Frank Sinatra

“I’m supposed to have a Ph.D. on the subject of women. But the truth is I’ve flunked more often than not. I’m very fond of women; I admire them. But, like all men, I don’t understand them.” – Frank Sinatra               

One of the greatest names of the music industry, American jazz singer and artist, Francis Albert Sinatra or most popularly known as Ol’ Blue Eyes, The Voice, Lean Lark, Croon Prince of Swing, Groovy Galahad or simply, Frank Sinatra, was a star born on December 12, 1915 in Hoboken, New Jersey. Born to parents who wanted their child to grow up to be a Civil Engineer, Frank turned out to be one who hated the diverse and complicated world of Math.

His pre-fame days were filled with horrible despicable yet mostly true stories starting from his getting expelled in high school for unruly behavior. His mother, Natalie Della Garaventa also known as Dolly, an influential woman in local Democratic Party circles was also known to have ran illegal abortion business from her home and was arrested countless times and convicted twice for her crime. As a teenager, he had his first arrest for romantic affair with a married woman.

His musical epiphany was never one to be associated with education but for merely singing. Along with playing the ukulele his uncle gave to him, he loved singing and was developed his own sophisticated style that he didn’t need to know how to read notes to captivate hearts in a single beat. He was inspired by big band jazz and the songs of Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallee that he started singing professionally in the early 1930s in his early teens.

His rise to fame started when he got his first break in 1935 when he joined the local group The Three Flashes which was later on called as the Hoboken Four. After appearing on the show “Major Bowes Amateur Hour”, they impressed Edward Bowes and attracted more than 40,000 votes that bagged them their first professional contract of $25 per week as a singer, headwaiter, master of ceremonies and a comedian at a country roadhouse called The Rustic Cabin in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey and the million dollar opportunity of performing on stage and radio across the United States.

Since then the name Frank Sinatra grew with simultaneous record deals, chart-topping and all-time favorite hits like “Moon River” and My Way”; sold out albums and award after award including Academy awards for his movie “The House I Live In” (1945); wife after wife such as childhood sweetheart Nancy Barbato, actresses Ava Gardner and Mia Farrow and her last, Barbara Marx, with of course countless women along the way; and various arrests and misdemeanor. But Ol’ Blue Eyes has always paid much attention to the jazz music and high regard for Black people who were the renowned proponents of the powerful and evocative jazz music that we know now. He had several collaborations with jazz artists most notable of which are the legendary Duke Ellington and Antonio Carlos Jobim. He refused to perform anywhere that did not Blacks in.

Edited: October 1st, 2011

Regina Carter

“I think a lot of people look at the violin and they get a little nervous. They have a stereotype of what the violin is–very high, kind of shrill-sounding with long notes, and a lot of vibrato. It doesn’t have to be that at all, it can be a very fiery persuasive instrument and that’s how I like to use it.”-Regina Carter

Famous for her scintillating and sophisticated violin solos, Regina Carter, born August 6, 1966 to a proud school teacher in Detroit, Michigan, is an American jazz powerhouse. Discovering the passion for classical violin at the tender age of 4, Carter embarked on an educational journey and honed her skills at the Suzuki Method until she was 9. It wasn’t until high school in Cass Technical High School that she got musically inclined to jazz violin when her close friend, future jazz singer Carla Cook, introduced her to the music of Ella Fitzgerald, Jean-Luc Ponty, Noel Pointer, and Stephanie Grapelli, who notably convinced her that jazz was her calling. Even in high school she started performing with the Detroit Civic Orchestra, with pop/funk group Brainstorm and pursued jazz studies with Detroit trumpeter Marcus Belgrave, bassist Bob Hurst and organist Lymon Woodard. She then received a degree in music from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan and moved on to the prestigious New England Conservatory Music in Boston before focusing on her jazz career in 1987.

She first came into the spotlight when she teamed up with New York’s all-female jazz quintet Straight Ahead which included Cynthia Dewberry, Gailyn McKinney, Eileen Orr and Marion Hayden up until the year 1995. Her funky smooth jazz, old style swing and classical quintet music has produced 3 albums for Atlantic jazz label with Carter leaving the group before the release of the third album “Dance of the Forest Rain”. She soon found herself working with Max Roach, the String Trio of New York and the Uptown String Quartet before she recorded her self-titled debut recording “Regina Carter” (1995)and another album dedicated to her mother “Something for Grace”(1997) on Atlantic. Leaving Atlantic Records for Verve Records in 1998, she recorded two more albums “Rhythms of the Heart” and “Motor City Moments”, acclaimed as one of her finest.

