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SHAKESPEARE AND ALL THAT JAZZ
The Bard's own words set to music by John
Dankworth, Arthur Young, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn
 New York jazz vocalist Christiana Drapkin
celebrates the beauty and power of William Shakespeare's poetry and presents it
in lively, sometimes haunting jazz arrangements. Christiana was inspired to
develop this project after finding a 1964 recording by Cleo Laine, "Shakespeare
and all that Jazz", on Fontana Records. John Dankworth had composed many of
these arrangements for his wife; the rest were some light-hearted settings by
composer Arthur Young. Quite unjustly, they seemed to have been forgotten and
deserve to be heard again. The same holds true for a poignant setting of a
sonnet by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, from the suite "Such Sweet
Thunder".
The Christiana Drapkin Jazz Group conducts both, concert
performances for festivals and performance series, as well as high-school and
college classroom workshops and concerts. The group's collaborative approach
addresses the educational needs of the music, theater, and English literature
curriculum in an enjoyable and dynamic way. The members of the group are
graduates of music, drama, and history departments at Smith College, Boston
University, and SUNY Empire State College respectively. As professional
performers, they have also continued their education at other universities and
in private studies with actively performing musicians and teachers.
View
a video of a live performance at the Kennedy-Center Washington, DC
In their performance workshops, Christiana and members of her
trio introduce the selections, discussing form, content, style, and context.
They also parallel and juxtapose the material with Standards from the Great
American Songbook, which address the same age-old themes that were already sung
about in the Bard's day. Last February, at Manhattan's jazz club "Sweet
Rhythm", the Christiana Drapkin Jazz Group featured this Shakespeare material
for the first time, to an enthusiastic audience reception.
The song selections are direct quotations from Shakespeare's
plays and treatments of his sonnets in their entirety:
If Music Be the Food of Love (Twelfth Night)
It Was a Lover
and his Lass (As You Like It)
Winter - When Icicles Hang by the Wall
(Love's Labour's Lost)
The Willow Song (Othello)
Fear No More the Heat
of the Sun (Cymbeline)
When that I Was and a Little Tiny Boy (Twelfth
Night)
Sigh No More, Ladies (Much Ado About Nothing)
O Mistress Mine
(Twelfth Night)
Our Revels now Are Ended (The Tempest)
Shall I Compare
Thee to a Summer's Day? (Sonnet 18)
Let me not to the Marriage of True
Minds (Sonnet 116)
My Love Is as a Fever (Sonnet 147)
CHRISTIANA DRAPKIN - VOCALS
Christiana came to the US
as a German Fulbright exchange student in theater. At Tulane University in New
Orleans, she discovered the inner workings of musical theater and, more
importantly, the roots of Jazz. However, New York City has become Christiana's
artistic home. Through her continuing jazz studies with pianist Charles
Sibirsky, she has developed a deep connection to the American standards and
bebop repertoire. Combined with her voice training under vocal coach Barbara
Feller, Christiana is known for her fearless and soaring improvisation lines,
as well as for her highly personal delivery of lyrics. Well-known vocalists
Sheila Jordan, and Tierney Sutton support and encourage her in her musical
work. Christiana has been performing in clubs, at festivals, and in concert
settings on the Eastern Seaboard for almost twenty years. She has released two
CDs on Iana Records, "The Man I Love", and "Songs About You", which feature
original compositions by some of her favorite fellow-musicians, in addition to
fresh takes on standards, from Porter and Gershwin to Parker and Monk.
MICHAEL KANAN - PIANO
Michael Kanan is originally
from Boston, MA, where he attended Boston College. His first Jazz instructor,
Harvey Diamond, was a student of the legendary pianist and composer Lennie
Tristano. After several years of study with Diamond and many freelance gigs in
Boston, Michael moved to New York City in 1991. Immediately upon arriving, he
studied for one year with another Tristano student, the great Sal Mosca. He
continues his studies with Sophia Rosoff, who has been his teacher since 2000.
From 1995 to 2001, Kanan was the accompanist for vocal great
Jimmy Scott, with whom he toured the United States, Europe, and Japan, gave
numerous TV and radio performances, and recorded three CDs. For the last four
years, he has been pianist/arranger for the Jane Monheit band. With Monheit, he
has toured the US, Europe, Japan, Brazil, and Canada, and has performed on her
recent recordings.
Besides his work accompanying vocalists, Michael has also played
in several instrumental settings. He performed in New York with guitar wizard
Kurt Rosenwinkel, and with him recorded the popular CD "Intuit" for
Criss-Cross. Michael is a founding member of the International Hashva
Orchestra, which also includes Mark Turner and Jorge Rossy. This group, which
took a fresh look at the concepts of Tristano, toured Europe several times and
recorded twice for the Swiss label TCB. Michael has also led his own trio, with
bassist Ben Street and drummer Tim Pleasant on two recordings for Fresh Sound
New Talent, "The Gentleman Is A Dope", and "Convergence". This year,
Criss-Cross published his latest release with his longtime collaborator,
saxophonist Nat Su from Zurich, "Dreams and Reflections".
STEPHANIE GREIG - STRING BASS
As the daughter of Las
Vegas bassist, Kenny Greig, Stephanie grew up listening to live music, from the
Musicians' Union rehearsal bands playing Count Basie and Duke Ellington charts
to the eclectic mix of music that passed through the hotels on the Strip. At
age fourteen, she was playing guitar in her father's pop quartet as well as in
blues, funk and rock groups with her peers. As she grew, she developed a
life-long love for the great Broadway composers and devoted herself to learning
the American standard repertory. At Smith College, she focused on the
intersection of music and theater, particularly the Brecht-Weill
collaborations. After graduating, she spent a few years acting in small
theaters in New York. In 1996, she acquired an upright bass and went to work.
Since then, Stephanie has performed in Japan with her husband, pianist Michael
Kanan, and has played all over the New York area. She is currently studying
classical bass with David Grossman of the New York Philharmonic.
MICHAEL PETROSINO - DRUMS
Michael Petrosino, a native
of Auburn, New York, now living in Brooklyn, began his professional career at
eighteen, playing gigs in the Toledo, Ohio, and Detroit, Michigan metropolitan
areas. He moved on to perform on cruise ships plying the world's oceans,
backing such entertainers as The Fifth Dimension, Lou Rawls, Ben Vereen, The
Temptations, and Gladys Knight. Returning to dry land, he landed in Cleveland,
Ohio, where he played with local artists and touring artists such as Jeannie
Bryson Rick Margitza, and Gerri Allen. Since moving to New York, Michael has
become a fixture in the city's jazz clubs, including Visiones, Birdland, The
Blue Note and others. He leads his own groups in New York clubs, featuring
guest artists such as Bruce Barth, Xavier Davis, Joe Barbato, and Randy
Johnson, to name a few.
Information and booking for concerts & workshops: (917)
693-4428
www.ChristianaDrapkin.com |