Gretchen Parlato

Wikipedia:

Gretchen Parlato is an American jazz singer. She has performed and recorded with musicians such as Lionel Loueke, Wayne Shorter and Kenny Barron.

Parlato's 2009 sophomore release, In a Dream was positively reviewed by NPR, Jazz Times, the Village Voice, and the Boston Globe. Billboard magazine hailed it as "the most alluring jazz vocal album of 2009".

Early years

Parlato was born in 1976 in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Dave Parlato, bass player for Frank Zappa on many albums including Zoot Allures, also working with Al Jarreau, Don Preston, Barbra Streisand, Henry Mancini, Paul Horn (musician), Gabor Szabo, Buddy Rich, Don Ellis and recording for TV/film. Her grandfather was Charlie Parlato, trumpet player in Kay Kyser Big Band, and singer and trumpet player for Tennessee Ernie Ford and Lawrence Welk. Growing up in the 1980s, Parlato says she was a Valley girl. Parlato attended Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, then earned a bachelor's degree in Ethnomusicology/Jazz Studies at University of California, Los Angeles.

In 2001 she was accepted into the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance by a panel of judges including Herbie Hancock, Terence Blanchard and Wayne Shorter. Parlato was the first vocalist ever admitted into the program.

Move to New York City

In 2003, Parlato moved to New York City. A year later, she won the first place in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocals Competition at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. by a panel of judges: Quincy Jones, Flora Purim, Al Jarreau, Kurt Elling, Dee Dee Bridgewater and Jimmy Scott. In 2005 she released her self-titled first album, Gretchen Parlato. It was named No. 5 Best Progressive Jazz CDs of 2005 by Jazz Nation and got 5 stars in Down Beat's Blindfold Test by Richard Bona. In August 2007 she was named No. 3 Rising Star Female Vocalist in DownBeat's 55th Annual Critics Poll. In September 2007 she performed with jazz legend Wayne Shorter at La Villette Jazz Festival in Paris. In June 2008, a live recording of Gretchen performing in New York was aired by Japanese NHK network television.

Relationship with ObliqSound

In July 2008 Parlato signed a recording contract with independent record label ObliqSound. In Spring 2009 Gretchen was featured in The Documentary Channel's 4-part series "Icons Among Us: Jazz in the Present Tense". In August 2009 she released her second CD, In a Dream, on the ObliqSound record label, with Lionel Loueke on guitar and vocals, Aaron Parks on piano and Fender Rhodes, Derrick Hodge on acoustic and electric bass and Kendrick Scott on drums. The album was produced by Michele Locatelli. It was named No. 1 Best Vocal Jazz Album of 2009 by the Village Voice Critics Poll and was listed in the Top 10 Albums of 2009 in JazzTimes, Boston Globe, Washington City Paper, Hot House and NPR.

In Spring 2010 she was nominated for Female Singer of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association. In June/July, Parlato performed at Stockholm and Healdsburg Jazz Festivals, and sold out jazz festival performances in NYC, Montreal, Paris, North Sea, Copenhagen, Stuttgart and Molde, Norway, with Taylor Eigsti, Alan Hampton and Mark Guiliana. In August, she was voted No. 2 Rising Star Vocalist in Downbeat's Annual Critics Poll.

In 2011 she released her 2nd album for Obliqsound, "The Lost and Found" with Taylor Eigsti, Derrick Hodge, Kendrick Scott, Dayna Stephens, Alan Hampton, with associate producer, Robert Glasper. On this album, she wrote lyrics to Eigsti's "Without a Sound;" Ambrose Akinmusire's (trumpet) "Henya," and Stephens' "Lost and Found. She also sings a duet on the track "Still", with Hampton. "Alan created such a meditative and deceptively simple groove I wanted to write lyrics that were like a mantra. Something that in its repetition becomes extremely powerful. What better theme than love?".

Parlato also composed many songs on the album such as "Winter Wind," "How We Love," "Better Than", and "Circling". "Circling" was a major piece on the record because "'Circling' plays with the idea of cycles in our lives. The ones we have no control over like birth and death as opposed to the cycles we do control, behavior patterns that we get ourselves into." In addition to her compositions, she reinvented popular R&B songs by Mary J. Blige, Lauryn Hill, and Simply Red. The album "The Lost and Found" shows that Parlato possesses the ability to alter and compose songs into something meaningful and interesting.

"The Lost and Found" placed in the top 10 in over thirty radio station, publication and internet polls in the US and Europe. Some of the most notable 2011 awards: Featured vocalist on Terri Lyne Carrington's Grammy Award winning album, "The Mosaic Project" ASCAP Award of Merit for Songwriting No. 1 Rising Star Female Vocalist - DownBeat's Annual Critics Poll No. 1 Female Vocalist of 2011 - JazzTimes Expanded Critics Poll No. 1 Vocal Album - 2011 Jazz Critics Poll No. 1 Vocal Jazz Album of the Year - iTunes No. 1 Best Album of the Year - JazzFM.com No. 2 Best Jazz of 2011 - NPR No. 2 Best Jazz Album of 2011 - Amazon No. 3 Top Female Vocalist - Downbeat's Annual Readers Poll

Other work

Parlato has been a guest vocalist on over 60 recordings and projects, including three Esperanza Spalding's albums 'Radio Music Society', 'Chamber Music Society and Esperanza, Kenny Barron's album The Traveler, Lionel Loueke's album Virgin Forest and Terence Blanchard's album Flow, and Terri Lynne Carrington's album, The Mosaic Project, singing lyrics as well as more instrumental-sounding wordless vocals.