Home » Jazz Musicians » Shelley Neill

Shelley Neill

Shelley Neill was born in the culturally rich rough and tumble Ironbound neighborhood of Newark, New Jersey in the 1950’s, and abandoned by her Irish Catholic mother and Hungarian father at birth. She was adopted, as an infant, into a Jewish family that had grown up and lived in Newark. She considers herself “a child of Newark.”

Her most vivid childhood memories of Newark in the 1950’s - cobblestone streets, people speaking in English, Yiddish, and Italian, horse-drawn vegetable carts, streets with names that sounded strange – Peshein Avenue and Demerest Street – where her grandparents lived - egg kindlers, fresh-killed chickens, Silverman’s Bakery, chocolate egg creams, family circle meetings, chain-link fenced school playgrounds.

In the late 1960’s Newark’s neighborhoods unraveled - Jewish and Italian families moved out - and African-American families moved in. Her family moved to the suburbs of New Jersey. By the late 1960’s Newark was on fire and people who had been filled with hope were now filled with either fear or anger or both.

Music was always a huge part of her life. She began and ended each day listening to WNJR Radio out of Newark, and grew to love the sounds of Dionne Warwick, Martha and the Vandelas, Marvin Gaye and Smokey Robinson.

Later it was Janis Joplin, Sly and the Family Stone, Wes Montgomery, Bill Evans, the Rolling Stones and Aretha Franklin, along with an interest in neo-classical music – Igor Stravinsky and Oliver Messian, followed by the great ladies of Jazz: Ella, Sarah, and Billie - introduced to her by Great Aunt Rose, who lived in the Bronx, was a public school teacher, and loved Jazz music, singers in particular. She also learned to love the music and later the way it felt when she sang a song.

She moved to Boston in 1969 and had an on and off relationship with music until, In the 1980’s, when she picked up singing again and started to play in and around Boston. She began to take trips outside of the country and she started to research a Jazz and Blues trilogy project. Her first CD, The Blues Runs Though It, looked at the impact of Blues on Jazz from a vocalist’s perspective. A second CD, Envisioning Blue, and then the third and final CD of the series, entree blue, took her on a musical journey that began in 1915 with Robert Johnson and Ma Rainey and ended with Miles Davis in the 1960’s.

Read more

Tags

118
Album Review

Shelley Neill: Envisioning Blue

Read "Envisioning Blue" reviewed by Michael P. Gladstone


I approached Shelley Neill's latest with very positive expectations after reading all positive reviews for her previous work ( Diaphonous Apertures, 1996; Music Sweet Music, 1999; and The Blues Run Through It, 2001). Neill is an acquired taste: in some of her performances are passable, some are pretty decent and others are irritating.

Shelley Neill, a Boston singer and teacher, has made four albums on her own Cobalt Blue label. She emphasizes a blues approach to her ...

123
Album Review

Shelley Neill: The Blues Run Through It

Read "The Blues  Run Through It" reviewed by Stephen Koch


Shelley revisits a theme that was present on her some cuts of her previous cd,"Music, Sweet Music". In doing so she pays homage to early blues singers and composers.

Her personal vision works exceeedingly well as she enlists a stellar line up of musicians to make it happen.

“Dark Shadows" opens the set and gets a precise on the money feel. Laszlo Gardony and John Blake Jr. get solo honors. Mr. Blakes' violin isn't what you expect in a jazz ...

155
Album Review

Shelley Neill: Music Sweet Music

Read "Music Sweet Music" reviewed by Jack Bowers


What I admire most about Shelley Neill’s Music Sweet Music is her splendid choice of material. And next to that, the enterprising rhythm section (especially pianist Laszlo Gardony). No, that doesn’t say much for the singer, but when one finds himself looking forward to the piano solos, that speaks volumes. It troubles me to appraise anyone so unkindly, as Neill is assuredly doing the best she can and probably worked hard to get where she is — but the fact ...

Read more articles
50

Performance / Tour

Jazz Vocalist Shelley Neill Performing at Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center on Friday, April 1

Jazz Vocalist Shelley Neill Performing at Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center on Friday, April 1

Source: MassJazz: Jazz in Massachusetts

Premier jazz vocalist Shelley Neill and her masterful band of musicians from Berklee College of Music are performing on Friday, April 1, 2011 at the Jazz Club at Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center in Cambridge Massachusetts, starting at 8:00 p.m.. Tickets to the show are $15-$20 and can be ordered online. The doors open at 7:00 p.m. and dinner, snacks, winer and beer are available for purchase. Neill will be performing songs from her album, Irish Eyes, Gypsy Soul, and will ...

41

Performance / Tour

Shelley Neill Kicks of 2011 Jazz Series at Cambridge's Multicultural Arts Center on January 21

Shelley Neill Kicks of 2011 Jazz Series at Cambridge's Multicultural Arts Center on January 21

Source: MassJazz: Jazz in Massachusetts

Acclaimed vocalist Shelley Neill performs this Friday, January 21, at the Multicultural Arts Center in Cambridge Massachusetts at 8:00 p.m. (doors open at 7:00 p.m.). Neill is being joined by ace Berklee musicians Laszlo Gardony on piano, Ron Mahdi on bass and Yoron Israel on drums. Tickets to the show are $20 and $15 and are available online or at the box office window, which is open 10:30 a.m. to 6:00 Monday through Friday. Neill's performance will include songs from ...

"Vocalist Shelley Neill's life reads like a movie...

Boston Globe

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

The Currency Is Heat

Cobalt Blue Music
2010

buy

Envisioning Blue

Cobalt Blue Music
2003

buy

The Blues Run...

Cobalt Blue Music
2002

buy

Music Sweet Music

Cobalt Blue Music
1999

buy

Similar

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.