Primary Instrument: Vocal
Cocoa Martini Vocalist Trio Lights Up Seattle Jazz Scene
Cocoa Martini is a popular jazz ensemble featuring three exceptional Northwest vocalists -- Kimberly Reason, Karen Shivers, and Kay Bailey -- nominated for Earshot Jazz's prestigious Golden Ear Award for 2009 Northwest Vocalist of the Year.
Backed by Bill Anschell on piano, Bernie Jacobs on the flute and saxophone, Chris Clark on bass, and Greg Williamson on drums, the talented Seattle-area women deliver an engaging, dynamic repertoire of straight-ahead jazz, pop, R&B and gospel music in alluring ensemble harmonies and distinctive solo performances rooted in swing, blues, and bossa nova traditions.
“Our coming together came out of one of those thrilling, ‘big bang’ moments,” says Kimberly Reason. “After performing a solo show to a sold-out crowd one evening, I found myself in a girlfriend huddle dream-building about the possibility of three African American women celebrating our jazz heritage by doing a bigger show together. We spent the rest of the night giving birth to COCOA MARTINI -- our way of paying homage to the creative genius of the African American community, and honoring the profound impact that jazz continues to have on music and people of all walks of life.”
In addition to singing compelling songs from the Great American songbook, COCOA MARTINI uses the Griot's tradition of storytelling to share winsome, personal anecdotes about their musical selections -- what a song means to each vocalist, why the vocalist chose a song, and the bridge between history and life today that each song represents. COCOA MARTINI performances are high-energy, poignant, and entertaining: Audiences are treated to a variety of musical presentations as each vocalist delivers her song pick with her own distinctive phrasing, range, timbre, improvisational style, and personality. The group also performs a selection of ensemble arrangements that highlight rich and engaging harmonies.
“We love each other’s sound,” says Karen Shivers, who opened for Grammy-winner Dianne Reeves in 2006 and was voted 2008 Female Jazz Vocalist by the Seattle-Kobe Sister City. “We sing from that intimate place inside each of us that tells our personal story”all the joys and pains we’ve lived through. And while we emulate the greats who have blazed the trail before us, in each of us people hear who we are in our own right: natural, warm, feisty -- and irresistibly honest.”
Since its Seattle debut in December 2007, COCOA MARTINI performs to sold-out shows throughout the Pacific Northwest. Its upcoming performance schedule includes The Seattle Art Museum, a third appearance at The Triple Door, and the Jazz Vespers Program at Seattle Baptist Church.
Karen Shivers was born in St. Louis, Missouri. She lived in the Philippines, Texas, Maryland, Nebraska and California as an Air Force brat before settling in Seattle in 1970, where she spent the next three decades raising her family. She began studying jazz under Bud Schultz and Marvin Vann in 1996, eventually joining Bob Nixon, former pianist for Pulitzer-winning bassist Charles Mingus, before the former’s death in 2003. Karen has performed at The Triple Door, The Upstage in Port Townsend, The Seattle First Baptist Church’s Jazz Vespers, The Sorrento Hotel, Egan’s Ballard Jam House, Vertigo Lounge & Grill, and The New Orleans Creole Restaurant and Jazz Club, among other venues. She has released two CDs: Precious Love (2005) and Karen Sends Shivers Up and Down Your Spine (2000).
Known for her ability to sing upbeat, finger-popping swing in one turn and tender, crystal-toned ballads, Kimberly discovered jazz through her mother, a former beauty queen who grew up in a tenement off Jackson Street during the heyday of Seattle’s legendary jazz scene in the 1940s. As a child, Kimberly studied piano at Cornish College of the Arts and sang in church choirs, including Kent Stevenson's gospel group, The Urban Rhythm Chorus. Her venues include The Triple Door, Tula’s Jazz Club, The Sorrento Hotel, The Rainier Club, Egan’s Ballard Jam House, Local Color, Vertigo, Café Campagne, Cromwell Park, and The Seattle Athletic Club. She produced her CD, Kimberly Reason with the Larry Fuller Trio, in 2004, and is currently in production on her second album. Kimberly was born and raised in Seattle.
Born in Cleveland Ohio, Kay Bailey played violin for 9 years before giving up the string instrument when she started high school. She resumed her music studies 13 years ago when she enrolled in a vocal class at Seattle's Community College. Since then, she has performed at Tula's Jazz Club, Cafe Campagne, Serafina's, the Sorrento Hotel, and The Pampas Room, among many other venues. Currently, she performs with The Finn Hill Quartet at Cafe Harlequin in Kirkland every Friday, and Anthony's Home Port once a month. Kay selects music from different genres, rendering them with her own unique style and a classic jazz voice boasting a surprising range.
More information on COCOA MARTINI can be found at www.cocoamartini.com.
Awards:
Nominated for Earshot Jazz's Golden Ear Award for 2009 Northwest Vocalist of the YearCocoa Martini ” three Seattle women who made the switch to vocal jazz in midcareer ” sing at the Triple Door Dec. 13.
The concept behind the vocal jazz group Cocoa Martini seems both familiar and novel, three women who sing songs that most of us know well, backed by a quartet.
When performing, the three singers, who straddle age 50, dress in elegant, evening dresses and take turns singing most of the songs, harmonizing on about a third of them, taking care in between to joke, address the audience and talk about their experience with the music.
Familiar, because the formula is tried and true and the songs easy to connect with. Novel, because it seems jazz is seldom presented this way anymore.
The members of Cocoa Martini, who will perform Sunday night at 7 at the Triple Door for the third time in three years, admit to tapping into a nostalgia for the kind of songs they sing and the way they sing them.
“Jazz artists performing now are so technically talented and highly educated in the art form and science of jazz, and they're taking it to a very complex level, which by itself is very intriguing and compelling,” said Kimberly Reason, one of the original members of Cocoa Martini.
“However, I've heard many times that jazz is becoming too cerebral and is losing some of its audience. We want to bring it back.”
The trio will be accompanied Sunday by pianist Bill Anschell, drummer Greg Williamson, bassist Doug Miller and woodwind player Bernie Jacobs.
As African-American women in jazz, Reason, Karen Shivers and Kay Bailey also speak of feeling underrepresented in Seattle, where the vast majority of prominent musicians are white men.
The circuitous route the singers took to the stage also makes them unique. All three discovered music early in life but did not act on their aspirations until they were well into adulthood and their careers.
Shivers ran a hospice; Reason was an executive at Macy's; Bailey owned a hair salon and clothing business.
Reason and Bailey took a rafting trip 15 years ago on the Deschutes River during which they shared their mutual dream of singing professionally. They promised each other to act on that dream.
About the same time Shivers ” who worked for years as the executive director of the Community Hospice of the Northwest ” made a serious assessment of her life.
She wanted to sing, and the urge nagged at her for a year before she finally worked up the courage to walk into the Harbor Inn restaurant in Gig Harbor, where she ended up singing, without pay, every weekend for the next two years with pianist Bud Schultz.
“When I walked in,” Shivers said, “I was hoping and praying he'd say no; I was scared to death. I didn't want to change my life. I didn't want to pay the price.”
“You don't know what's going to happen when you make a change,” Bailey said. “You just decide you want to do it. I still don't have any real goals. I don't know if that's bad or good. What I'm doing is just taking a ride with these ladies. And I'm doing what I really love at this point in my life.”
