6:30PM - Grace Kelly Quintet with Special Guest Phil Woods
Phil Woods & Grace Kelly - photo: Jimmy Katz
Grace Kelly - alto saxophone, vocals
Phil Woods - alto saxophone
Jason Palmer - trumpet
Doug Johnson - piano
Evan Gregor - bass
Bill Goodwin - drums
When it comes to saxophonist /vocalist/composer/lyricist/arranger Grace Kelly, people seem to be divided into two groups: those who marvel at her proficiency, creativity and ever-accelerating growth, and those who have yet to encounter the 19-year-old wunderkind. The ranks of the former category are growing by the day. Trumpeter and Jazz at Lincoln Center Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis was so impressed with Kelly’s three-night stand as guest of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra that he invited her to join the ensemble at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater in Washington, D.C. Harry Connick, Jr. heard Kelly in a master class on a December afternoon and brought her on stage to sit in with his band that night. Since then, Kelly has been voted “Best Jazz Act” in Boston three consecutive years in the FNX/Phoenix Best Music Poll, received the ASCAP Foundation’s Young Jazz Composers Award in 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2011 and won “Jazz Artist of the Year” at the Boston Music Awards in both 2008 and 2010. The 2009, and 2010, Downbeat Critics Poll added to her list naming her one of the "Alto Saxophone Rising Stars”, the youngest ever to be named so.
Musical energy flows from the heart of the teenaged phenom, who was born Grace Chung on May 15, 1992. (She became Grace Kelly after her mother divorced and remarried and her stepfather, Bob Kelly, legally adopted Grace and her sister Christina.) The strong classical music background of her mother’s family led Grace to begin piano lessons at age six, and she still does much of her composing at the piano as she sings wordlessly. Singing, dancing, writing songs and theater were also early passions, soon joined by a fascination with the recordings of Stan Getz and other jazz saxophonists that her parents played during Sunday brunches. She began to study the clarinet at her elementary school in the fourth grade, and began private saxophone lessons a few months later. Further inspiration was provided by Ann Hampton Callaway, who detected "the boundless spirit and imagination of a natural artist” when she met Kelly in 2002. Another early champion, middle school music teacher Ken Berman, was so inspired by the pre-teen’s playing and writing that he insisted, "you have to record.” What followed was her first disc, Dreaming. "The CD release took place on March 17, 2004, when I was 12,” she recalls, "and as soon as I walked on stage, I realized that performing was my favorite thing to do.”
Kelly has continued to garner accolades from artists she revered, performing and recording with the likes of Dave Brubeck, Wynton Marsalis, Phil Woods, Harry Connick Jr., Jamie Cullum, Frank Morgan, Esperanza Spalding, Toots Thielemans, Hank Jones, Jerry Bergonzi, Adam Rogers, Chris Potter, Rufus Reid, Kenny Barron, Dianne Reeves, Billy Hart, Ann Hampton Callaway, Cedar Walton, James Cotton and Terri Lynn Carrington among others. "I gave her my hat, that’s how good she sounded,” Woods enthused. "She’s the first alto player to get one.”
Perhaps her most intensive connection has been with Lee Konitz, who Kelly has studied with since age 13. At first only her teacher, Kelly and Konitz’s relationship has grown into a personal friendship and mentorship. "The biggest lesson that Lee taught me has been spontaneity, from day one,” she emphasizes, while Konitz has referred to Kelly as "all ears and all heart.” Kelly asked Konitz to guest on two tracks for her fourth album, an invitation that led to the joint composition "GRACEfulLEE” and an entire disc of the same name. GRACEfulLEE, with the all-star support of guitarist Russell Malone, bassist Rufus Reid and drummer Matt Wilson, garnered a rare **** ½ review in Downbeat Magazine, and has been widely acclaimed as one of the best jazz recordings of 2008.
Since age 12 Grace has performed over 500 concerts as a leader all around the world at prominent venues such as the Montreal Jazz Festival, Newport Jazz Festival, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Apollo Theater, Birdland, Boston’s Symphony Hall, Juan Les Pins Jazz Festival, Dizzy’s Club Cocoa Cola, Tanglewood Jazz Festival, Detroit Jazz Festival, Ronnie Scott’s (London), Porgy & Bess (Vienna), Scullers Jazz Club, Regatta Bar, B.B. King’s Blues Club (New York City), Jazz Bakery (LA), Dakota Jazz Club, and in venues as far away as Europe and Asia. She has also released seven full-length albums and will graduate from Boston’s prestigious Berklee College of Music in December 2011. As Ann Hampton Callaway predicts, “There is no telling how far this child prodigy will go with the limitless possibilities of her voluminous talents.”
www.gracekellymusic.com
www.facebook.com/gracekellyjazz
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