”Southern-fried vintage jazz,” ...with its languid melodies and sultry vocal lines, it does sound as if it could have floated off a Georgia porch and landed by accident in rainy, cold Seattle. Bean's vocals recall Billie Holiday, only with sheer joy replacing all that pain.” The Seattle P.I.
Steeped in hot muggy weather, love, God and corn whiskey, songwriter Datri Bean's music blends 1930s jazz with folksy Americana, for a lazy afternoon on the porch feeling.
Bean was raised in a rodeo family on the plains of Wyoming. Listening to her mother's scratchy Scott Joplin records, at the age of five, she began to play the piano. She studied at the Boston Conservatory of Music, but found it a bit stuffy, so she quickly high-tailed it for Austin, Texas. She kicked around here and there, eventually landing in a big house full of jazz musicians, hooligans, exchange students and bike mechanics, from whom she learned to play jazz, fix bicycles, speak Russian and drink hooch- all at the same time. Pulled by the love of a very special bicycle mechanic, Datri was dragged kicking and screaming from Austin to Seattle. She soon returned to Austin to records her ten song, all original debut album, Slow Down Summertime.
Slow Down Summertime was named one of the Top 5 Albums of 2006 by Performing Songwriter magazine. Shortly after the release of Slow Down Summertime, About.com named her one of the “best folk artists you haven't heard of.” She was recently honored by the Kerrville New Folk, Telluride, and Rocky Mountain folk festivals for her songwriting.
