Vote for your favorite artists in the DownBeat Readers Poll!
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Voting ends August 24, 2008.
25 is the FEMALE VOCALIST category. ;) Don't forget to vote for your favorite female vocalist!
This past weekend I was up in Seattle visiting family. It was a nice, much needed vacation, and we had a lot of fun exploring the city that I grew up in!
We decided to head out to Jazz Alley on Friday night (the cool jazz club in town) to hear one of my favorite all time male jazz singers, Kurt Elling. It was an AMAZING concert, as always, and I ended up talking to him for a little bit in between sets.
We've sung at some Jazz Festivals together, but I never think he'll remember me, because, well... He's Kurt Elling! But he DID! Like, by NAME! And he told me to e-mail him! And he gave me his contact info! It was amazing! Here's a photo:
The next night, Saturday, I'd been looking forward to for months... The performer that we went to see is my all time favorite everything - I've seen him perform once, and it was like... Beyond this world.
So, as you can imagine, having FRONT ROW tickets to see my all time favorite everthing was so exciting. BOBBY MCFERRIN!! It was amazing...
BUT my favorite part of the show is always when he asks the audience to participate... Of course!
At one point, he mentioned he wanted a dancer to come up on stage to do some collaborating. After about 20 seconds of no one volunteering, I was looking around thinking, "come ON people!", so I volunteered. Heheheh.
I ran up onstage and said, "I don't dance!" He laughed and said, "you don't??" and I said, "no, but I'll dance for YOU! Or cook, or write a book, or whatever!" and he laughed again. SO I did a few "time steps", and he asked me what my name was, (MEANWHILE THIS IS JUST THE TWO OF US ONSTAGE TOGETHER) so I spelled my name out with my body, like any good dancer would do. He made up a little song about S-A-R-A, and then asked what I "do". I replied, "I do what you do, I sing!"
And he told me there was a mic on the side of the stage and that I should grab it and sing with him. (!!!!!!!)
The next 2 minutes are a blur, but I remember us singing together, and it being amazing!!!!!! Afterwards, I met him, talked for a bit, and took a photo:
AHH!!! It was the BEST music weekend in a loooong time.
I hope to see some of you out at our new shows soon! The band is AMAZING! Have I said that word enough? :)
i guess paula abdul decided that David Archuleta is going to sing a song by Billy Joel called "And So It Goes" for the competition on American Idol this week. WELL, it looks like the world has gone berserk looking for versions... We've got one on YouTube, and it's gotten 3,000 hits over the past WEEK, and the 7 new comments we've received are ALL about David Archuleta. "David's gonna sing this? He'll do great!" etc. It's HILARIOUS to me! People are using all the versions on YouTube as forums to talk about whether or not he'll sing it well... They come watch my version and talk (actually fight) about him. Hahahahah!
FINALLY! We have some new videos up on the YouTube! We posted them below, but check them out on there, and let us know what you think of them!
They were all shot at the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival this February. Josh and I got to play with Graham Dechter (g), Peter Washington (b), and Jeff Hamilton (d). The audio/video quality is pretty good, so unfortunately, we had to remove the other versions of the same songs we had up... :(
"Nice N Easy"
"I Got It Bad"
"More"
A duet with the lovely Dee Daniels on "You Are My Sunshine"!
Travis and I went out to dinner last night to celebrate freedom in the home of the brave.
We live in Silverlake, which is a hilly, arborous, culturally rich, colorful part of Los Angeles.
We'd passed this tiny, cute lil restaurant in our neighborhood (on Hyperion) many times, and knew it was the place we wanted to hold our celebration. We walked into 'the flying leap cafe', and they were full! So the boss guy told us to wait in the bar (called The Other Side).
Holy cow, it was a piano bar. Fully equipped with a pianist playing standards, old broads waiting to come up and sing, some fabulous queens in the audience (did I mention we were one of the only straight couples in the building?). It was incredible. It hadn't been taken over by young hollywood starlets, musical theatre divas in training, etc. It was like an old NY piano bar that only the neighborhood kiddies knew about.
We ate our dinner, and had an amazing time. Of course, afterwards we went back to the piano bar, and one of Travis' bosses asked me to sing. So I did and it was the most fun I've had in a long time. I think I found my new haunt.
So we've uploaded THREE new songs to the profile -
One is a live version of "Hallelujah", recorded at our show in Tokyo last month. It features the new band, and as you can probably tell, the energy and arrangement is pretty different than the one on Return To You! Sam and Zach really bring their own spin to the arrangement, and I think it sounds better than ever! A new twist on one of our old favorites. But turn up the volume when you're listening to that one, the recording quality is quiet...
The second is an unrecorded track from that same live show. It's of the Ben Folds tune "Luckiest". You can't find it on any of our records (JUST FOR YOU RIGHT HERE!!), and it's one of my new favs that we do! So check it out. :) Again, turn up the volume for that one, b/c the recording quality is quiet...
The third is an unreleased bonus track that we recorded for Return to You! It's a cover of one of my favorite songs, "Leaving On A Jet Plane". For some reason it didn't make it onto the album... Just bass and voice!
We thought we'd share some music that you CAN'T find on the CD's.
I’m feelin the urge to cover some non-jazz tunes. If you guys have any fav’s or ideas, send em my way. I’ve got a few on the brain, and I think it’ll be fun. I’ll let you know when they’re posted!
So, last month the band and I got to go to Jakarta (to perform at the Java Jazz Festival), and Manila (to perform at the Philippine International Jazz Festival) for the first time! And we took along our trusty tour manager - TRAVIS! :)
Here are a few pictures, showing off our adventures!
Travis in the Hello Kitty TERMINAL in Taiwan!!!!
The two of us...
The whole band:
A Hello Kitty intervention...
Performing in Jakarta:
On the Jumbo-Tron!
We pwned that festival!
Is that a Renee Olstead poster staring at me??
The guys at the hotel in Manila:
Losing it backstage:
Backstage in Manila:
Doing an interview:
Then Travis went home, and the guys and I went to Japan! Drum machine!
