CATHERINE RUSSELL FEATURED IN JAZZ TIMES WITH "SENTIMENTAL STREAK"
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CATHERINE RUSSELL PERFORMS WITH MOM CARLINE RAY AT THE WOMEN IN JAZZ FESTIVAL
Catherine Russell will perform with mom and festival honoree Carline Ray at the second annual International Women in Jazz Festival in New York City on April 5th. Presented by International Women in Jazz and Midtown Arts Common, the festival honors super jazz legends Celia Cruz, Ella Fitzgerald, and Peggy Lee (displaying their history in photographs and music), and living jazz legends Sarah McLawler, Marian McPartland, and Carline Ray (featuring the living legends in a panel discussion). The festival includes a live jazz jam, a business management panel discussion, "What Is Jazz?" workshop for youth, and major concerts Saturday and Sunday evenings.
"For anyone bellyaching about how nobody makes music like they used to, your vintage antidote has arrived...this native New Yawker has got it." - Bluesrag
"SENTIMENTAL STREAK" RELEASE PARTIES SCHEDULED FOR FEBRUARY AND MARCH 2008
Three cd release parties have been scheduled for Catherine Russell's eagerly awaited new album Sentimental Streak, due out February 12th. Recorded at Levon Helm Studios in Woodstock, NY and produced by multi-instrumentalist/producer Larry Campbell, the new album includes songs associated with legends like Bessie Smith, Ella Fitzgerald, and Lena Horne, heard in arrangements inspired by Hoagy Carmichael, Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, and Ms. Russell’s own father, Luis Russell. Sentimental Streak distills the robust, good-time essence of Southern juke joints and lindy-hopping Northern dance halls. Bill Wilson of Billtown Blues claims "If this one doesn't blow your socks off, you're already barefoot."
Release Party Shows:
Feb 23 2008 Levon Helm Studios Woodstock, NY
Feb 27 2008 Joe’s Pub New York, NY
Mar 11 2008 Scullers Jazz Club Boston, MA
"She was an unknown when she turned up at the Rochester International Jazz Festival last summer. But by the time she left town, Russell was the favorite of anyone who could squeeze into her two packed shows at High Fidelity. This is the second release by the extraordinarily charming singer, who delivers with the ease of Ella Fitzgerald. Some of the songs she did last summer are here, including her great take on Pearl Bailey's "I'm Lazy, That's All." Fans of sly sexual innuendo will howl over "Kitchen Man." And Hoagy Carmichael's "New Orleans" serves as an elegant reminder of how we turned our backs on a unique piece of American culture after Hurricane Katrina. "
- Rochester Democrat & Chronicle
CAT Available at
CATHERINE RUSSELL
Catherine Russell’s musical prowess transcends genre. Accordingly, Cat, Ms. Russell’s 2006 debut album, on Harmonia Mundi’s World Village imprint, showcases a mature, one of a kind, vocalist, who defies easy categorization. Her singing encompasses jazz balladry, bordello blues, dance hall swing, jump blues, country, pop, and soul. Catherine Russell embodies the deepest heart of American music in a single voice.
A native New Yorker, Catherine was born in 1956 with an enviable jazz pedigree. Her father, the late Luis Russell, was a pioneering pianist, composer, and bandleader who sat at the center of several of the seminal bands of 20th century American jazz and popular music. In 1935, Louis Armstrong, a fellow transplant from New Orleans to New York, named Luis Russell as his musical director and Russell's orchestra as his backing group. Catherine's mother, Carline Ray, is an outstanding bassist and vocalist and holder of advanced degrees from Julliard and Manhattan School of Music. Carline has performed with Mary Lou Williams and Wynton Marsalis.
Ms. Russell attended the High School of Music and Art and later graduated with honors from American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Professional singing opportunities soon beckoned. Catherine toured Europe singing gospel music with a group fronted by Carrie Smith including Catherine's mother Carline Ray on bass.
Returning to New York City, Catherine sang blues and soul with Jimmy Vivino's Little Big Band where she met Donald Fagen in the fall of 1989. Soon after, Catherine joined Donald Fagen, performing in the N.Y. Rock N Soul Revue, which also included Boz Skaggs, Michael McDonald, Phoebe Snow and Chuck Jackson. When Donald Fagen returned to Steely Dan for tours of the U.S. and Japan, Catherine Russell came along as a backing vocalist. Catherine's growing reputation as a versatile and expressive singer led to a call from Paul Simon and a month long run in 1992 at the Paramount Theater in New York. Every night Catherine had the thrill to step out on a vocal duet with Paul Simon along with gospel legends The Mighty Clouds of Joy on "Slip Slidin' Away".
Today, Catherine Russell lives in Manhattan, her apartment walls adorned with the gold and platinum records on which she appears. She toured the globe with David Bowie as a vocalist and multiinstrumentalist on the hugely successful and critically acclaimed “A Reality Tourâ€, which earned the 1 top-grossing tour for the first half of 2004, according to Billboard. In addition, Ms. Russell has performed or recorded with a dizzyingly impressive array of trend setting artists, including Jackson Browne, Rosanne Cash, Cyndi Lauper, Joan Osborne, Michael Feinstein, Madonna, Al Green, J. Geils Band, Dolly Parton, and Isaac Hayes, among others. Catherine has also joined the faculty as Associate Professor of Voice at Berklee College of Music in Boston.
Catherine Russell is that rarest of entities – a genuine jazz and blues singer – who can sing virtually anything. Her voice is full blown feminity incarnate; a dusky, stalwart and soulful instrument that radiates interpretive power yet remains touchingly vulnerable. She launches fearlessly into each tune, getting inside the melody and capturing every emotion. Whether she’s shimmying through a barrelhouse stomper, channeling fifties R&B, dragging her weary heart through a torchy juke joint number, or kicking up her heels honky tonk style, Ms. Russell can stand comparison to her greatest forebears. As Grammy Award winning Jazz historian, Phil Schaap, crows in his liner notes, Sarah Vaughan, Bessie Smith, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday finally have a worthy descendant.