Photo: Camille Thurman | © Joyce Jones/ Suga Bowl Photography. Some Rights Reserved. Creative Commons CC-NC-BY-ND. Used with Permission.
Program note: we’re in a new weekly Tuesday night slot from 10-12 midnight!
The next show will air on Tuesday February 12, 2019 from 10:00 PM – 12 Midnight Eastern Standard Time on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. This broadcast features an interview with saxophonist, flute player, composer, clarinetist, bandleader and educator Camille Thurman.
Acclaimed by Downbeat Magazine as a “rising star” singer with “soulful inflection and remarkable, Fitzgerald-esque scat prowess” and hailed by All About Jazz as a “first class saxophonist that blows the proverbial roof of the place”, Camille Thurman has been amazing audiences throughout the world with her impeccable sound, remarkable vocal virtuosity and captivating artistry. Many have praised her vocal abilities to the likeness of Ella Fitzgerald and Betty Carter. Her lush, rich & warm sound on the tenor saxophone has led others to compare her to tenor greats Joe Henderson and Dexter Gordon.
An accomplished performer, educator and composer, Thurman has worked with notable Jazz and R&B icons such as George Coleman, Roy Haynes, Dianne Reeves, Wynton Marsalis & the Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra, Buster Williams, Charles Tolliver, Jack DeJohnette, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Terri Lyne Carrington, Jon Hendricks, Harry Connick Jr., Audra MacDonald, Diana Krall, Pattie LaBelle, Gladys Knight, Chaka Khan, Louis Hayes, Russell Malone, Nicholas Payton, Jacky Terrasson, Janelle Monae, Alicia Keys, Lalah Hathaway, Jill Scott and Erykah Badu among others.
Thurman has performed at the Kennedy Center, Rose Theater, Alice Tully Hall, Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, The Library of Congress, the Sydney International Women in Jazz Festival, the Tomsk International Jazz Festival, the International Fano Jazz Festival and many other prominent jazz venues and festivals around the world. She has performed and toured throughout China, Africa, South America, Europe and Central America with her band. A 2018 season highlight includes performing with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra for the world premier of the historic work “The Every Fonky Lowdown” as a featured vocalist.
Thurman is a recipient of the Martin E. Segal –Lincoln Center Award for Outstanding Young Artists and was a runner up in the 2013 Sarah Vaughan International Vocal Competition. SF Jazz named Camille as one of “10 Rising Female Instrumentalists You Should Know” and she was featured in a ground breaking New York Times article recognizing women jazz musicians. She was a two-time award winning recipient of the ASCAP Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composers Award and a winner of the Fulbright Scholars Cultural Ambassador Grant to Nicaragua and Paraguay. In 2018 she along with the Darrell Green Trio was selected by the U.S. State Department to tour 5 countries in Africa as a U.S. Cultural Ambassador. Her compositions were featured and performed by her quartet in the ASCAP/ The Kennedy Center “Songwriters: The Next Generation” showcase. Camille has appeared on BET’s Black Girls Rock as the saxophonist & flutist in the All Star Band.
[(Bio adapted from Thurman’s website)
This program is hosted, engineered, produced, 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.
Web Extras:
ReadThurman’s commentary on her experiences with sexual harassment in music at the Musician’s Union Local 802 blog.
Watch Thurman perform “Change of Mind” in this live clip from 2012.
Watch the trailer for Thurman’s 2018 Waiting for the Sunrise album
Hank Williams is assistant producer for Suga’ in My Bowl and produces the weekly “On the Bandstand” segment as well as running the show’s website and blog, where he has reviewed several jazz festivals. His writing has also appeared in Left Turn magazine and American Music Review. He teaches at Lehman College in the City University of New York system.
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