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Susie Arioli

The Susie Arioli Band was started by singer Susie Arioli and guitar player Jordan Officer in 1997. At first the repertoire consisted of whatever Susie liked to sing, including jazz, country, R&B, bluegrass, blues, rock&roll.. Eventually the main focus of the band became jazz, and in particular pre bebop jazz. Their first big show was at the Montreal Jazz Festival, where after playing an outdoor show they were invited to open for Ray Charles at the prestigious Place Des Arts. Since then, the band has become a favourite of Canadian and International audiences with four best-selling jazz albums and tours of North America, Europe and Asia. Susie is known for her unaffected and sincere interpretations of beautiful old songs. The most recent CD is a departure from the others, and features six lesser known ballads by country songwriter Roger Miller. All four CD's feature Jordan Officer on guitar, violin (on That's For Me) and as an arranger. The last CD, Learn To Smile Again, is also produced by Jordan. The most recent release is a DVD of show at the Montreal Jazz Festival at the Spectrum (June 29th 2006) and a fifth CD is also being recorded this fall.

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9
Album Review

Susie Arioli: Spring

Read "Spring" reviewed by Edward Blanco


Canadian Jazz singer from Montreal and multiple Juno-Award nominee Susie Arioli, presents another spectacular rhythm-based recording on Spring, a spectacular blues and soul-influenced vocal project combining four fresh originals with a selection of vibrant standards for a very spicy and rousing good time. Under the direction of multi-instrumentalist/arranger and multiple Juno-Award winner Don Thompson, Arioli fronts a nine-piece ensemble that, on various occasions, sounds like a big band machine. With this superb support, the songstress delivers warm ballads, moving blues ...

20
Album Review

Susie Arioli featuring Jordan Officer: All The Way

Read "All The Way" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


Vocalist Susie Arioli's performances on All The Way are all about impact through intimacy. Arioli's laidback and understated vocals don't fall in line with the textbook definition of “powerful," but her ability to create highly emotive atmospheres in cloistered and relatively calm surroundings marks her as a powerful singer nonetheless. For this, her seventh studio affair, Arioli and her right hand man, guitarist Jordan Officer, tackle standards in their own inimitable fashion. Mellow moods tend to dominate ...

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Interview

Susie Arioli: Brushing with Strings

Read "Susie Arioli: Brushing with Strings" reviewed by Mary Ann Lacey


This summer, AAJ contributor Mary Ann Lacey interviewed Susie Arioli before and after her closing concert for the 2007 Montreal International Jazz Festival. Arioli and her partner, Jordan Officer, make up the core of the Susie Arioli Band, whose gentle jazz and swing ballads have enraptured audiences across the country and abroad since their start in 1997. Arioli sings in a soft but clear voice while playing brushes on the snare drum. Her repertoire includes jazz tunes like “Pennies from ...

373
Album Review

Susie Arioli Swing Band Featuring Jordan Officer: Pennies from Heaven

Read "Pennies from Heaven" reviewed by AAJ Staff


As soon as this sweet baker's dozen swings into action, you may feel as if you have walked into a lemonade commercial. The slightly sleepy fretwork of Jordan Officer gets the opening title track off to a dreamy start and Susie Arioli's brightly burred vocals follow along quite nicely. Pacing up for “Honeysuckle Rose," down again for a sparkling “Night and Day," and then way up for a rockabilly ride through the well-titled original “Jordan's Boogie," the dynamic duo and ...

233
Album Review

Susie Arioli Swing Band Featuring Jordan Officer: Pennies from Heaven

Read "Pennies from Heaven" reviewed by Dave Nathan


For her second album, Montreal-based singer Susie Arioli has graduated from a smaller label to a major Canadian one, Justin Time. And why not. Arioli has one of the more personable and refreshing vocal styles on today's scene. With impeccable phrasing and timing, an incredible feel for the lyrics all expressed in an engaging vocal fashion, she revives a musical agenda of mostly classic standards peppered with some contemporary material. Jordan Officer once again is with the singer and plays ...

177
Album Review

Susie Arioli Swing Band: It's Wonderful

Read "It's Wonderful" reviewed by Dave Nathan


Susie Arioli is no newcomer to the vocal game having performed in and around Montreal for several years. She and her Swing Band also performed at the JVC Jazz Festival in New York. It's Wonderful is her first album as a leader and she sings music she likes. There's an emphasis on 1930's and 1940's material. But there's other stuff here as well.

On the classic standards, Arioli follows firmly in the footsteps of such singers as Billie Holiday, Maxine ...

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18

Recording

Montreal Jazz Chanteuse Susie Arioli Goes "All the Way" on New Jazzheads Release.

Montreal Jazz Chanteuse Susie Arioli Goes "All the Way" on New Jazzheads Release.

