The Greatest Female Jazz Vocalists of Today!
Not on IMDB:
Stacey Kent
Champian Fulton*
Elisabeth Shepherd
Laila Biali*
Sara Gazarek (She is pretty important, I think*)
Athena Campanella
Monika Borzym
Shoshana Bush
Laetizia Gambi
Melanie Scholtz
Eleni Valanti
Stephy Haik
Kate McGarry
(Alexa Barchini, Shelly Tzarafi)
Hopeful singers (Rita Payes, Magalie Datzira, Eva Fernandez, Andrea Motis)
Sophie Milman
Dana Lauren
Cecile Mclorin-Salvant
Cyrille Aimeé
Halie Loren
Juli Fabian
I can't believe that some of these women aren't on IMDB*. I know the style of all singers listed here and I'm open for some new. If you think there is someone missing who I should listen to, write a comment! I will listen to her. Maybe it's in the list the next time ;)
Stacey Kent
Champian Fulton*
Elisabeth Shepherd
Laila Biali*
Sara Gazarek (She is pretty important, I think*)
Athena Campanella
Monika Borzym
Shoshana Bush
Laetizia Gambi
Melanie Scholtz
Eleni Valanti
Stephy Haik
Kate McGarry
(Alexa Barchini, Shelly Tzarafi)
Hopeful singers (Rita Payes, Magalie Datzira, Eva Fernandez, Andrea Motis)
Sophie Milman
Dana Lauren
Cecile Mclorin-Salvant
Cyrille Aimeé
Halie Loren
Juli Fabian
I can't believe that some of these women aren't on IMDB*. I know the style of all singers listed here and I'm open for some new. If you think there is someone missing who I should listen to, write a comment! I will listen to her. Maybe it's in the list the next time ;)
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Diana Jean Krall was born in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada, to Adella A. (Wende), an elementary school teacher, and Stephen James Krall, an accountant. She has Czech, German, English, and Scottish ancestry. Krall was raised in Nanaimo, a small community on Vancouver Island, where she began performing professionally at age 15 as a jazz pianist. In 1981, Diana won a Vancouver Jazz Festival scholarship to study at Berklee College of Music in Boston and, after a year and a half of serious study, she returned to British Columbia. Renowned bassist Ray Brown heard her playing one night in Nanaimo and convinced Diana to move to Los Angeles where she obtained a Canadian Arts Council grant to study with Jimmy Rowles. Jimmy encouraged Diana to explore her vocals to supplement her already blossoming piano skills. With several successful CDs to her credit, Diana has won numerous awards including Canada's Juno Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album (2000) and a Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Performance (2000). She received the Order of British Columbia in 2000 for being a good-will ambassador for British Columbia and epitomizing Canadian culture. The greatest talent in the jazz field to come along in a generation, she frequently acknowledges her roots in Nanaimo where she began. She epitomizes Canadian culture and is an outstanding citizen and good-will ambassador for British Columbia.You swing is unbelievable!- Actress
- Composer
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Cassandra Wilson was born on 4 December 1955 in Jackson, Mississippi, USA. She is an actress and composer, known for The Score (2001), Junior (1994) and My Blueberry Nights (2007). She was previously married to Isaach De Bankolé.Deep, deeper Cassandra Wilson! Legend!- Actress
- Music Department
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Dee Dee Bridgewater was born in Memphis, Tennessee, to Marion and Matthew Garrett. They relocated to Flint, Michigan, where Dee Dee lived until completing high school. She started out singing in school talent shows and with local jazz bands. During her first years in college she began singing with big bands, which lead to her work with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Band. At this time,she met and married trumpeter/composer Cecil Bridgewater. After touring the US, Europe, USSR and Japan, the couple had a child and divorced. Dee Dee then garnered the role of Glinda in the Broadway production of "The Wiz", earning a Tony Award. She then married director Gilbert Moses and moved to Los Angeles, where she did some acting and released several hit albums. She and Gilbert had a child. The couple moved to Virgina Beach, Virginia, where she starred in the soap "A Different World." Upon the couple's return to Los Angeles, Dee Dee got a leading role in the LA production of "Sophisticated Ladies" (starring Gregory Hines, Hinton Battle and others). Dee Dee remained with the company on the world tour. When Dee Dee separated from her second husband, she relocated to Paris, France, and rekindled her career as a jazz artist. Since her move to Europe, she has been internationally recognized as a creative force in the jazz world, honored with international awards and recently received two Grammy awards for her tribute album "Dear Ella." Dee Dee currently lives in France with her husband and has three children.Trumpet and Trombone Scatter! Love You Dee Dee! I saw her live ;)- Actress
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Dianne Reeves was born on 23 October 1956 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. She is an actress, known for Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005), The Woman King (2022) and Guilty by Suspicion (1991).She's a jazzqueen!- Robin McKelle is known for Robin Mckelle (2016), 20 heures le journal (1981) and Ce soir (ou jamais!) (2006).Underrated!!!!! She is a genius Jazzsinger and scatter!
