Rachelle Ferrell
headlines
the September 10, 2005
Women in Jazz Concert, 8pm,
at the Paramount Theatre, Austin.
International recording artist,
Rachelle Ferrell will be featured on September 10th in the Women in Jazz Concert at the Paramount
Theatre on 713 Congress Avenue in downtown Austin, Texas. Austin jazz songstress
Pamela Hart
will open the show.
Tickets $36 and $42 (service charge included)
Purchase your reserve tickets in advance at the following locations:
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Charge by phone at GetTix 866-443-8849
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Pinky’s
Wireless - (512) 441-8269
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Paramount Theatre Box Office, 713 Congress Ave., in person only
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Purchase tickets online at
http://www.GetTix.net
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Mitchie’s Gallery, 6406 N. IH 35, Suite 2800 (512) 323-6901
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The Men’s Clotherie, 6929 Airport Blvd., Suite 100 (512) 323-9657
Rachelle Ferrell had arrived on the contemporary
jazz scene, but her visibility on the pop/urban contemporary scene has
boosted her audience’s interest in her jazz recordings. She got started
singing in the second grade at age six. This no doubt contributed to the
eventual development of her startling six-and-change octave range.
She began performing at 13 as a violinist, and in her
mid-teens as a pianist and vocalist. At 18, she enrolled in the Berklee
College of Music in Boston to study composition and arranging, where her
classmates included Branford Marsalis, Kevin Eubanks, Donald Harrison and
Jeff Watts. She graduated in a year and taught music for awhile with Dizzy
Gillespie for the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
Through the 1980’s and into the early ‘90’s, she’d worked
with some of the top names in jazz, including Dizzy Gillespie, Quincy
Jones, George Benson and George Duke. Ferrell’s debut, “First Instrument,”
was released in 1990 in Japan only. Recorded with bassist Tyrone Brown,
pianist Eddie Green and drummer Doug Nally, an all-star cast of
accompanists, also leave their mark on her record. They include trumpeter
Terrence Blanchard, pianists Gil Goldstein and Michel Petrucciani,
bassists Kenny Davis and Stanley Clarke, tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter
and keyboardist Pete Levin. Her unique take on now-standards like Sam
Cooke’s “You Send Me,” Cole Porter’s “What Is This Thing Called Love,” and
Rodgers & Hart’s “My Funny Valentine,” captured the hearts and souls of
the Japanese jazz-buying public.
In 1995, Blue Note/Capitol released her Japanese debut for
U.S. audiences, and the response was similarly positive. Her 1992
self-titled U.S. debut, a more urban pop/contemporary album, was released
on Capitol Records. Ferrell was signed to a unique two-label contract,
recording pop and urban contemporary for Capitol Records and jazz music
for Blue Note Records. For four consecutive years in the early ‘90’s,
Rachelle Ferrell put in festival stopping performances at the Montreaux
Jazz Festival.
Although Ferrell has captured the jazz public’s attention
as a vocalist, she continues to compose and write songs on piano and
violin. Her work ethic has paid off, and Gillespie’s predictions about her
becoming a ‘major force’ in the jazz industry came true. Her prolific
songwriting abilities and ability to accompany herself on piano seem only
to further her natural talent as a vocalist. “Some people sing songs like
they wear clothing, they put it on and take it off,” she explains in the
biographical notes accompanying “First Instrument.” “But when one performs
four sets a night, six nights a week, that experience affords you the
opportunity to present the song from the inside out, to express its
essence. In this way, a singer expresses the song in the spirit in which
it was written, the songwriter then translates emotion into words, the
singer’s job is to translate the words back into emotion.” Rachelle and
her brother Russ have started there own record label called Evolutionary
Records, Inc, and they will be putting out several CD’s in the fall of
this year.
Rachelle Ferrell has made her mark not as a straight-ahead
jazz singer and pianist, but as a crossover artist whose equally at home
with urban contemporary pop, gospel, classical music and jazz.
 
Don't Miss It!!
Thank you for your help and support!
The Women in Jazz Concert Series is produced by HartBeat Productions
and is sponsored by The Austin Chronicle, Austin Cab Company, Villager
Newspaper, and Women & Their Work. This project is funded in part by the
City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division and by a grant from the
Texas Commission on the Arts.
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