Boston
As a 19-year-old Asian-American female, Grace Kelly is something of a rare gem in the jazz world. But to her, what matters is that people love her music.
“It’s great when people say ‘You’re great for your age,’” says Kelly, who performs a free concert at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston on Aug. 25. “But I think it’s so much better when someone goes up to me after a show and tells me, ‘Your music is wonderful.’”
Kelly, who has been featured on seven albums, has been called a prodigy by both critics and musicians. The Wellesley-born, Brookline-raised Korean-American is also a bandleader, arranger, composer and singer. Kelly -- not to be confused with the late actress/princess, though she adored the other Grace Kelly as a child -- traveled to Europe four times and toured in eight countries just this year.
Hot off the Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island, where she shared the stage with Esperanza Spalding, Wynton Marsalis and the band James Farm, Kelly will play a mixture of straight-ahead jazz tunes and fusion pieces for the ICA concert, part of Berklee’s Harborwalk Sounds series. It will be a chance for new listeners to see what all the fuss is about.
“I was really surprised,” says Kelly of first being called a prodigy when she was 12. “It was certainly nothing I had ever thought of myself as. I think of Mozart as a prodigy. I just think of myself as someone who’s lucky to find a passion at a young age.”
Indeed, Kelly never played “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” She skipped to the “meat of the song,” as she puts it, and performed her first CD release concert when she was 12. The snowball of events that followed included a performance at the age of 14 alongside Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops, meeting jazz great Wynton Marsalis and being the youngest person to be voted onto the Downbeat Magazine Critics Poll.
She earned her GED at 16 and went on to Berklee on full scholarship; she’s set to graduate from Berklee in December. Luckily, during the rush of success that was her childhood, her stepfather, Bob Kelly, handled all the behind-the-scenes stuff -- scheduling concerts and tours, providing transportation and promoting the young artist. He’s now her fulltime manager.
Countless figures have seen Kelly’s potential. Harry Conick Jr. invited her to sit in with his band and Ann Hampton Callaway also took a liking to the young saxophonist. Since meeting Kelly, bassist Rufus Reid has collaborated with her on many albums and concerts.
Lee Konitz, one of Charlie Parker’s contemporaries who recorded with Miles Davis in the “Birth of the Cool” sessions, became one of Kelly’s closest teachers. Their master-student relationship culminated in the album “GRACEfulLEE,” which shows that the young virtuoso can imitate her teacher but also offer ideas of her own. The album soars with “NY at Noon,” a frenzied avant-garde showcase of dueling altos knocking elbow to elbow for room in that chordless musical space. The winner of the bout is unclear, and that’s a testament to Kelly’s talent. Also impressive: The two saxophonists’ sounds are frequently indistinguishable.
So hats off to Kelly for doing Konitz justice. Or hats on, as in Kelly’s latest student-master engagement with Phil Woods, a recipient of the National Endowment of the Arts “Jazz Master” award. The album’s title, “The Man with the Hat,” references Woods’ trademark leather cap. After hearing one of Kelly’s solos, the jazz veteran was so impressed that he took his hat off and put it on Kelly’s head. She still owns Woods’ hat to this day.
Kelly’s resume of mentors rivals that of any modern jazz musician. She can consistently produce a strong, yet feather-like, tone and solos fluidly over any bebop standard. But can she make up anything new? As she emerges next year as a full-time bandleader and composer, her albums will inevitably define not what she has learned but what she is able to create.
That is why her most recent album, “Grace,” due this fall, intriguingly breaks boundaries. Gone are the complex chord changes and rhythmic patterns that young jazz improvisers love to muscle through. This is an album of hymns and spirituals, a showcase of the slow tempo alto sax and Kelly’s emerging maturity as an artist. Here Kelly explores the softness of her instrument in the aptly-titled “Grace Alone,” in which Kelly recorded over herself in four-part harmony.
So what does the future hold for the saxophonist whom National Public Radio called the “future of jazz”? You can expect her to commit to her band 100 percent and branch out to other genres.
“By next year I’ll have another CD with my quintet,” says Kelly. “I’m not sure what it’ll sound like, but I’m thinking about world music.”
Kelly has come a long way fast. And the speed of her ascent is particularly impressive when you consider that music didn’t always come naturally to her.
“I hated practicing the piano and the clarinet,” says Kelly. “It wasn’t easy. When I first picked up the saxophone, though, I got a nice sound right away. It was something that felt really natural.”