- Pretty original style! A new voice in the sky of jazz! She does it very her own way!
- Actress
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- Composer
Growing up and living under the huge, daunting shadow of a singing icon can intimidate a son or daughter enough to want to look anywhere else to find their station in life. Those who dared to try to follow in their footsteps, such as Frank Sinatra Jr., found success branching out in other areas of music; others like the Crosby brothers, suffered from perpetual self esteem issues that led to personal tragedy; still others, like Liza Minnelli found meteoric success on their own and emulated/paralleled their famous parent's own star achievements.
"Sophisticated Lady" Natalie Cole fits into the last-mentioned category. Moreover, she ended up living a dream by dueting with her father, the late and great Nat 'King' Cole, through the use of modern technology, to multiple Grammy-winning glory. This would become the pinnacle of her musical success. Unlike Minnelli, however, her famous crooning parent, who broke many racial barriers during his way-too-short life in the limelight, did not live long enough to enjoy his daughter's rise to stardom, dying of lung cancer a little more than a week after Natalie's 15th birthday.
Stephanie Natalie Maria Cole was born on February 6, 1950, and grew up in a heavily musical atmosphere in Los Angeles' exclusive Hancock Park area. In addition to her father, mother Maria had been a background vocalist with the Duke Ellington outfit. Natalie herself grew up surrounded by the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and, Frank Sinatra, who were considered family. Singing on one of her dad's Christmas albums, and performing by age 11, her father's early death brought emotional scars and perhaps induced a self-imposed lack of musical focus. The family relocated to Massachusetts and Natalie eventually took off to college, first attending and majoring in child psychology at the University of Massachusetts. The transferred to the University of Southern California before returning to her first campus and graduating in 1972. At this point, however, she decided to live her music a go again and began performing at various night spots. It was at this juncture that she gradually fell into drug addiction, including heroin use.
A breakthrough for Natalie came via her early 70s association with Chuck Jackson and Marvin Yancy, who once worked with one of Natalie's real-life idols, Aretha Franklin. A debut album in the form of "Inseparable" came out in 1975, which included her bit hit "This Will Be" (#6 on the pop charts and a multiple Grammy winner for best R&B female vocals and "best newcomer". In 1976 producer Yancy became her husband but they divorced after only a few years and following the birth of their only child, Robert Adam Yancy. Her ex-husband died in 1985.
During the "disco era", milder hits with "Sophisticated Lady," "Mr. Melody," "I've Got Love on My Mind," "Our Love," "Stand By," "What You Won't Do for Love," and "Hold On" and "Nothing But a Fool" arrived, along with more platinum and gold albums. Acute drug problems, however, continued to hinder her progress and she eventually took time off time for recovery. In 1985, Natalie released, in what was the start of a comeback, her album "Dangerous" for Modern Records; she later lost her contract. Such as late 80s pop singles included "Jump Start My Heart," "Miss You Like Crazy", "Pink Cadillac" and "I Live for Your Love" kept her visible and on the charts.
In the midst of her ebb-and-flow R&B success, Natalie decided in 1991 to record a new CD, "Unforgettable...with Love," paying homage to her late father. With the help and encouragement of family, she re-arranged and re-recorded some of his greatest songs in the same studio that he recorded (Capitol Studios), used some of the same musicians and even recreated one of his signature songs, the title tune "Unforgettable," with a technological effect that appeared as if they were dueting together. Never before or since has this been pulled off and marketed so successfully. The CD, which met with some derision (some critics felt she was grasping for straws in a career that was going backwards), was an instant "easy listening" sensation. Not only did it sell well over 30 million copies, it would become an eight-time over platinum winner. It earned a armload of awards on Grammy night -- including "Album of the Year" and "Record of the Year".
