Jazz vocalist Ellen Robinson celebrates the release of her third album, Don’t Wait Too Long, recorded live at the Freight with her stellar band, featuring Murray Low on piano, Sam Bevan on bass, Kristen Strom on reeds, and Dan Foltz on drums.  The new album includes songs by Joni Mitchell, Blossom Dearie, Alan and Marilyn Bergman, and the title song by Madeline Peyroux, as well as Ellen’s latest originals.  “This singer delivers from the heart,” says the website AllAboutJazz.  She “interprets lyrics in such a way that we feel them completely.”
 
Born in New Rochelle and raised in Connecticut, Ellen learned piano from her mother and earned a music education degree from Manhattanville College.  “I wanted to be a composer, but my parents said I would never be able to support myself, so I got into music education,” she says.  After moving to the Bay Area in 1976, she got bitten by the jazz bug.  She was teaching music at Oakland’s Beacon Day School when three jazz musicians came to play for her class and invited her to sing along.  The drummer, Bud Spangler, who happened to be a Grammy-nominated producer, liked what he heard – and has since produced all three of her albums.  Pianist and radio host Marian McPartland has praised her for having “a wonderful, clear voice and a jazz feeling all the way.”  Join Ellen and her band for an evening of jazz that’s intense and pure, swinging and loaded with soul.

Visit Ellen's website

Listen to a track from Ellen Robinson:

Photo by Anna Kuperberg