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Laura Ainsworth

From her home base of Dallas to Los Angeles, New York, Scotland and India, the world is falling in love with Laura Ainsworth. With her satiny, three-octave voice, her sexy sense of humor and her trademark elbow-length gloves and beaded gowns that would fill Julie London with envy, Laura ushers audiences into her own enchanting world...a cocktail that combines the elegant retro style of nightclub shows of the ‘40s and '50s with sophisticated modern musical twists. She calls it "New Vintage." It’s an intoxicating blend that has attracted some of the top jazz players in Texas to her side, including longtime partner Brian Piper, one of the most sought-after pianists/producers in the Southwest. It’s also earned her critical raves and industry honors, including a profile in Downbeat magazine; performances at Manhattan’s famed Metropolitan Room, L.A.’s Whiskey A-Go-Go and Mike Huckabee’s nationally-broadcast TV variety show on TBN; three Global Music Awards Bronze Medals; a Clousine Music Magazine “Best Jazz Album” award; and multiple nominations in the Josie Music Awards and Artists Music Guild Heritage Awards.

Big band and lounge jazz are in Laura's DNA. Her late father, Bill Ainsworth, was a renowned sax and clarinet master, vocalist and arranger who played with Freddy Martin, Tex Beneke, Ernie Felice and other top bandleaders, and at age 17, was possibly the youngest member ever of the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. As a young girl, Laura watched enraptured as her dad accompanied such idols as Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Mel Torme and Marilyn McCoo at Dallas' famous Fairmont Hotel Venetian Room. Laura grew up worshiping the great jazz, big band and club singers such as Ella, Keely Smith, Doris Day, Julie London, Margaret Whiting and Rosemary Clooney, as well as musically-inclined comediennes such as Madeline Kahn and Mary Tyler Moore. Both music and humor became a big part of her life.

Laura's debut album, Keep It To Yourself, produced and arranged by 2012 Dallas Jazz Musician of the Year Brian Piper and featuring the Brian Piper Trio (John Adams on bass, Mike Drake on drums), spotlights Laura's amazing voice in a delightful genre- and era-skipping collection of ballads, swing tunes, standards and obscure gems from the 1920s to today.

Guest artists include the brilliant sax and clarinet player Chris McGuire, guitarist Noel Johnston and jazz violinist Milo Deering.

Guitarist Chris Derose, who has accompanied such artists as Michael Feinstein and Willie Nelson, joins Laura on a stripped-down take of the Hoagy Carmichael / Johnny Mercer classic "Skylark" that one critic dubbed “transcendent.”

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Take Five With...

Take Five With Laura Ainsworth

Read "Take Five With Laura Ainsworth" reviewed by Laura Ainsworth


Meet Laura Ainsworth: I was born in Los Angeles but came to Dallas as a tot when my dad, jazz sax/clarinetist Billy Ainsworth, relocated to become a part of the growing commercial recording industry. Came up in the music biz (details to follow!). Graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.S. in Radio-TV-Film. Worked on staff and also as a freelance writer for jingle/broadcast services company TM Productions, where I met my husband-to-be, Pat Reeder. Together we ...

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Recording

Laura Ainsworth - Keep It to Yourself (2011)

Laura Ainsworth - Keep It to Yourself (2011)

Source: Something Else!

Dallas, Texas-based Laura Ainsworth, though performing last-century throwback cocktail jazz, may have stumbled into a zeitgeist-defining moment with the opening title track here. Whether she knew it or not back in the recording studio, Ainsworth's delicious tale of revenge exacted on a serial philanderer is perfectly of the moment in this period of celebrity male misdeed from the likes of Tiger Woods, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Anthony Weiner. Singing in a satiny, impossibly old-fashioned, nearly three-octave voice, Ainsworth is the very ...

71

Recording

Texas-based jazz vocalist Laura Ainsworth truly dazzles on new CD

Source: Lauren Rogers

The last thing anyone would expect from a jazz album would be a cover of a song from '80s New Wave vet Marshall Crenshaw. But on her latest record, Keep It To Yourself, vocalist Laura Ainsworth does just that, stripping away the power pop from Crenshaw's 1991 original and instead focusing on its yearning romanticism. Gifted with a sultry, swoon-inducing croon, Ainsworth can sing any words and command attention; given lines of poetry from Crenshaw's golden pen, and she truly ...

153

Recording

Laura Ainsworth's Secret Is Out: "Keep It To Yourself" Hits The Charts

Laura Ainsworth's Secret Is Out: "Keep It To Yourself" Hits The Charts

Source: Laura Ainsworth

Dallas-based singer Laura Ainsworth titled her debut CD “Keep It To Yourself," but word seems to be spreading out of her control. The indie release, with virtually no advertising or PR budget, is garnering rave reviews and airplay across America, as well as in Brazil, Australia, France, Italy, South Africa and other nations. And Ms Ainsworth was happily stunned to learn that it has just entered Jazz Weekly's Top 200 Radio Airplay Chart, tied with such venerable artists as Herbie ...

"Ainsworth’s voice is sublime as it caresses top-notch musicianship by a slew of southwest jazz players...It’s a very warm, elegant album with just enough big stage flair." — Mario Tarradell, Dallas Morning News

"Jazz vocalist Laura Ainsworth weaves past and present with stunning power...Her voice is like (a) mirror reflection into the past, conjuring black-and-white images of well-groomed gentlemen in trench coats and fedoras, smoke-enveloped bars, and glamorous women whose beauty is nearly as bright as their jewelry...Laura Ainsworth has that effect on the listener, an uncanny ability to flash portraits in the mind with a simple line...It might not be long before Dallas is not just known for its oil, Cowboys, and J.R. Ewing but a funny lady with a jewel of a voice..." — Robert Sutton, JazzCorner.com

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

New Vintage

Eclectus Records
2017

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Top Shelf

Eclectus Records
2017

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Necessary Evil

Self Produced
2013

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Keep It To Yourself

Eclectus Records
0

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Necessary Evil

From: Necessary Evil
By Laura Ainsworth

Love For Sale

From: Keep It To Yourself
By Laura Ainsworth

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