Over time Natalie began covering jazz standards. A jazz CD in 1994 also captured a Grammy (she has racked up a total of eight Grammy awards thus far). Like her Dad, she has become a fond Christmas commodity both on TV and in the record stores. In addition, she branched out into occasional acting roles, including the social drama Lily in Winter (1994) and the autobiographical feature film Livin' for Love: The Natalie Cole Story (2000) in which she herself played the ups and downs of her own turbulent life. She has also made infrequent acting appearances on such shows as "I'll Fly Away," "Law & Order," "Touched by an Angel" and "Grey's Anatomy".
Natalie's private life, however, continued to show vulnerability. A second marriage to drummer Andre Fisher of Rufus fame also ended in divorce and she later married and divorced a third time to Kenneth H. Dupree, a church bishop. Natalie's older adopted sister, Carol Cole earned a modicum of distinction as an actress and celebrity for a time, but her adopted brother, Nat Kelly Cole, briefly an actor, died in 1995 at age 36 of AIDS-related complications.
Firmly content wrapping her glorious vocals around yesteryear's standards, Natalie's star contained the warm, fuzzy glow and velvet-like smoothness so reminiscent of her famous dad. She continued to shine with her CD "Still Unforgettable, in which she nursed the classics as only she can and "dueted" once again with her father on "Walking My Baby Back Home"
In July of 2008, Natalie was diagnosed with a life-threatening liver virus, Hepatitis C, which had laid dormant for decades from her early days of hard drug and alcohol use. It progressed to the point of her having a have a kidney transplant the following year. Although she continued to perform, she remained illness-prone up until her death on New Year's Eve 2015 of congestive heart failure induced by lung disease and pulmonary hypertension. Her 2000 memoir, Angel on My Shoulder, detailed much of her early addiction battles.- Actress
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Lizz Wright was born on 22 January 1980 in Hahira, Georgia, USA. She is an actress, known for The Secret Life of Bees (2008), A Thousand Words (2012) and Bones (2005).Souly Jazz Queen! I saw her live!- Actress
- Soundtrack
Sophie Milman was born in 1983 in Ufa, Bashkir ASSR, RSFSR, USSR [now Bashkortostan, Russia]. She is an actress, known for So You Think You Can Dance (2005), Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story (2010) and Sophie Milman: Live in Montréal (2008). She has been married to Casey Chisick since 2 August 2009.- Actress
- Producer
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Born in Houston Texas, Renee Olstead has amassed over 9 seasons of television appearances as a regular on the hit CBS sitcom, Still Standing and ABC Family's The Secret Life of The American Teenager. Her latest starring role in the 2015 Universal Pictures / Blumhouse feature Unfriended, took the box office by storm and garnered her much attention both domestically and internationally. Her acting prowess, however, is matched only by her vocal talent. At the age of twelve, Renee signed to Warner Brothers Records and completed two albums produced by 16-time Grammy winning producer David Foster. Renee has appeared and performed her music on The Today Show, The Late Show with David Letterman, and The Oprah Winfrey Show. She's performed at the "Live 8" concert in Berlin along with other performers such as Paul McCartney, Madonna and Sting and completed extensive international touring. Renee's debut album received a Grammy nomination for Best Arrangement "Summertime" and a Golden Globe nod for Best Original Song in a Motion Picture "Christmas in Love". Renee has also received many honors for her philanthropic efforts, such as the Big Brothers Big Sisters "Rising Star Award", PETA2's "Sexiest Celeb Vegetarian", and PETA's Libby Award. Renee actively works with several charities, focusing on bringing an end to animal cruelty, mentorship to at-risk kids, and eating disorder awareness. Renee's additional feature film work includes 13 Going on 30 appearing opposite Jennifer Garner, as well as The Insider and End of Days. Further, Renee recently finished shooting a lead role in the upcoming feature film Tell Tale Lies and a starring role in a pilot for ABC Family called Work Mom. Her talent is complimented by her poise, maturity, sense of humor, charity work, and extraordinary professionalism. Renee currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband, musician Tommy King and their two amazing rescue dogs.Remember "Still Standing"? She is fantastic and sooo young!