New York, NY (Top40 Charts/ Missing Piece Group) Grace
Kelly may not be a real life princess, but she is certainly jazz royalty.
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. for Barack Obama's Inauguration Celebration. American Idol judge
Harry Connick, Jr. heard
Kelly in a master class and brought her on stage to sit in with his band that night. Her work was featured on CNN, in Glamour Magazine, in the Hollywood Reporter and so much more.
At the age of 14,
Grace orchestrated one of her original compositions and performed it with the
Boston Pops Orchestra conducted by Keith Lockhart. Since then, the 22-year old Korean-American prodigy has been voted "Best Jazz Act" in
Boston four consecutive years in the FNX/Phoenix Best
Music Poll, and then voted Best
National Jazz Act in 2012. She has received the ASCAP Foundation's Young Jazz Composers Award in 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011 and 2013 and won "Jazz Artist of the Year" at the
Boston Music Awards in both 2008 and 2010. The 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 Downbeat Critics Poll added to her the list naming her one of the "Alto Saxophone Rising Stars," the youngest artist ever to be named to the music poll. But this time? This time
Grace Kelly is singing and playing a different tune -- her own. On
September 2nd, Grace's EP Working For The
Dreamers introduces what she calls her "atmospheric pop" sound.
Says
Kelly about the EP, "I have a deep respect for genre benders. I want to bring my music to people of my generation. I'd like to think I'm bringing something fresh and youthful to the table by merging musical influences and genres that are true to me - from influences of Stan Getz to
Sting to
Prince to
Coldplay to
Jessie Ware to Fitz and the Tantrums and beyond. I feel it's important to take all these two worlds that I love, pop and contemporary songwriting along with jazz and make it my own."
This new direction of Grace's music creates a fresh sound that makes the most of Grace's creative spirit and multiple talents, backed by Sunny Levine's programming of inventive drumbeats and dreamscapes (Scarlett Johansson, Rashida Jones, The Happy Mondays, and Ariel Pink) and masterfully produced by Stewart Levine (Minnie Ripperton, Simply Red, Jamie Cullum, Killing Joke, Joe Cocker, Sly Stone) and Sunny Levine.
Grace is currently on tour, including a stop at the famous Newport Jazz Festival where she'll play with the legendary composer and saxophonist, Lee Konitz who is the only musician on the bill who also appeared at the FIRST Newport Jazz 60 years ago!
DATES
July 30 Wequassett Inn Chatham, MA
July 31 Shalin Liu Perf Ctr Rockport, MA
August 23 Spaghettini Seal Beach, CA
September 18 Indy Jazz Fest Indianapolis, IN
September 19
Detroit Institute of Arts Detroit, MI
September 26 Tuckerman Hall Worcester, MA
September 28
Tupelo Music Hall Londonderry, NH
October 17 Grand Annex San Pedro, CA
