From jazz vocalist/bandleader to actor/comedian/radio talk show host, it's easy to see why Wayne Powers is often referred to as a “renaissance man”. Wayne started out as a “boy singer” in New York nightclubs at age 16. “I wasn’t very good,” he freely admits, “but you’ve gotta start someplace – and I grew up with this music inside me – in my heart and soul – and treasure it enough to gladly do whatever it takes for me to live inside the music. You see, when I was growing up we couldn’t afford a piano (and we had no room for one, anyway). so I just learned to play the human voice.” Persistence paid off as Powers eventually studied in New York with renowned vocal coach of the day, Fred Steele, mentor to Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gorme, Eddie Fisher and widely credited with helping restore Tony Bennett’s voice

Janet Planet

Jazziz Magazine hailed her as a "Voice of the New Jazz Culture...amazingly powerful voice with seemingly limitless expression". In her career, Ms. Planet has performed with legends such as Jackie and Roy, George Benson, and her mentor Nancy King, and shared the stage with many other accomplished jazz artists including Ellis Marsalis, John Harmon, Gene Bertoncini, and Marian McPartland. Janet is also on the staff of the Tritone Jazz Camp and teaches voice privately as well as conducting clinics. Planet frequently shares with students and others her knowledge of vocal technique, jazz history, performance careers, and the music business, bringing to this experience her perspectives as a woman and artist

Suzanne Pittson

Born: July 7

Suzanne Pittson is an accomplished jazz vocalist, pianist and lyricist living in New York. She grew up in a musical family and began piano studies at age 8. She subsequently earned a Bachelor of Music and Master of Arts in Music (as a classical pianist) from San Francisco State University, before turning her attention to jazz voice. Suzanne has been recognized for her musicianship and improvisational skills, called by All About Jazz ”more than just a singer, but a jazz musician. With a fluid phrasing and stunning tone, she uses her voice as another instrument, improvising and playing with the melodies.” Jazz Inside New York says: “Some controversy exists over just what makes a jazz vocalist. Listen to Suzanne Pittson and you’ll know.”

Esther Phillips

Born: December 23, 1935

The late Esther Phillips unquestionably falls into the realm of great singers who never received recognition for what was a lifelong contribution to contemporary music. Born Esther Mae Jones in Galveston, Texas, she began singing in church as a young child. When her parents divorced, she divided time between her father in Houston and her mother in the Watts area of Los Angeles. It was in Los Angeles, in 1949, that her sister entered her in a talent show at a nightclub belonging to blues man Johnny Otis. So impressed was Otis with the 13-year-old that he brought her into the studio for a recording session with Modern Records and added her to his live revue

Madeleine Peyroux

Born: April 19

Madeleine Peyroux [pronounced like the country Peru] was born in Athens, Georgia, she grew up between Brooklyn, Southern California and Paris, though it was in the City of Light where she found her voice. As a teen she was drawn to street music, and in 1989 she started to perform with a group of buskers. She then joined the Lost Wandering Blues & Jazz Band, becoming the only female in the group, which toured around Europe for several years.

Madeleine burst onto the recording scene in 1996, with her stunning debut album “Dreamland.” Madeleine was greeted with a veritable torrent of gushing reviews. Most raved about her smoke-and-whiskey vocals, often comparing her to the late, great Billie Holiday. Others wondered how someone so young could perform classic songs by Holiday, Bessie Smith and Patsy Cline so convincingly as to make them sound like her own.

Roxy Perry

A child prodigy, Roxy started out fronting swing bands at the famous Glen Island Casino in New Rochelle, New York and performed her first major concert at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California at age 9. In her early teens, she began fronting her own bands. By her late teens, she was working six nights a week with her 10-piece soul band at the Peppermint Lounge on 45th Street and Times Square in New York City. It was there that she was discovered and did her first studio recording as a back-up vocalist. This led to her going on tour for four years with the pop-rock band, Dawn, representing their hits of the time

Denise Perrier

Born: November 12, 1939

Denise Perrier has built an international reputation performing in festivals, concert halls, jazz clubs, and other jazz venues around the world. Born in Louisiana and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, she grew up among jazz greats. In her early twenties, Louis Armstrong heard her singing at San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel and hired her for his Las Vegas review. Ms. Perrier went on to tour Western Europe, Latin America, Scandinavia, Russia, and The Far East, performing in such major cities as Paris, Venice, Milan, Helsinki, Moscow, St Petersburg (she was the first non-classical artist to be invited to sing at the Hermitage), Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo, San Miguel de Allende, and Guadalajara

Mary Pearson

Born: April 30, 1949

Mary Pearson — musically speaking — sprang fully grown onto the jazz scene in 2000, or so it would seem to the world outside of a 30 New York mile radius. She’s been described as singing “under the radar” but since the release of You And I on the Arkadia Jazz label that description no longer holds true. Ms. Pearson is the first vocalist signed to the four-time Grammy nominated Arkadia Jazz label. “Mary’s distinctive sound sold me,” says label founder Bob Karcy. “There is character in what she sings and character in how she sings it.” That assessment proves to be a continuingly widespread one

Sarah Partridge

Born: October 28, 1960

Sarah Partridge grew up in Boston and Birmingham, Alabama, listening to jazz vocalists around the house, soaking up her father’s albums of Ella Fitzgerald, Chris Connor, Dakota Staton, Irene Kral, and Sarah Vaughan. But she was drawn to acting, and ended up majoring in theater at Northwestern University. After graduating in 1982, she worked around Chicago, and landed her first feature role in Tom Cruise’s star-making 1983 hit Risky Business. Relocating to Los Angeles in 1984, she worked steadily in film and television and carved out a niche doing voice-overs (often portraying cartoon superheroes)

Rebecca Parris

Born: December 28, 1951

Born to a family of musicians and educators in Newton, Massachusetts, in December, 1951, Rebecca Parris has been performing her entire life. Her parents encouraged her to pursue the study of music at an early age, her roots sprouting in musical theater at 6 years old. As her passion for music developed, Parris was fortunate to study with her uncle, and world-renown vocal coach, Blair McClosky of McClosky Institute of Voice. Parris pursued formal music education at Boston Conservatory. Parris began her professional career in music working with various top 40’s bands in the Northeast before finding her true musical passion in the Jazz world