December 31, 2001, she recorded “Paganini: After a Dream” for Verve records after playing a concert in Genoa. She became the first jazz musician and the first African-American to play the 250-year old II Cannone Guarnerius violin which was formerly owned by Niccolo Paganini. Also a mentor of the Suzuki method at the Berklee College of Music and Stanford Jazz Workshop, she has also done sessions with Faith Evans, Mary J. Blige and Detroit techno legend Carl Craig.

On the fretful year of 2006, her mother Grace Carter passed and as a tribute to the woman who first encouraged her into music, she recorded and released the album “I’ll Be Seeing You: A Sentimental Journey” which included her violin interpretations of the popular “Sentimental Journey”, “This Can’t be Love” and “A-Tisket, A-Tisket”.

Edited: September 25th, 2011

Amy Winehouse

Multi-awarded Hall of Famer British artist of the 21^st century, Amy Jade Winehouse was popularly known for her powerful contralto vocals and her distinctive fusion of R&B, soul and jazz.

Born on the 14^th of September 1983 in the suburb of Southgate, North London to cab driver Mitch Winehouse and pharmacist Janis Winehouse. She grew up in a jazz environment with her uncles being professional jazz musicians and her grandmother actually having a romantic link with British jazz legend Ronnie Scott.

At the age of 10, she was quite drawn to the rebellious music of TLC, Salt-N-Pepa and other American R&B hiphop artists that she sometimes toyed with her brother’s guitar and composed her own music. Two years later, she was granted a privilege of enrolling at Sylvia Young Theatre School, a prestigious school for the arts. She received her own guitar a year after. She began working as a showbiz journalist for the World Entertainment News Network and had gigs with local group Bolsha band. However, at 16 she was expelled for certain rebellious acts and piercing her nose. In 2002, she signed to Simon Fuller’s 19 Management and was kept an industry secret while she recorded a number of songs and signed a publishing deal with EMI. That same year she was discovered by A&R representative Darcus Beese under Island/Universal Records after her then boyfriend, James Tyler submitted her demo tape to his label A&R.

With her quick rise to fame began with her debut album of “Frank” by producer Salaam Remi in October 20, 2003. In this album she co-wrote most of the songs and made two covers in her own jazz rendition. The positive reviews of her album then compared her being at par or even exceeding the vocal talents of her then idol Sarah Vaughn and Macy Gray. In 2004, her album rose to the UK album charts and was nominated in the BRIT awards in the categories of “British Female Solo Artist” and “British Urban Act”. It went platinum and later on bagged the Ivor Novello Award for Best Contemporary Song together with Salaam Remi for her contribution to the first single “Stronger than Me”.

Winehouse then continued creating and releasing albums with chart-topping songs and bagging awards after awards. Notable one was her album “Back to Black” which won her five awards during the 2008 Grammys Awards for “Record of the Year”, “Song of the Year”, “Best Female Pop Vocal Performance” for the single “Rehab”, “Best Pop Vocal Album”, the “Best New Artist” and her album “Back to black” was nominated “Album of the Year”. In fact all these earned her a spot at the Guinness World Book of Records for Most Grammy Awards won by a British Female Act. Even after that prestigious acknowledgement, Winehouse continued producing chart-topping albums, performing at international concerts and winning more awards.

For Amy Winehouse, the life of an acclaimed British jazz sensation is not all glitz and glamour. In fact, despite all her recognition and contribution to jazz music, she has been an alcoholic and an all-type substance abuser partying and getting wasted in bars and in her own night club “Snakehips at the Monarch” in Camden Monarch venue in London, having this erratic and disturbing behavior, going to rehab and back, as well as getting arrested and jailed a couple of times. She’s another exclaimed tabloid baby next to the infamous Paris Hilton and Britney Spears with so many paparazzi pictures and videos of her smoking crack in the internet and every news or celebrity gossip.

She died the 23^rd of July 2011 at the young age of 27 for reasons yet to be established.

