Results for "Vocals"

Kristy Hinds

Mary-Catherine Pazzano

Born: November 6, 1988

For the past decade, Mary-Catherine has been working steadily as a performer, freelance vocalist, music educator, vocal coach, and music director. Performance highlights include the American debut of Songs for My Mother Off-Broadway at Symphony Space (NYC), jazz performances at the iconic Birdland Jazz Club (NYC), and headliner at: Uptown Waterloo Jazz Festival, Jazz Bistro (Toronto), The Rex (Toronto), The Jazz Room (Waterloo), and The Registry Theatre (Kitchener). She has toured North America and New Zealand as a performer and workshop leader, and has been a featured soloist with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony. Mary-Catherine has been lucky to share the stage with jazz notables including Billy Stritch, Mark Eisenman, and, classically, the world-renowned Penderecki String Quartet.

Bobby Faria

Born: February 3, 1955

Raised in Middletown, RI by two very musical parents, Bobby has been playing music since the age of 5 or 6 when he used to jam with his parents. Little Bobby would be strumming on the ukulele while his father Tony Faria, stretched out on violin or guitar and his mother, Lolly played the piano. Later, in junior high school, he played a rented tenor saxophone in the school concert band.  Then in high school he realized how much he loved performing when he sang and played guitar in several locally successful rock bands. His first real instrument had been the electric guitar and he has wielded it successfully for over 30 years in a wide variety of musical genres. In 1998, he bought his first saxophone and before too long, he was getting calls for gigs.  

Roberta Brenza

Roberta Brenza has long been a supporter of the arts, always a jazz fan who loved to sing, growing up in a household filled with the songs of Ella Fitzgerald and other vocalists from her father’s record collection.

While raising her two sons, Roberta spent two decades involved in volunteer work, including membership on nonprofit performing arts boards in Boulder, Colorado. All the while, she quietly nurtured a secret, long-held dream to make jazz a leading focus in her life. One of her first forays was organizing a private youth jazz combo for her then middle-school-aged sons. This inspired Roberta to enroll in a jazz combo class of her own and later, private lessons and workshops.

Roomet Jakapi

Born: April 18, 1973

Roomet Jakapi is an avant-garde vocalist and free improviser based in Estonia. He has performed with many great free-improv musicians, including Rieko Okuda, Antti Virtaranta, Guilherme Rodrigues, Emilio Gordoa, Kris Kuldkepp, Louise Dam Eckardt Jensen, Tom Blancarte, Chris Pitsiokos, Fred Frith, Jerzy Mazzoll, Sławek Janicki, Girilal Baars, Roman Stolyar, Dario Fariello, Elo Masing, Taavi Kerikmäe, Mart Soo, Niels Præstholm, Theodore Parker, Jonas Van den Bossche, Oleksii Lupashko, Jukka Kääriäinen and Ilia Belorukov. Roomet is a member of the experimental bands Punkt Nihu, Rooluulend, Kreatiivmootor, and Impromachine4000

Germana Stella La Sorsa

Italian London-based singer Germana Stella La Sorsa migrated from Puglia, Italy in 2017 and quickly established herself on the London jazz scene.

"Nudging boundaries as she goes” (The Slow Music Movement) and exploring “the crossroads of many musical components, including story, composition, genre and style as well as instrumentation and effect” (London Jazz News), La Sorsa released her debut album 'Vapour' in 2021 on 33 Jazz Records.

The singer melds her disparate infuences in her second studio album, 'Primary Colours', due for release in January 2024 (once again on 33 Jazz Records) and with the support of Help Musicians.

Heather Ferguson

Born: October 28, 1959

Called a “jazz sensation” by one writer, with another calling Heather Ferguson’s music, “lush, expertly performed, with an engaging setlist and…she will fill the room with her silky-smooth notes”.  Heather’s journey to music was long and winding but the singer, based in Victoria, Canada, is becoming known for her interpretations of great 20th century songs.

A family move took Ferguson from Toronto to a new home in Victoria, Canada, where she was one of the first to enroll in jazz vocals at the Victoria Conservatory’s newly opened Chywll Contemporary School.  After that it was just layers and layers of music for years after. During that time she found like-minded musicians who wanted to start a band so she cornered the great bassist Joey Smith at a gig one night to ask him to coach.  

Walt Pitts

Born: October 22, 1960

Walt Pitts is a musical chameleon. He may not change color to match his surroundings, but he has the impeccable ability to musically adapt to the environment of practically any live performance space. It’s this versatility that has kept Walt steadily booked at private clubs, resorts, weddings, and corporate events in the Phoenix and Scottsdale, Arizona, area for many years. “I rarely use a prepared set list,” says Walt, whose primary instruments are guitar, mandolin and voice. “I like to get a feel for the venue and the audience and play what feels right in that moment.” That ideal song might be Pat Metheny’s “Last Train Home” or Carlos Santana’s “Europa.” It could be a standard like “Fly Me to the Moon” or a party song such as Jimmy Buffet’s “Margaritaville.” Then again, Walt might decide that the best musical mood enhancer would be a song by Ottmar Liebert, The Beatles, Tommy Emmanuel, Wes Montgomery, George Benson, Eric Clapton, Cold Play, Norah Jones, Dave Matthews, Sting, or Chet Atkins

Vienna Carroll

Born: September 26, 1954

Vienna Carroll’s folksy blues and soulful funk take you back to her Black church roots. Her passion and masterful storytelling light a fire in your soul. She interweaves old songs and forgotten stories of Black heroes to serve up Black history with a Serious Groove.

Vienna learned music from the Black Ladies of her youth, including her fearsome great grandmother who played guitar to Grand Ole Opry radio every Saturday night but only proper Pentecostal chords on Sunday. At her Alabama grandmother’s 125 acre working farm, Vienna joined in the Sunday church services an hour’s drive away down a dusty road, where singing was often accompanied only by the hand clapping and shouting of its fervent members.

Vienna formalized her studies of early Black music at Yale University, with a BA in African American Studies

Noa Levy

With a beautiful, rounded voice and a magnetic stage presence, NOA LEVY is a unique and charismatic vocalist and performer who sings across genres – Jazz, Rock, Cabaret, Musicals, and Pop. She has set a worldwide digital release date of August 17, 2018, for her recently recorded debut TAKE TWO EP, a thoughtful collection of Jazz arrangements featuring NOA LEVY in a duo format with three different instrumentalists. Drawing on influences from her favorite musicians and artists including Peter Gabriel, Brad Mehldau, and Carmen McRae, NOA LEVY has developed her own signature arrangements of classic and unique tunes to paint a picture that anyone listening can relate to