Episode #9 of The Fro Show is up now on iTunes, Stitcher and Mixcloud. #9 features female pop, rock and R&B tracks from:
Grace Kelly - Ready Set Stay
When it comes to saxophonist/vocalist/composer/lyricist/arranger Grace Kelly, people seem to be divided into two groups: those who marvel at her proficiency, creativity and ever-accelerating growth, and those who have yet to encounter the 16-year-old wunderkind.
The ranks of the former category are growing by the day. Trumpeter and Jazz at Lincoln Center Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis was so impressed with Kelly’s three-night stand as guest of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra in November that he has invited her to join the ensemble at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater in Washington, D.C. for an Martin Luther King, Jr. Day/Inauguration Eve concert on January 19, to be broadcast live on CNN. Harry Connick, Jr. heard Kelly in a master class on a December afternoon and brought her on stage to sit in with his band that night. This capped an already exceptional end of 2008 in which Kelly’s appearance on NPR’s Piano Jazz with Marian McPartland was syndicated nationally, The Boston Music Awards declared her the city’s Outstanding Jazz Act, and local ABC affiliate WCVB-TV named her one of five Bostonians to Watch in 2009.
To this astonishing list of kudos and credits, Kelly now adds Mood Changes, the fifth release on her Pazz Productions label. The album mixes six standards with four Kelly originals and features her working quintet (Jason Palmer, trumpet; Doug Johnson, piano; John Lockwood, basses; Jordan Perlson or Terri Lyne Carrington, drums), with guest appearances by guitarist Adam Rogers on two tracks and trombonist Hal Crook on one.
The album is a showcase for Kelly’s multi-faceted talent. Alto saxophone, her primary instrument, is heard on seven of the tracks, but she also overdubs soprano sax behind her vocal on “Comes Love” and makes her debut on tenor on the original ballad “Tender Madness” and “It Might as Well Be Spring,” where she also sings. “I started playing the sax because of Stan Getz,” she explains, “and the tenor adds to my goal of creating different colors and moods.” A third vocal track, “Life Goes On,” indicates Kelly’s incredible maturity as both composer and lyricist. “I’m a melody-first person, and usually find it a lot harder to write words, but as deeply philosophical as this piece is, it was written relatively quickly,” she reports. An instrumental original, “101” (originally titled “Parenting 101” and meant to depict “parenting from a kid’s point of view”) has already received an ASCAP Foundation Young Jazz Composers Award (her second such citation) and a Down Beat Student Music Award for extended composition (one of four DB awards she garnered in 2008). Kelly’s arrangements of two pop hits, Bill Withers’ “Aint No Sunshine” and the Beatles’ “Here, There and Everywhere,” incorporate the distinctive concept of guest guitarist Adam Rogers; and her unique scoring of “I Want to Be Happy” in 7/4, including Hal Crook’s trombone, finds her writing for three horns for the first time. The disc is completed by a quintet jam on “I’ll Remember April.”
Kelly is particularly excited about the strides that Mood Changes reveals in her bandleading skills. “There’s nothing like playing my own music with my own band,” she acknowledges. “Everyone is so comfortable, yet I feel as if I’m getting pushed in every performance. At the same time, I realize more of what I want over the years, and more direction goes into the music. Every time we play is a complete adventure.”
Without hesitation, Grace Kelly will tell you that her goal is “to stay in jazz but also do different things, bigger arrangements, like Stevie Wonder and George Benson.” Her ambition has yet to outstrip her talent, and Mood Changes suggests that such a turn of events is unlikely in the foreseeable future.
The Nuri - Ladder to the Stars
The Nuri is a alternative/progressive-rock band from Germany. The band was founded in late 2007. Less than half a year later "Masquerade" was released. The album was highly praised in both German and international reviews. On April 19 2011 the second album "Music Box" was released.
Kassy Key and The Raindoggs - Does She Do You Right
Raindogg, Brent Cagle & Rob Huntley became friends in 2011 while playing in a Tom Waits tribute band. Although the tribute band didn’t work out, the three would later go on to form The Raindoggs.
The Raindoggs met singer/songwriter Ali Holder through Michael Prohaska (Trumpet) who played with Ali in ‘Ali Holder and Train Robbin Whiskey’. The Raindoggs released their first album Red to Black in August 2011 and played their first show at J.Lorraine Ghost Town, Manor TX. on Halloween weekend. The Raindoggs first single Stuck in RED was recently featured in the Dodge Dart song writing competition.
With Ali Holder returning to The Broken Hearted, the Dogg’s found themselves searching for a new pack leader. Larisa Montanaro joined The Raindoggs in November of 2011, and released their first single (remake of Snoop Dogg’s My Medicine) two months later. The Raindoggs single was named “Spotify Song of the Day” by soundofus.com. My Medicine” also appeared on the 2012 compilation album Zap! Azul by BandSoup.com. Larisa & the Raindoggs parted ways in July of 2012.
Kassy Key joined The Raindoggs in July of 2012, and released their first single/video “Sleight of Hand” in September of 2012. Kassy Key & the Raindoggs released a four song EP with the same name in Jan of 2013. They are currently working on a LP due late 2013.
Kellee Maize - Nakturnal
Kellee Maize is considered one of the best female rappers in the industry.
Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/kelleemaize - she is Verified and has over 130K followers!
