Chanda Rule + Sweet Emma Band  “Hold On” & Joyce Grant  “Surrounded By Blue”

Chanda Rule + Sweet Emma Band  “Hold On”

       Chanda Rule -vocals, Jan Kořínek – B3 organ, Paul Zauner – trombone, Osian Roberts – sax, Mario Rome – trumpet, Christian Salfelner – drums - Producer Paul Zauner

“With so much success, especially in New York, why relocate? It was in New York where she met her partner-in-life, an Austrian. Since moving to Vienna she’s embarked on a whole new musical career and performs all over Europe. Hopefully she’ll return to the states to perform at some point, but one listen will prove to you that she is indeed a special talent.  This is some of the best jazz music, vocal or otherwise, heard this year. Highly recommended.” Jim Hynes – Making A Scene

      Work songs, chants, gospel, blues and NU-grooves. A brand new program with a deep Southern Rock and Blues feeling. A new development and reworking of the soul music of the southern states and always open drum grooves. Paul Zauner, Jan Korinek and Chanda Rule embark on a musical search for traces before gospel, jazz and blues had a name. Starting in New Orleans, it goes to the Baptist churches in the southern states, then the band stops at Down Home Blues in the Southside of Chicago. The fine, always open grooves on the drums come from Christian Salfellner. West African rhythms, as well as dub or just a swinging shuffle.  This groove mix has started and is the beginning of an exciting journey.Sweet Emma was an American pianist and singer from New Orleans.  She performed regularly at the Preservation Hall; Nat & Cannonball Adderly dedicated the song Sweet Emma to her. In the sign of this Mood stands the whole program of the evening. Songs to groove and feel - by Hugh Masakela, Keith Jarrett and Traditionals from New Orleans.

Joyce Grant  “Surrounded By Blue”

Joyce Grant - vocals, Douglas McKeehan  – piano/keyboards, Marc Levine – acoustic/electric bass

Tony Malfatti - saxophones on tracks 1,2,3,4, sax section arrangement track 2,

Bill Belasco - drums, tracks 1,2,3,6,7,8, Brett Cosby – drums, track 4d,

Jack Dorsey – drums, track 5, Matt Eakle – flute, track 8, Jeff O’Sammon – guitar on tracks 1- 3

“A big voiced blues and jazz singer that stands on her own two feet without having to syncopate them, she’s a wondrous throw back to the golden age of gals that knew how to belt without histrionics.  Finding soul even in her whitest covers, Grant is a solid talent to be reckoned with that knows how to keep it going in fine style.”  Chris Spector, Midwest Record

       Joyce Grant is the great-great-niece of famed ragtime composer Scott Joplin, Joyce Grant determined at an early age that she was going to be a singer and songwriter.  Born in Texarkana, Arkansas, the town wh ere Scott Joplin was raised, Grant moved to Oakland, California as a child, where she started singing with the North Oakland Baptist Church Youth Choir. She spent her elementary and high school days performing in choir and musical theater.  A mezzo-so prano with a voice like dark honey, Grant has been singing jazz in the San Francisco Bay Area for over 20 years at venues such the Empire Plush Room and Donatello Hotel in San Francisco, the Ledson Hotel, Sonoma, the Empress Theater, Vallejo, and Woodminster Amphitheater, Oakland, to name but a few.  For the past 10 years she has been the lead vocalist for City Swing, an 18-piece big band based out of San Francisco, and is a frequent participant in the West Coast Ragtime festival.

       As a songwriter she has put lyrics to several of Scott Joplin’s pieces and released the CD In The Morning (co-produced with Doug McKeehan , 2010), a collection of original songs ranging in style from jazz to blues to R&B.  She currently lives in Vallejo, CA and performs regularly throughout the Bay Area, bringing her sensitive and powerful vocal interpretations to appreciative audiences that keep coming back for more.