Edited: September 18th, 2011

Joao Gilberto

Hailed as the Father of Bossa Nova and a legendary singer and guitarist, João Gilberto Prado Pereira de Oliveira, most popularly known as Joao Gilberto, was born on June 10, 1931 in Juazeiro, Bahia in Brazil. From a humble beginning as a kid, Joao has always been a Brazilian music enthusiast as he absorbed the rhythmic subtlety of Brazilian pop songs and the rich sounds of swing jazz by Duke Ellington and Tommy Dorsey, as well as the light opera singing of Jeannette MacDonald. At the age of 14, against his father’s great disapproval, his grandfather bought him his first guitar. As a teenager in high school, he formed and led a small band with some of his classmates.

At the age of 18, he headed on to Salvador, Bahia’s largest city, to get a quick grasp of the music industry performing on live radio shows. In 1950, despite unrequited attempts at stardom, his constant radio appearances caught the attention of Antonio Maria who then recruited him to join the vocal quintet Garotos de Luna (Moon Boys) as the lead vocalist. He moved to Rio de Janeiro and became quite passive and stubborn, showing up late for rehearsals or not attending at all that a year and a half later on, he was dismissed from the group.

Between the years 1951 and 1959, Joao’s first recordings were released in Brazil as two-song 78rpm singles and in the ‘60s, after the double compact format evolution, 4 songs on a 45rpm record.  Oftentimes nomadic, he performed in Clube de Chave and other night clubs only when he felt like it and through that gained a circle of friends that included several future stars of Brazilian music namely vocalist Luiz Bonfa and pianist/ composer Antonio Carlos Jobim, who was at times credited for the birth of bossa nova. He had the chance of reaching that certain moment at stardom however, before the hipster era, Joao embarked on a creative but unproductive existence marked by heavy marijuana usage. Hope dawned on him in 1955 when Luiz Tellez, leader of the vocal group Quitandinha Serenaders, took him to Porto Alegre, Southern Brazil where he had his musical epiphany and development.

In the 8 months he spent with his sister Dadainha and her husband, he continued to play day and night creating this new musical style which we now call Bossa Nova. The first Bossa Nova song ever played, “Bim-Bom”, was a song Joao wrote as he came across the laundresses balancing loads of clothes on their heads in the banks of the Sao Francisco River. Disturbed by his eccentric behavior, his sister and her husband sent him back to his parents’ house where he was pushed by his father to be admitted in a mental asylum. After a week of rehabilitation, he finally gave up drug abuse.

Returning to Rio in 1956, Joao started to define Bossa Nova after renewing acquaintance with Jobim and producing “Chega de Saudade” for Odeon Records. Releasing two more albums within 3 years, the Bossa Nova, also known in English as the “New wave” gained much attention and widespread popularity. During the goodwill jazz tour of Latin America sponsored by the US State Department, American jazz guitarist Charlie Byrd discovered his and Jobim’s musical prowess and introduced them to American jazz saxophonist Stan Getz. They recorded the top-selling Bossa nova album “Jazz Samba” which spent 70 weeks on the American pop charts at the top spot. After moving to the US, in 1964 he and Getz recorded “Getz/Gilberto” featuring the all-time favorite hit “The Girl from Ipanema” sung by his then-wife Astrud Gilberto and earned Grammys that year.

Edited: September 11th, 2011

Jeff Golub

“It’s really important as an artist to keep evolving. Too many artists play it safe, especially after they’ve had some success. I never want to recreate what I’ve already done. I always want to take my music to a new place, with no limits as to where it can go.” –Jeff Golub

Contemporary jazz and multi-awarded guitarist, Jeff Golub was born on the 15^th of April 1955 in Akron, Ohio.

Inspired by the blues of the ‘60s guitarists Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and the legendary Jimi Hendrix and after listening to a Wes Montgomery record in his early teens, Jeff found his passion in music and pursued that calling as he entered the Berklee Music College in Boston.

He moved to New York in 1980 and had his first exposure in collaboration with rock star Billy Squier. He appeared in 7 albums and 3 world tours with Billy. Henceforth, he became a highly sought for session player and a sideman for artists such as Ashford and Simpson, John Waite, Peter Wolf, Rod Stewart and Tina Turner.

In 1988 he released his first solo by Gaia Records, “Unspoken Words” which was regarded by the Guitar World as smooth, versatile, full of taste and soul. He joined the Rod Stewart band and played for 8 years. Soon he embraced his role as band leader and instrumentalist when he left the Stewart band in 1995 and formed the contemporary jazz group, which he dubbed “Avenue Blue” in 1994. Their self titled “Bluemoon” debut was an immediate success reaching the second spot on both R&R and The Gavin Report’s contemporary jazz charts. It was hailed by Jazz Times as “An elegant excursion into atmospheric, R&B-touched jazz”. Releasing hits like “Naked City”(1996) and “Night Life”(1997) for Mesa Bluemoon/Atlantic records, Jeff soon left the band and became a solo artist with his debut album “Out of the Blue” released in 1999.