Source: Two for the Show Media

Set to perform at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola in New York City on June 19, 2012 Since first joining forces in 1998 with guitarist and kindred spirit Jordan Officer in her Swing Band, Montreal-based singer Susie Arioli has been casting her seductive spell on jazz fans throughout Canada, and in Europe. Her sultry voice, clear articulation and fondness for the Great American Songbook places her squarely in the camp of such classy jazz divas from the 1950s as Peggy Lee, Chris Connor, ...

29

Recording

Susie Arioli Shines On Her Latest Album, "All The Way"

Susie Arioli Shines On Her Latest Album, "All The Way"

Source: Vivo Musique Internationale

Another step in her rich and inspired career finds Susie Arioli pushing the limits of her art with a new album appropriately titled All the Way. The sparkling singer invites us to follow her on a sublime adventure as she brings her finely modulated voice to bear on thirteen numbers drawn from the immortal repertoire of the Great American Songbook. Displaying the maturity of performers who are in it for the long haul, Arioli brings her singular touch to legendary ...

192

Recording

Susie Arioli "Christmas Dreaming" - new album in stores November 2, 2010

Susie Arioli  "Christmas Dreaming" - new album in stores November 2, 2010

Source: Vivo Musique Internationale

Montreal—Susie Arioli is back with Christmas Dreaming, a brand new album to be released on November 2. True to her inimitable style, and still accompanied by Jordan Officer on guitar, Susie invents a very personal way of celebrating the Holidays with a Christmas album of bewitching charm. With over 200 000 copies sold worldwide between her five previous albums, Susie Arioli demonstrates once again her exceptional flair for selecting songs. The singer offers a choice of some great classics and ...

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Award / Grant

Additional Shows in L'astral Susie Arioli Receives the Oscar Peterson Award

Additional Shows in L'astral Susie Arioli Receives the Oscar Peterson Award

Source: Michael Ricci

The Susie Arioli concert, presented Saturday, July 4 at 6 p.m. as part of the En voix Rio Tinto Alcan series, will be the breakthrough concert for the popular jazz singer-with Thtre Maisonneuve in Place des Arts already sold out, and the Festival International de Jazz de Montral presenting her with the 2009 Oscar Peterson Award 2009. The prestigious award will be presented to her by Laurent Saulnier, vice president of Festival programming, during a press briefing schedued for today, ...

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Award / Grant

The Festival International de Jazz de Montreal honours Stevie Wonder, Toots & The Maytals, John Pizzarelli, Ornette Coleman and Susie Arioli and creates the new Bruce Lundvall Award

The Festival International de Jazz de Montreal honours Stevie Wonder, Toots & The Maytals, John Pizzarelli, Ornette Coleman and Susie Arioli and creates the new Bruce Lundvall Award

Source: Michael Ricci

Montreal - Stevie Wonder, Toots & The Maytals, John Pizzarelli, Ornette Coleman and Susie Arioli are the 2009 winners of the prestigious prizes awarded annually by the Festival International de Jazz de Montreal to artists who have made extraordinary contributions to the evolution of music. This year, they will receive, respectively, the Montreal Jazz Festival Spirit Award, Antonio Carlos Jobim Award, Ella Fitzgerald Award, Miles Davis Award and Oscar Peterson Award. Now, in keeping with a tradition dating back to ...

127

Interview

Singer Susie Arioli Interviewed at AAJ

Singer Susie Arioli Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz

This summer, AAJ contributor Mary Ann Lacey interviewed Susie Arioli before and after her closing concert for the 2007 Montreal International Jazz Festival. Arioli and her partner, Jordan Officer, make up the core of the Susie Arioli Band, whose gentle jazz and swing ballads have enraptured audiences across the country and abroad since their start in 1997. Arioli sings in a soft but clear voice while playing brushes on the snare drum. Her repertoire includes jazz tunes like “Pennies from ...

125

Music Industry

Justin Time Records Continues Its Commitment to Quality and Diversity With The Release of Three New CDs: Russell Gunn's Ethnomusicology, Vol.2; This is Carmen Lundy; and It's Wonderful by the Susie Arioli Swing Band featuring Jordan Officer

Justin Time Records Continues Its Commitment to Quality and Diversity With The Release of Three New CDs: Russell Gunn's Ethnomusicology, Vol.2; This is Carmen Lundy; and It's Wonderful by the Susie Arioli Swing Band featuring Jordan Officer

Source: All About Jazz

If one were attempting to design a prototype for the quintessential contemporary musician in the African-American tradition, trumpeter/composer Russell Gunn would be an ideal model. A certified member of the hip-hop generation by age 29 and geography (the hardcore ghetto of East St. Louis), Russell's early aspirations in the world of rap are fully evident in his musical vision.

Applying its energy, spirit and fiercely proud intellectual rage to the jazz idiom, he's created a synthesis that is truly singular ...

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