JACKIE RYAN CD RELEASE GIG FOR "DOOZY" AT YOSHI'S, SEPT. 1

Jazz Singer Jackie Ryan to Celebrate
the Release of Her New CD DOOZY
at Yoshi's Oakland, Tuesday, September 1

Jackie Ryan will be joined by
pianist Larry Dunlap, bassist Ruth Davies,
drummer Deszon Claiborne, saxophonist Michael O'Neill,
and trumpeter Steve Campos.

Jackie Ryan -- a note-perfect jazz singer with a naturally dramatic, beguiling and swinging sense of style and groove -- delivers a sweeping program of original vocalese, freshly interpreted familiar tunes, bittersweet Brazilian melodies and up-to-date blues in DOOZY, her fourth album. She will celebrate the 2-CD set at Yoshi's Oakland, on Tuesday, September 1, with sets at 8pm and 10pm.

With heartfelt collaboration from some of the most celebrated, urbane and soulful of current instrumental soloists and rhythm teams, the West Coast-based chanteuse with an international following captures the freedom, intimacy and excitement she generates in club and concert performances in her generous DOOZY package.

Ms. Ryan creates a narrative of stages of romance as it's known by mature yet not jaded adults, bringing energized grace, lovely humor and flashes of urgency to material created by or associated with jazz greats Benny Carter (in the album's title track and "Summer Serenade"), Betty Carter (in the sexy romp "Do Something"), Oscar Brown Jr. ("Opportunity Please Knock" and "Dat Dere"), Billie Holiday ("I Must Have That Man"), Sarah Vaughan ("Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most"), Nat King Cole ("Beautiful Moons Ago") as well as Kurt Weill and Carmen McRae ("Speak Low"), Antonio Carlos Jobim and Ellis Regina ("Brigas Nunca Mais/A Felicidade"), Lionel Hampton and Ella Fitzgerald ("Midnight Sun") and Mexican composer Agustin Lara ("Solamente Una Vez"). With pianist Cyrus Chestnut leading exquisitely sensitive ensembles featuring trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, Brazilian guitarist Romero Lubambo and tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander plus bassists Ray Drummond or Dezron Douglas, drummers Carl Allen or Neal Smith, DOOZY was produced almost entirely from two recording sessions, the first held at Tony Bennett's studio in Englewood, New Jersey, the second at Entourage Studios, Hollywood.

"The first gave us about 90 minutes of music, which could have been two CDs right there," the singer says, "and the second was booked for a time when Cyrus was on the West Coast. We loved what we came up with, and thought, 'Why not put it out as a double album?' And the label felt, given the economy, people might appreciate getting two CDs for the price of one. Also, this represents the variety of material I usually do in a performance of two shows in the course of a single night. I'm very much a live performer -- I love doing it, for fun, for meeting people. These are songs I have sung many times before on gigs and people have often asked me if they could get these songs on an album. So, we finally decided to record them!"

The breadth of material reflects Ryan's impressive span of taste and her unusual ability to express a rainbow of moods and nuances at a variety of tempos, with arrangements ranging from spare to lush. At the center of each of song is her voice, which album annotator Don Heckman writes has a "pliant capacity to move with deceptive ease across every manner of interval leap and elegant melisma . . . embracing whisper-in-your-ear warmth and . . . swing that sometimes surface(s) in the accent of a single note."

Ryan has honed her voice -- her instrument -- throughout an enviable career, which has included such formidable runs as eight years of annual two-week visits to Ronnie Scott's famed London club, tours of Japan with Chestnut, Bay Area concerts with vocalese master Jon Hendricks, gigs with Red Holloway (who she calls "the wild sax bluesman") and the Jeff Hamilton Trio. As such diversity suggests, she has flexibility and scope. It flows from her personal experience.

Following up on her prior releases This Heart of Mine (with Toots Thielemans, Amina Figarova, and Jon Mayer, among others), For Heaven's Sake with pianist Mike Wofford's trio at a San Diego Club, and You and the Night and the Music, with saxophonist Holloway and Hamilton's band -- which took the #1 spot on JazzWeek's radio chart, spent eight and a half months on the chart, and earned four star reviews in both DownBeat and the AllMusicGuide -- Jackie Ryan seems poised on the brink of a breakthrough, ready for even wider listenership and farther-reaching appreciation. Wise bets are on her new release from OpenArt Productions, which truly is a DOOZY.

"ONE OF THE OUTSTANDING JAZZ VOCALISTS OF HER GENERATION AND,
QUITE POSSIBLY, OF ALL TIME...rivaling the dexterous sass of Sarah Vaughan,
the instinctive smarts of Carmen McRae and the scintillating verve of Diana Krall."
- Christopher Loudon, JAZZTIMES

CLICK TO READ NPR STORY ON JACKIE RYAN

For more information, please visit Jackie Ryan on MySpace atwww.myspace.com/jackieryanjazz or Jackie's website at www.jackieryan.com

For additional information, please contact:
Don Lucoff at DL Media; (p) 610.667.0501 (e) don@jazzpublicity.com

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