“Out of the Blue” stepped out front with an original collection of the kinetic blend of blues and the soulful melodies of funky Latin jazz like the notable tracks “Lucky Strike” and the evocative “The Velvet Touch”, which established Golub’s musical maturity and acknowledged him as one of today’s most inventive and graceful guitarists.

In 2000, he joined the GRP roster with “Dangerous Curves” that had tracks spending 12 weeks in the top 20. This album hit the Billboard’s Contemporary Jazz Chart with a number 1 and  2 new adult contemporary singles. His other album, “Do it Again” which was his remake of Average White band’s “Cut the Cake”, spent an impressive 6 weeks on the top spot on NAC radio and a number 8 spot at the Billboard’s Contemporary Jazz Chart.

Participating in the Guitars & Saxes tour in 2003 with saxmen Richard Elliot and Steve Cole, and guitarist Peter White, Golub, having this improviser’s mentality, took his fame to a new level as he stressed that his albums had a strong soul-jazz component despite being compared with artists like David Sanborn, Joe Sample, The Crusaders, Ronnie Laws and the late Grover Washington Jr.

Golub’s kinetic blend of jazz, R&B and rock music has epitomized the powerful, evocative and earthbound side of smooth jazz and made him one of the contemporary jazz/blues hottest artists.

Edited: September 4th, 2011

Astrud Gilberto

Renowned Queen of Bossa Nova, International Latin Music Hall of Famer, Latin Recording Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Grammy awardee and ‘The’ Girl from Ipanema, Brazilian jazz legend Astrud Gilberto was the youngest child born to a Brazilian mother and a German father on March 30, 1940 in Bahia, Brazil and raised in Rio de Janeiro. Hereditarily inclined to painting and the arts as influenced by her father, she seemed to be the only one in the family with a talent in music with a unique passion for art.

Formerly Astrud Weinert, she teamed with classmates of a so-called musical clan in her mid-teens. Some of these were songwriters Carlos Lyra, Oscar Castro Neves, Roberto Menescal and Ronaldo Boscoli. Her bestfriend amongst these, Nara Leao, who later on became another Bossa Nova artist, was the one who introduced her to Joao Gilberto, the great Father of Bossa Nova, an exceptional singer and guitarist in 1959. They got married and migrated to the United States in 1963. There they started playing native Brazilian music and producing albums with the help of famous jazz and saxophone artist Stan Getz. Notable albums of such collaboration were the first “Getz Au-Go-Go” (1964) and “The Astrud Gilberto Album” (1964) which was then nominated as Album of the Year, both from Verve Records. It didn’t take long before their divorce during the mid ‘60s and her new relationship with her friend and musical partner Stan Genz. She also introduced the sultry, soothing vibes of Brazilian jazz music to the world in her succeeding albums “The Shadow of Your Smile” (1965), “Look to the Rainbow” (1965), Beach Samba (1966) and many more. She bagged the Grammy’s Record of the Year Award (1965) and nominations for Best New Artist (1965) and Best Vocal Performance Female (1966).

Her rise to fame began with her song “The Girl from Ipanema”, a scintillating Brazilian jazz fusion with American pop music which she recorded with former husband Joao Gilberto and then husband Stan Getz. Released in 1977 through Audio Fidelity Records, this seductive yet classy effervescent single sold over a million copies that established her in the music industry as an international jazz sensation and had her inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame (2000). The demand for her music grew as she continued to record soundtracks for movies such as “Juno”, “The Deadly Affair” and “Get Yourself a College Girl” in which she also had a special guest appearance like she did in most popular US television shows of all time and in Africa, Japan and Europe. She even recorded the song “Number One to the Sun” for an American aviation company Eastern Airlines advertisement.

Astrud started writing her own songs in the early ‘70s and released albums of her original compositions such as “Astrud Gilberto Now” (1972) and “That Girl from Ipanema” (1977). In one of her albums, her dreams came true as she recorded one of her songs “Far Away” with one of her most admired artists, the legendary Chet Baker. She received an award at the Tokyo Music Festival for one of her compositions “Live Today” which was co-written with Jerome Schur. And in the early ‘80s, she formed a sextet composed of piano, bass, drums, guitar, trombone and percussion, in which her son Marcelo Gilberto joined as a bassist.

