Sheila Jordan News

Announcements for the 2012 Healdsburg Jazz Festival are trickling in, and the first one so far lives up to the festival's reputation of excellence.

The show is by Manner Effect, a quintet which features vocalist Sarah Elizabeth Charles, who should be familiar to local jazz audiences.

New CDs released Tuesday, Jan. 31, include jazz singer Sheila Jordan's splendid live duets with bassist Harvie S, "Yesterdays." Years ago, the incomparable but perennially underrecognized jazz vocalist Sheila Jordan made a duet album with bassist Arild Andersen, "Sheila," that is one of the treasures of my collection.

A The Healdsburg Jazz Festival has received an NEA Jazz Masters Live grant of $10,000 to help support a June 10 concert honoring jazz masters Sheila Jordan and Roy Haynes.

When a musical voice is discovered so young, it always captures the listener with amazement that so much can emanate from something so early in their talent.

Classes include Jazz Vocal Repertoire, Jazz Ensembles, "The Composing Improviser" and Beginner Guitar Class all of which will feature teachers Jamie MacDonald, David Goodrich and Draa Hobbs.

The return of the Melbourne International Jazz Festival, joining the Fremantle festival and jazz events as pat of the Sydney cultural festival, means the jazz calendar is back to full strength again this year.

Sheila Jordan had reached a crossroads. It was 1987 and the jazz singer was 58 and still essentially a cult figure known to a small cadre of musicians, critics and insiders as a treasure of unconventional yet soulful expression, artful versatility and magical spontaneity.

Recent NEA Jazz Master is among best drummers ever It was nice to see the recent National Endowment for the Arts annual Jazz Masters awards ceremony and concert broadcast online recently from the Jazz at Lincoln Center.