Once an orthodontist, Gail Pettis now evokes smiles with music
from The Seattle Times:
Call it a midlife crisis or call it an epiphany. Either way, Gail Pettis got bit by the jazz bug and reinvented herself as one of the most sensuously swinging new singers on the American scene.
One day she’s tuning up smiles at her successful orthodontic practice in Issaquah, and the next she’s spreading grins from the bandstand, where she’s forged deep creative ties with some of Seattle’s deepest players.
“I enjoyed the patients, but I was looking for a change,” Pettis says. “At the time I wouldn’t have said, ‘I’m leaving my practice to pursue music,’ but it turns out that’s what happened.”
For jazz fans outside the Seattle area, Pettis seemed to emerge out of nowhere in 2007 with the release of her luminous debut CD “May I Come In?” on OA2 Records. She confirmed her status as an exceptional interpreter of the American Songbook with the January release of “Here In the Moment.” Soulful and understated, her voice caresses each melody, transforming even the most familiar standards into highly personal narratives.
Continue reading at The Seattle Times.
Performing in perhaps the strongest field of bands in the history of the event, Garfield won the Essentially Ellington high-school jazz-band competition for an unprecedented fourth time Monday night at New York’s Lincoln Center.
In the crowded and talent-filled lady jazz vocalist field, standing apart is no small feat. Some natural vocal chops, combined with a bunch of hard work and a good backing band, can make for a very viable artistic effort, and there are a lot of those around. But a very workable artistic effort is not enough. The singer has to connect on a personal level by telling the stories of her songs in a convincing fashion—in her own vulnerable or tough and world-weary, or sweet, or rough-and-tumble way. That’s what Billie Holiday, Carmen McRae, Blossom Dearie and Anita O’Day did. On her debut release, I’ll Get Around to It, Seattle-based jazz vocalist Carrie Wicks proves herself a very convincing storyteller.
NEW YORK — Lena Horne, the enchanting jazz singer and actress who reviled the bigotry that allowed her to entertain white audiences but not socialize with them, slowing her rise to Broadway superstardom, has died. She was 92.
Because Andy Clausen does not drive, his age is a point of confusion to some of the older, professional jazz musicians with whom he frequently plays.
New York trumpeter Brian Lynch will be in Seattle this weekend performing for two night and in two different formats at Tula’s Jazz Club.