In 2002 after being inducted in the world’s most prestigious hall of fame, she took a time off from her public life and continued to push through animal rights’ advocacies.

Edited: August 21st, 2011

Diane Schuur

Diane Schuur, nicknamed Deedles, was born on December 10, 1953 in Tacoma, Washington and grew up in Auburn. This Grammy award-winning American jazz artist despite having a visual impairment grew up to loving and embracing the world of jazz through her father’s piano and her mother’s Duke Ellington and Dinah Washington collection.

Learning to sing her favorite Dinah Washington song “what a Difference a Day Makes” as a toddler, Deedles was indeed a progeny of jazz music as she taught herself piano by ear and developed that culminating gift of vocal prowess. At the age of 10, she had her first live performance at a Holiday Inn in Tacoma. She attended formal piano lessons at the Washington State School for the Blind and in 1971 made her first record entitled “Dear Mommy and Daddy” which was produced by Jimmy Wakely. Then soon after High School graduation she went on and performed around the northwest. An informal audition with trumpeter Doc Severinson in the year 1975 led her to join the Tonight Show drummer Ed Shaughnessy’s group which played at the Monterey Jazz Festival. Her religious jazz rendition of the song “Amazing Grace” led to her discovery by the renowned jazz tenor saxophonist Stan Genz who was amongst the audience. Genz invited her to perform in a talent showcase at the White House in 1982. Her promising return performance scored a record deal with GRP and in 1984, Deedles, her debut album was released.

With 11 released albums over the next 13 years, “Timeless” (1986) and “Diane Schuur and the Count Basie Orchestra” (1987) bagged her two Grammys for Best Female Jazz Vocal Performance and kept her recording with the Basie Orchestra at the number 1 spot on the Billboard Jazz Charts for 33 consecutive weeks. Considered one of the jazz royalties of her time, Deedles’ album “Pure Schuur” (1991) and “Heart to Heart” (1994), collaboration with B.B. King, hit the top spots on the Contemporary Jazz Charts and Billboard Charts, consecutively.

In 1999, she joined the Concord label after an album produced by Ahmet Ertegum on Atlantic records “Music is My Life”. This recording deal released “Friends for Schuur” in 2000 and chart topping collaborations such as “Swinging for Schuur” (2001) with trumpeter Maynard Ferguson, “Midnight” (2003) with own version of 13 songs co-written by Barry Manilow, and “Schuur Fire” (2005) a spicy Latin album that featured the Carribean Jazz Project.

Deedles’ unique passion for jazz that sparked in her earlier years highlighting her regard for the music of her parents’ time was further emphasized in her February 2008 album “Some Other Time”, which included her own interpretation of “September in the Rain” recorded in 1964 at the Holiday Inn in Tacoma when she was only ten. This album features songs by George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Sammy Cahn, Rogers and Hammerstein and many more. Furthermore, this served as her tribute to her late mother who died at the tender age of 31 in her 40^th death anniversary.

Edited: August 14th, 2011

Anna Wilson

“My goal as an artist is to write original songs that help bridge the gap between the nostalgic musical sounds of the past and add a lyrical modern day touch that can stand on the shoulders of the great Tin Pan Alley composers.” –Anna Wilson

Anna Wilson, the sultry jazz singer and award-winning song writer behind the revolutionary country, jazz and pop fusion album Countrypolitan Duets, was born in Philadelphia and raised in Chester Springs, Pennsylvania. Inspired by her mother’s piano music collection, the American songbook standards and the all-time favorite classics of Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland, and after watching the Judd’s concert on her 17^th birthday, Anna started writing original compositions that takes one back to Nashville’s musical roots all the while keeping that fresh contemporary beat. She embraced and transcended the vintage tunes of jazz and the lazy afternoon beats of country with utter brilliance and finesse combining them harmoniously into her own music style.

