Carmen Lundy

Carmen Latretta Lundy (born November 1, 1954) is an American jazz singer. She has been performing for three decades, with a focus on original material.[1] She has been positively compared with Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan.[2] Carmen Lundy is the sister of bassist Curtis Lundy.

Carmen Lundy
Birth nameCarmen Latretta Lundy
Born (1954-11-01) November 1, 1954
Miami, Florida, U.S.
GenresJazz, vocal jazz
Occupation(s)Singer, musician, composer, arranger
InstrumentsVocals, piano, guitar
Years active1978 – present
LabelsJustin Time, Arabesque, JVC, Afrasia
Websitewww.carmenlundy.com

Biography

Lundy was born November 1, 1954, in Miami, Florida, and at the age of six began to study the piano.[3] Her mother, Oveida, was the lead singer in a gospel group known as The Apostolic Singers. After Lundy joined her church junior choir, she decided to become a singer when she was 12 years old. While an opera major at the University of Miami, where she received a BA in Music, she sang with a jazz band and decided to sing vocal jazz. She cites Dionne Warwick, Roberta Flack and Stevie Wonder as being among her first influences.

She moved to New York in 1978 where she was hired by the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra and performed her first New York engagement at the Village Vanguard in Greenwich Village. The following year she had her first appearance on a self-titled album from a group called Jasmine featuring Bill O'Connell and Steve Berrios (West 54 Records). In 1980 she formed her own trio, performing with pianists John Hicks and Onaje Gumbs. She has also performed with Walter Bishop Jr., Don Pullen, Mulgrew Miller, Billy Childs, Terri Lyne Carrington, Kip Hanrahan, Courtney Pine, Marian McPartland, and the band Quasimode.

Lundy has composed and published over forty songs. Her compositions 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's first album, Good Morning Kiss (1985) featured several original compositions, and was reissued in 2002.[4] Her second album was Night and Day (1986), and featured musicians Kenny Kirkland (piano), Alex Blake (bass), Curtis Lundy (bass), Victor Lewis (drums), Rodney Jones (guitar), Ricky Ford (tenor sax).

Lundy played the lead role in the European tour of Duke Ellington's Broadway musical, Sophisticated Ladies. Off-Broadway she portrayed Billie Holiday in Lawrence Holder's They Were All Gardenias. She made her television debut as the star of the CBS Pilot-Special Shangri-La Plaza (1990) in the role of Geneva.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts website has called Carmen Lundy "a woman of many faces: composer, arranger, producer, actress, painter, and sophisticated vocalist well known for her progressive bop and post-bop styling's—an uncompromising jazz singer whose every note is bulls-eye accurate" (Los Angeles Times). "Equally adept at love-struck ballads, songs of heartbreak, or full-out swing, Lundy wields a voice of agility and seductive allure [that] make for a potent combination."[5]

In 2005 Lundy and producer Elisabeth Oei launched the label Afrasia Productions with Jazz & the New Songbook: Live at the Madrid recorded live at the Madrid Theatre in Los Angeles, also released on DVD. Lundy draws on repertoire from her previous recordings, backed by brother Curtis Lundy and Victor Lewis, pianists Billy Childs, Robert Glasper, Bobby Watson, Phil Upchurch, and Mayra Casales, a percussionist, who also released on Afroasia (the only one beside Lundy so far.)[6] The labels second release was Come Home, her tenth album, featuring Geri Allen and Steve Turre, followed by Solamente, an album with recordings that originally served as reference demos, where she was playing all instruments herself.[7] Lundy's latest release via Afrasia Productions was released on Feb 17, 2017, and features several guest artists, notably Patrice Rushen on piano.[8]

Lundy's oil on canvas paintings have been exhibited in New York at The Jazz Gallery (Soho) and The Jazz Bakery, and in Los Angeles at the Madrid Theater. Her art also appears in the booklets that accompany her CDs.

Discography
Year Title Label
1985 Good Morning Kiss[9] Blackhawk
1986 Night and Day Sony (Japan)
1992 Moment to Moment Arabesque
1995 Self Portrait JVC
1997 Old Devil Moon JVC
2001 This Is Carmen Lundy Justin Time
2003 Something to Believe In Justin Time
2005 Jazz and the New Songbook: Live at the Madrid Afrasia Productions
2007 Come Home Afrasia
2009 Solamente Afrasia
2012 Changes Afrasia
2014 Soul to Soul Afrasia
2017 Code Noir Afrasia
2019 Modern Ancestors Afrasia[10]

With Geri Allen

With Walter Bishop Jr.

References
  1. Loudon, Christopher (31 March 2017). "Carmen Lundy: Code Noir (Afrasia) - JazzTimes". JazzTimes. Retrieved 7 July 2018.
  2. Carmen Lundy – Old Devil Moon
  3. Azeez, Malik (May 21, 2003) "Vocalist Carmen Lundy Is the Queen of Jazz". The Washington Informer. p. 21.
  4. Good Morning Kiss (1985), reissued in 2002 Archived September 27, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  5. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Archived September 30, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  6. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2015-09-10. Retrieved 2013-04-03.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  7. Solamente on carmenlundy.com
  9. Good Morning Kiss was remastered and reissued in 2002 by Justin Time Archived 2013-06-23 at the Wayback Machine with three previously unreleased alternate takes, and again in its original form as a limited edition by CLR/Afrasia. Archived 2015-09-23 at the Wayback Machine
  10. Carmen Lundy, Modern Ancestors. Review by Alex Henderson, NYCJR, December 2019, Issue 212, page 29 - retrieved 6 December 2019.
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