Gold Coast Jazz Society 2023-2024 Concert Season

Karrin Allyson

"If there's a choir in heaven, someday the exquisite vocalist Karrin Allyson will lead it. She's such an otherworldly talent that the creator probably already has her on heavy rotation." The Houston Press

"Allyson coolly stakes her claim. She brings a timbre that is part ice and part grain — incisive, original, and emotionally convincing." Gary Giddons, The Village Voice

Heart, intelligence, warmth — an emotional range from bittersweet to sassy —you hear it every time you listen. Make no mistake — Karrin Allyson is singing to you.  The New York Times

Karrin lives in New York City, following a childhood in the Midwest, schooling in the Bay Area, a degree in classical piano performance and important stints in Minneapolis and Kansas City, where she began her recording career with Concord Jazz. Karrin currently spends two days out of three on tour, playing the major jazz festivals, concert venues and clubs of the U.S. and making repeated tours overseas — to Brazil, Japan, Australia and the great cities of Europe. Throughout 2014 Allyson was featured as solo vocalist in the 'Newport —Now 60' Tour which played in thirty cities across the US and Canada before concluding the 2014 Newport Festival.

After a jam-packed career with Concord Jazz, which included thirteen albums, four Grammy nominations, and a recent self-produced holiday album, Yuletide Hideaway, Karrin headed back into the recording studio for a very intimate look at the music of Rodgers and Hammerstein. The result is Many a New Day (Karrin Allyson Sings Rodgers & Hammerstein) on the Motéma Music label and features Kenny Barron on piano and John Patitucci on bass.

Among musicians, Karrin is known as a great bandleader and one of the deep pleasures of the current scene is listening to her highly developed interplay with her bandmates — it sounds so effortless — but it conceals a deep musical sophistication. It’s one of Allyson’s great achievements — the result of working over the years with an ensemble of fearless and powerfully committed jazz virtuosi. Karrin has also developed a unique relationship with the multi-talented L.A. composer Chris Caswell and the two have collaborated for nearly ten years as composers and performers in a very spirited ensemble featuring Caswell on Hammond B-3 organ.

Allyson is an extraordinary musician who moves with ease from the Great American Songbook of Gershwin and Porter to the Great American Jazz Songbook of Duke and Thelonious and Miles and Dizzy. She moves from gentle bossa rhythms to the music of Bonnie Raitt and Joni Mitchell and Jimmy Webb, not to mention her mean facility for singing down home Kansas City blues. Five of Allyson's albums, Ballads: Remembering John Coltrane (2001), Footprints (2006), Imagina: Songs of Brasil (2008), 'Round Midnight (2011), and Many of New Day: Karrin Allyson Sings Rogers & Hammerstein (2015) have received Grammy nominations for Best Jazz Vocal Album. Allyson tours extensively, both in the United States and internationally.

Website: www.karrin.com

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