The Nashville Sound era, the country chef d’oeuvre of the ‘50s and ‘60s featuring hits of renowned country royalty Eddy Arnold, Jim Reeves and Patsy Cline, was a time where jazz and country were on two opposite poles. It has been Anna’s dream to bridge that gap that has developed in subsequent decades. In lieu with this concept, she recorded classic country cabaret songs such as “Night Life”, “Walkin’ after Midnight” and “For the Good Times” with a new hip yet sophisticated ensemble in her album Countrypolitan Duets featuring country’s chart toppers like Keith Urban, Lady Antebellum, Rascal Flatts; legends like Connie Smith, Kenny Rogers and Ray Price; and famous jazz musicians Larry Carlton and Rick Braun. She co-produced this album with her husband songwriter Monty Powell. This album’s debut single, in collaboration with American Idol’s Matt Giraud, remained top 1 on the iTunes jazz chart for four consecutive days with regards to Adam Lambert’s twitter endorsement.

With her formerly released albums The Long Way (2003), Time Changes Everything (2007) and original holiday project Yule Swing (2008), she landed on three Billboard charts and ranked 12 on the Overall Jazz Chart. With her composition prowess she helped co-write songs with Billy Ray Cyrus, Brooks & Dunn, Chris Cagle, Lee Ann Womack and Reba McEntire, including “If I Knew Then” with Lady Antebellum in their mega-hit album Need You Now. She even garnered an esteemed ASCAP award in 2008 for her co-written work, “All I Ever Wanted” with Chuck Wick.

Credited by Jazz Times to have a voice like crème de cacao and an inner metronome that swings from age to age, Anna also has shared billings with Al Jarreau, Josh Groban and Keith Urban in her full rendition of “A House, A Home” featuring jazz trumpet Rick Braun for an international public service announcement campaign of Habitat for Humanity. Attributed by the Philadelphia Daily News to be a young Bette Midler, Anna continues to write, sing and co-produce her unique style of music with her award-winning song writer and husband Monty Powell.

Edited: August 6th, 2011

Melody Gardot

“In my eyes, there’s two kinds of music,” says Gardot.  “There’s the kind that rushes out at you, and the kind that settles in and lets you come to it.  I prefer the latter of the two.  I like the idea of hearing music in the distance; you’re drawn to it and you want to know what it is.  To me, that’s beautiful, that’s the essence of listening to music: discovering it. exploring it and finding those little spaces.  To have it thrown out at you almost cheapens it.” –Melody Gardot            

International sultry jazz sensation Melody Gardot, 26, a Grammy-nominated singer, writer and musician was born on February 2, 1985 in Pennsylvania, USA. Oftentimes compared with the music of Nina Simone and inspired by the blues and jazz music of Judy Garland, Janey Joplin, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Stan Getz and George Gershwin as well as latin artists such as Caetano Veloso, Melody has established herself as one of contemporary jazz’s most sought for artists with her deeply compelling, soulful renditions of love, life and loss.

How she found her voice and inclination to the soothing beats of jazz music is quite a story to tell. She took music lessons at the age of 9 and started playing piano in Philadelphia bars at 16. Then tragedy struck by the age of 19. While riding her bicycle she was suddenly hit by a car that left her with a fractured pelvis, damaged spine and a devastating brain trauma that affected her memory, speech and sensitivity to light and sound. The accident was quite deplorable as her prognosis entailed a desperate cry for a miracle. When therapies and medicine did not produce a great impact on her recovery, her physician, Dr. Richard Jermyn turned to music therapy and this changed her life. Music therapy, a well researched form of alternative remedy, was known to reconnect neural pathways in the brain, improve speech, soothe pain and relax the mind and spirit. This kind of therapy played a huge role in her recovery and her love for music. While in the hospital, she recalls her friends giving her a record of Stan Getz’s The Bossa Nova Years and her sudden addiction to the music made it a little more personal for her.

Also, while in the hospital, she learned how to play a guitar and started to write her own compositions. While still undergoing therapy, she started recording and playing at some venues in Philadelphia and was spotted by the radio station WXPN. The said station offered her a demo opportunity which was then discovered by Universal Records. Her earlier works while in the hospital can be found on iTunes and are released in her album Some Lessons: The Bedroom Sessions (2005).

Worrisome Heart, her first full-length album which she co-produced with Grammy-winner Glenn Barratt as an originally independent record in 2006, reflected her personal experiences, emphasized how she transformed the jazz and blues tradition into her own subtle yet seductive music and highlighted her debut as a contemporary jazz artist. It was released again in 2008 by Verve Records produced by another Grammy-winning producer Larry Klein.  In April 28, 2009 she released her second album My One and Only Thrill. This album got her nominated for categories Best Jazz Act at MOBO Awards 2009 and Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s) and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical at the Grammy’s 2010.

Edited: July 28th, 2011