Kellee's mother always said, she "was dancing and singing before she could walk and talk". She started singing and writing poetry and songs at a young age to entertain herself and escape reality. Despite incredibly loving parents, Kellee always had a bit of an "alien" mentality as she was one of two people she knew until age 18 that was adopted. To this day she knows almost nothing of her biologicl family.
Kellee moved to Pittsburgh in her late teens with the dream of changing the world. She learned more about the negative sides of our society through study at the University of Pittsburgh and Hip Hop was solidified as her passion and outlet for activism. She also experienced watching her mother go through a near death bout with cancer and used writing as a means to cope. She began performing in 2000 and has not stopped since. However, a sense of not being able to make any real change, a lack of confidence, and need for financial security pushed her into the workforce and on the spiritual journey, which proved to be a unique opportunity to learn about what would became her inspiration as an artist.
Kellee worked in events and promotions at the Pittsburgh City Paper right after college. After her father passed away Kellee again turned to music as a way to cope. Soon after the tragedy, she started her own female owned and operated, socially conscious company, Nakturnal, in hopes of securing a better income to help her mother in the future and allow for growth in her music career. For over two years now, Nakturnal has been considered the leading guerilla marketing and events organization in the region, that works daily for independent artists, worthy causes and is expanding nationally. While Nakturnal was growing, Kellee found more time to record and perform, and released her first album, Age of Feminine. She is currently working on her second release which highlights her mystical side. She is also launching a website that will act as an artistic statement with the help of a huge female team made up of Nakturnal and other talented Pittsburgh based women.
A deeply spiritual person striving to enjoy and appreciate the present, Kellee now sees activism on a energetic level that starts within. She studies the power of intention, meditation, quantum physics, astrology, tarot and other forms of mysticism. She feels her purpose in life is to make music that sends out good energy and makes people think. She believes massive global change is coming and that it starts with the individual. She asserts that our inner world is a mirror of our outer reality and that we have the power to help positively affect the world by "being the change we wish to see", as Ghandi puts it. She believes we are entering a new stage of evolution in human consciousness and hopes that her music inspires change and awareness in the listener. She believes music and art hold the key to the revolution we need and that we can enjoy this moment while opening hearts and minds.
Devyn Rose - Good Girl
The combination of beauty, talent, and brains is rarely personified in an individual as young and poised as multi-genre singer/songwriter Devyn Rose, but in this case there is simply no denying it.
Born in Mt. Vernon, NY, she began her love of music at a very young age singing in a church choir. By the time she was 16, she moved to Bridgeport, CT and began taking dance lessons at Broadway Dance Center, where she studied all forms of dance including hip-hop, house, jazz, and ballet.
While music had taken a complete hold over the young Devyn, it wouldn’t be until years later that she was discovered by multi-platinum producer Dame Grease during a BMI Open Mic. As her journey was destined to take its own unique path, Devyn’s first introduction to the entertainment world on a professional level was as a model, where she participated in several local and national fashion shows. Fully aware that singing was her biggest passion, in her spare time Devyn began originally writing songs and recording under the name of Tanya aka T6. With the connections she made in the fashion world, she began performing at fashion shows, which eventually lead to her performing at different venues and competitions. In 2006, in attempt to share one of her performances with friends and family, she posted her first video on YouTube to an overwhelmingly positive response. Thus, she continued to upload videos of herself singing covers of various songs, which progressively increased her support and fanbase.
In 2008, under the name Tanya T6, she released a mixtape for fans, entitled “Move Over Paris Hilton, There’s a New It Girl in Town”, hosted by New York’s POWER 105.1’s DJ Suss One”. From the mixtape, she released “Work My Body” which premiered on the DJ Wrexx show on WZMX Hartford's Hot 93.7 and quickly flooded the digital world, which led to calls and request from across the nation and the globe. Stemming from the momentum that she had created with her first single, she began remixing popular songs and sending them out via a weekly email blast to all the major DJ’s across the world. Before long, DJ’s began contacting her on a daily basis requesting her latest and greatest remixes which eventually helped brand her as the “The Remix Queen”. To follow, she released her official follow-up single called “Swag Boy” which hit radio airwaves nationally and internationally, adding to her having over 30 songs tracked and accumulating radio spins.
In 2009, while searching YouTube videos, Ron Hunter, a former Lifestyle and Marketing Rep for KOCH Records, clicked on one of her videos. Impressed with what he saw, Hunter contacted her. Months after the two met, the single “Get it Off” was released and quickly followed up with the remix featuring Young Money’s “Jae Millz”.
Over the last few years, she has been working diligently to perfect a sound that she is thrilled to call “her own”. Having been fortunate enough to work behind the scenes with Hip-Hop artists such as 3 6 Mafia, N.O.R.E., KURUPT, Mims, Jae Millz, French Montana, Chinx Drugz, Max B, Mike Shore, and Royce Da 59, she has been able to develop an eccentric new generation mix of pop, r&b, alternative, and hip hop genres. Her new style signifies edgy, sexy with an attitude, beat driven and loud, which has evolved into the Devyn Rose sound. It’s a sound that she not only feels passionate about, but also feels that her fans will be able to most connect with.
While considered by some to be a seasoned veteran in the entertainment industry, Devyn remains both humble and hungry, to share her many talents with the world. When it comes to her music, her career, and her effortless talent, she continues to prove to the world with every endeavor, that she’s destined to be a musical force to be reckoned with.
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