Grace Kelly
Aug. 25
Berklee’s Harborwalk Sounds
Institute of Contemporary Art/ Boston
Free
“It’s great when people say ‘You’re great for your age,’” says Kelly, who performs a free concert at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston on Aug. 25. “But I think it’s so much better when someone goes up to me after a show and tells me, ‘Your music is wonderful.’”
Kelly, who has been featured on seven albums, has been called a prodigy by both critics and musicians. The Wellesley-born, Brookline-raised Korean-American is also a bandleader, arranger, composer and singer. Kelly -- not to be confused with the late actress/princess, though she adored the other Grace Kelly as a child -- traveled to Europe four times and toured in eight countries just this year.
Hot off the Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island, where she shared the stage with Esperanza Spalding, Wynton Marsalis and the band James Farm, Kelly will play a mixture of straight-ahead jazz tunes and fusion pieces for the ICA concert, part of Berklee’s Harborwalk Sounds series. It will be a chance for new listeners to see what all the fuss is about.
“I was really surprised,” says Kelly of first being called a prodigy when she was 12. “It was certainly nothing I had ever thought of myself as. I think of Mozart as a prodigy. I just think of myself as someone who’s lucky to find a passion at a young age.”
Indeed, Kelly never played “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” She skipped to the “meat of the song,” as she puts it, and performed her first CD release concert when she was 12. The snowball of events that followed included a performance at the age of 14 alongside Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops, meeting jazz great Wynton Marsalis and being the youngest person to be voted onto the Downbeat Magazine Critics Poll.
She earned her GED at 16 and went on to Berklee on full scholarship; she’s set to graduate from Berklee in December. Luckily, during the rush of success that was her childhood, her stepfather, Bob Kelly, handled all the behind-the-scenes stuff -- scheduling concerts and tours, providing transportation and promoting the young artist. He’s now her fulltime manager.
Countless figures have seen Kelly’s potential. Harry Conick Jr. invited her to sit in with his band and Ann Hampton Callaway also took a liking to the young saxophonist. Since meeting Kelly, bassist Rufus Reid has collaborated with her on many albums and concerts.
Lee Konitz, one of Charlie Parker’s contemporaries who recorded with Miles Davis in the “Birth of the Cool” sessions, became one of Kelly’s closest teachers. Their master-student relationship culminated in the album “GRACEfulLEE,” which shows that the young virtuoso can imitate her teacher but also offer ideas of her own. The album soars with “NY at Noon,” a frenzied avant-garde showcase of dueling altos knocking elbow to elbow for room in that chordless musical space. The winner of the bout is unclear, and that’s a testament to Kelly’s talent. Also impressive: The two saxophonists’ sounds are frequently indistinguishable.
So hats off to Kelly for doing Konitz justice. Or hats on, as in Kelly’s latest student-master engagement with Phil Woods, a recipient of the National Endowment of the Arts “Jazz Master” award. The album’s title, “The Man with the Hat,” references Woods’ trademark leather cap. After hearing one of Kelly’s solos, the jazz veteran was so impressed that he took his hat off and put it on Kelly’s head. She still owns Woods’ hat to this day.
Kelly’s resume of mentors rivals that of any modern jazz musician. She can consistently produce a strong, yet feather-like, tone and solos fluidly over any bebop standard. But can she make up anything new? As she emerges next year as a full-time bandleader and composer, her albums will inevitably define not what she has learned but what she is able to create.
That is why her most recent album, “Grace,” due this fall, intriguingly breaks boundaries. Gone are the complex chord changes and rhythmic patterns that young jazz improvisers love to muscle through. This is an album of hymns and spirituals, a showcase of the slow tempo alto sax and Kelly’s emerging maturity as an artist. Here Kelly explores the softness of her instrument in the aptly-titled “Grace Alone,” in which Kelly recorded over herself in four-part harmony.
So what does the future hold for the saxophonist whom National Public Radio called the “future of jazz”? You can expect her to commit to her band 100 percent and branch out to other genres.
“By next year I’ll have another CD with my quintet,” says Kelly. “I’m not sure what it’ll sound like, but I’m thinking about world music.”
Kelly has come a long way fast. And the speed of her ascent is particularly impressive when you consider that music didn’t always come naturally to her.
“I hated practicing the piano and the clarinet,” says Kelly. “It wasn’t easy. When I first picked up the saxophone, though, I got a nice sound right away. It was something that felt really natural.”
Grace Kelly
Aug. 25
Berklee’s Harborwalk Sounds
Institute of Contemporary Art/ Boston
Free
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