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Laura Dreyer

Saxophonist, flutist, and composer Laura Dreyer is a vibrant, creative voice in the New York jazz scene. Her catchy original compositions combine lyrical melodies with jazz, and Brazilian rhythms, resulting in an exciting, contemporary palette of sound with a strong rhythmic twist.

Her newest recording, Vida. Arte. Amor. (Mayimba Jazz) was recently recorded in Rio de Janeiro and features both Rio and New York based jazz artists. Laura has released three previous CDs as a leader/producer, including Mysterious Encounter (Lavasphere), Free Flying Bird (Sony/Piloo), and Sax in the City (Apria), all of which are available on CDbaby.com and itunes. She is also featured on acclaimed Brazilian pianist Dom Salvador’s newest release, The Art of Samba Jazz, which received a Premio da Musica Brasileira award for Best Instrumental CD.

A multi-instrumentalist, Dreyer is in great demand as a side-person. Audiences have heard her in the bands of suchdiverse artists as Dr. Billy Taylor, Dom Salvador, Antonio Adolofo, Helcio Milito, Portinho, Walter Bishop Jr.,Mel Lewis, Robert Palmer, Nnenna Freelon, saxophonist/author James McBride, The Diva Jazz Orchestra, and many others. Laura has headlined at the Kennedy Center’s Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival, and The Syracuse Jazz Festival, as well as many NYC venues including The Blue Note, Fat Cat, The Antique Garage, Sweet Rhythm, Birdland, The Zinc Bar, The Bean Runner Cafe, and many more. She has additionally performed at clubs and festivals both nationally and internationally.

Laura, who is also a renowned music educator, attended The Berklee College of Music in Boston, and has a Bachelor of Arts degree from SUNY Empire State College. She has studied privately with saxophonists Joe Henderson and Joe Lovano, and composers Lyle Mays and Jim McNeely

Diva Jazz Orchestra: "30": Live at Dizzy's Club

Read ""30": Live at Dizzy's Club" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
October 19, 2023

The “30" in the title of the superlative all-woman Diva Jazz Orchestra's latest album stands for 30 years, which, believe it or not, is how long the orchestra and its remarkable drummer and leader, Sherrie Maricle, have been up and running and making beautiful music at home and abroad. Among U.S.-based big bands, it would seem that only Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Woody Herman have had longer runs than that. Fast company indeed. So is Diva ready for comparisons? ...

Album Review

The DIVA Jazz Orchestra: Swings Broadway

Read "Swings Broadway" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
May 26, 2022

At the ripe old age of thirty (closer to a hundred in big-band years), the superlative New York-based, all-female DIVA Jazz Orchestra remains as frisky as a newborn colt, swinging up, down and around Broadway with abandon on its thirteenth album, a brisk and colorful tribute to the Great White Way that shines brightly from start to finish. The album opens and closes in a mid-1950s vein, raising the curtain with Steven Feifke's breezy, well-grooved arrangement of ...

Album Review

Laura Dreyer: Vida. Arte. Amor.

Read "Vida. Arte. Amor." reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
September 9, 2014

Life, art, and love are all intertwined in the latest work from multi-instrumentalist Laura Dreyer--a fourteen song collection that finds her plying her trade in Brazilian-based settings and contemporary scenes. For this album, Dreyer went the wholly authentic route, traveling to Brazil to record in Rio De Janiero. The music that was born in that sunny locale--a fusion of Brazilian musical languages, funk, rock, smooth jazz, and more--speaks to Dreyer's diverse interests; it also speaks to her ...

Recording

Mayimba Music To Release Laura Dreyer's Vida. Arte. Amor. - A Brazilian Journey

Source: Antje Hübner
July 24, 2014

Laura Dreyer, a native of the San Francisco Bay Area, has established herself as a vital member of the New York jazz scene. Always drawn to Brazilian music, the composer, educator and multi-instrumentalist created a “latinized" fusion incorporating elements of jazz, funk, and rock. Dreyer was a founding member and contributing arranger for the big band DIVA. In this capacity, she worked with luminaries Dave Brubeck, Rosemary Clooney, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Slide Hampton and Clark Terry, among others. Additionally she ...
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"Balmy bossa-influenced jazz-pop from a pretty San Francisco native whose sax and flute playing do indeed suggest she's learned a bit from Milton Nascimento and Gilberto Gil records...smooth, but not that smooth. The Beatles cover is quite tasty." - Chuck Eddy/Village Voice

"Every once and awhile an artist comes around to surprise everyone with the proficiency in an idiom naturally foreign to him or her. The saxophonist and flutist Laura Dreyer is one such artist. The Portuguese idiom of Brasil comes so naturally to her that she could almost fool even the most astute listener into believing that she is Brasilian." - Raul da Gama, Latin Jazz Network

Primary Instrument

Saxophone, alto

Willing to teach

Advanced only

Credentials/Background

Dreyer is very active as a music educator, having served on the faculties of the Jamey Aebersold jazz clinics, Cazedero Music and Arts Camp, Jazz Camp West, and the Friends of Music in Korea. Laura is currently a faculty member of Church St. School for Music and Art, the New York Pops PopsEd Program, Riverdale Country School, The New York Jazz Academy, and The Brazilian Music Foundation. In addition to being a clinician at high schools and colleges on a regular basis. Dreyer was a featured columnist in Saxophone Journal for five years, and contues to write for various music publications including Jazz Improv Magazine, and Sax on the Web.