Photo: Carmen Lundy.| Credit: Sarit Photography via Flickr. Creative Commons licensed by protographer.
The next show will air on Sunday, March 22, 2015 from 11:00 PM – 1:00 AM Monday Eastern Standard Time on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. This broadcast features will feature an interview with composer, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Carmen Lundy. You can hear a short preview below.
Carmen Lundy began her professional career in Miami, FL as a jazz vocalist and composer when there were very few young, gifted and aspiring jazz vocalists on the horizon. Over four decades later, Ms. Lundy is celebrated throughout the world for her vocal artistry and is highly regarded for her jazz innovation.
Currently on the Afrasia Productions label, Lundy released her 14th album in the Fall of 2014. Almost two years in the making, it consists of new original songs by Lundy, and a few very special collaborations. The album features legendary artists – specialists on their respective instruments – including Patrice Rushen, Geri Allen, Randy Brecker, Ada Rovatti, Warren Wolf, Bennie Maupin, harpist Carol Robbins, and Simphiwe Dana, a stunning South African vocalist and composer, among others. Soul To Soul is on several Top Ten Albums of 2014 lists, including Downbeat.
Lundy’s original vocal track of “Show Me A Sign” from her album Solamente was remixed and featured on Terri Lyne Carrington’s Grammy-winning 2011 Mosaic Project.
Lundy has had several Top Ten albums on JazzWeek (Jazz and the New Songbook-Live at The Madrid, Come Home, and Changes) and a #3 spot on Billboard’s Jazz Chart for 23 weeks with her debut album “Good Morning Kiss”. Among her other awards and recognitions, especially rewarding was Miami-Dade’s County Office of the Mayor and Board of County Commissioners proclaiming January 25th “Carmen Lundy Day”, along with handing Ms. Lundy the keys to the City of Miami.
Having recorded more than twelve albums as a leader, Lundy’s far-reaching discography also includes performances and recordings with such musicians as brother and bassist Curtis Lundy, Ray Barretto, Kenny Barron, Bruce Hornsby, Mulgrew Miller, Terri Lyne Carrington, Kip Hanrahan, Courtney Pine, Roy Hargrove, Jimmy Cobb, Ron Carter, Marian McPartland, Regina Carter, Steve Turre, Geri Allen, Robert Glasper, Jamison Ross, Kenny Davis, Darryl Hall, Patrice Rushen and the late Kenny Kirkland. Ms. Lundy’s 2005 release, the hugely successful Jazz and The New Songbook-Live at The Madrid, features some of the jazz world’s best known musicians paying tribute to Ms. Lundy.
Lundy’s work as a vocalist and composer has been critically acclaimed by The New York Times, The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, Variety, The Washington Post, Jazz Times, Jazziz, Downbeat and Vanity Fair among many others, as well as numerous foreign publications.
As a composer, Lundy’s catalogue numbers over 100 published songs, one of the few jazz vocalists in history to accomplish such a distinction, and has led to the first publication of The Carmen Lundy Songbook (2007). Her songs have been recorded by such artists as Kenny Barron (“Quiet Times”), Ernie Watts (“At The End Of My Rope”), and Straight Ahead (“Never Gonna Let You Go”). Lundy continues to compose and expand her vast catalogue.
Her own recordings consist of 1985’s Good Morning Kiss (CLR/Afrasia Productions), Moment To Moment (Arabesque/Afrasia Productions), Night And Day (CBS/SONY and re-issued by Afrasia in 2011), Old Devil Moon (JVC), Self Portrait (JVC), Something To Believe In and This Is Carmen Lundy (both for Justin Time), Jazz and The New Songbook – Live at The Madrid (2-disc set and DVD, Afrasia Productions), Come Home (Afrasia), Solamente and the 2012 release Changes (Afrasia Productions). Her newest recording Soul To Soul was almost 2 years in the making, and was released in the Fall of 2014 on Afrasia Productions.
A native of Miami, Florida, Lundy’s path to being one of today’s most talented, respected and sophisticated jazz singers began at age six, with her first piano lessons. She was deeply inspired by her mother who was then lead singer in the gospel group, The Apostolic Singers. Lundy attended The University of Miami as an Opera major, but soon discovered that jazz was where her talent really shone. While working steadily in the Miami Jazz scene, she graduated with a degree in Studio Music and Jazz – one of the first singers to do so. Lundy then moved to New York City in the spring of ’78 and immediately began working in jazz circles throughout the Tri-State area, and from Harlem to Greenwich Village, quickly impressing the notoriously critical jazz cognoscenti and audiences alike.
Teaching, too, is an important activity for Lundy; she’s given Master Classes in Australia, Denmark, Russia, Japan, Switzerland, New York, Washington, D.C., Northern California, Los Angeles and other cities around the world. Since its inception in 1998, Lundy has and continues to participate in Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead Program at The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., as Resident Clinician and guest artist. She has also worked with the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz as guest artist and clinician.
Ms. Lundy is also a gifted actress active in theatre. “Acting,” as she told Dr. Billy Taylor in 2006, “helps me to get more comfortable and acquainted with the art of performance.” She performed the lead role as Billie Holiday in the Off-Off Broadway play “They Were All Gardenias” by Lawrence Holder, as well as the lead role in the Broadway show, Duke Ellington’s “Sophisticated Ladies,” and she made her television debut as the star of the CBS Pilot-Special “Shangri-La Plaza” in the role of Geneva, after which she relocated to Los Angeles, where she currently resides.
Carmen Lundy is also a celebrated mixed media artist and painter, and her works have been exhibited in New York at The Jazz Gallery in Soho, at The Jazz Bakery in Los Angeles, and at a month-long exhibition at the Madrid Theatre in Los Angeles, CA.
Lundy resides in Los Angeles, CA.
We’ll begin the show with a short interview with vocalist Thana Alexa to celebrate her Ode to Heroes CD release event at Subculture in Manhattan on Monday March 23rd.
Show engineered, produced, hosted, and edited by Joyce Jones. Listen for our On the Bandstand segment with NYC metro area appearances of Suga’ guests at the end of the first hour with Associate Producer Hank Williams.
Listen to the show and watch our blog for details on a ticket giveaway for the Schomburg’s Women in Jazz Festival on Mondays March 23rd and 30th.
Web Extras:
Watch Lundy perform “One More River to Cross” live with Steve Turre!
Watch Lundy perform live with pianist Geri Allen at Dizzy’s Club!
Suga' in My Bowl 
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