Grace Kelly’s WORKING FOR THE DREAMERS Drops Sept. 2

Grace Kelly's WORKING FOR THE DREAMERS Drops Sept. 2 1 Grace Kelly may not be a real life princess, but she is certainly jazz royalty. Wynton Marsalis was so impressed with Kelly’s three-night stand as guest of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra that he invited her to join the ensemble at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater in Washington, D.C. for Barack Obama’s Inauguration Celebration. American Idol judge Harry Connick, Jr. heard Kelly in a master class and brought her on stage to sit in with his band that night.  Her work was featured on CNN, in Glamour Magazine, in the Hollywood Reporter and so much more.

Grace Kelly may not be a real life princess, but she is certainly jazz royalty. Wynton Marsalis was so impressed with Kelly’s three-night stand as guest of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra that he invited her to join the ensemble at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater in Washington, D.C. for Barack Obama’s Inauguration Celebration. American Idol judge Harry Connick, Jr. heard Kelly in a master class and brought her on stage to sit in with his band that night.  Her work was featured on CNN, in Glamour Magazine, in the Hollywood Reporter and so much more.

At the age of 14, Grace orchestrated one of her original compositions and performed it with t he Boston Pops Orchestra conducted by Keith Lockhart. Since then, the 22-year old Korean-American prodigy has been voted “Best Jazz Act” in Boston four consecutive years in the FNX/Phoenix Best Music Poll, and then voted Best National Jazz Act in 2012. She has received the ASCAP Foundation’s Young Jazz Composers Award in 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011 and 2013 and won “Jazz Artist of the Year” at the Boston Music Awards in both 2008 and 2010. The 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 Downbeat Critics Poll added to her the list naming her one of the “Alto Saxophone Rising Stars,” the youngest artist ever to be named to the music poll.  But this time?  This time Grace Kelly is singing and playing a different tune — her own.  On September 2nd, Grace’s EP Working For The Dreamers introduces what she calls her “atmospheric pop” sound.

Says Kelly about the EP, “I have a deep respect for genre benders. I want to bring my music to people of my generation. I’d like to think I’m bringing something fresh and youthful to the table by merging musical influences and genres that are true to me – from influences of Stan Getz to Sting to Prince to Coldplay to Jessie Ware to Fitz and the Tantrums and beyond. I feel it’s important to take all these two worlds that I love, pop and contemporary songwriting along with jazz and make it my own.”

This new direction of Grace’s music creates a fresh sound that makes the most of Grace’s creative spirit and multiple talents, backed by Sunny Levine’s programming of inventive drumbeats and dreamscapes (Scarlett Johansson, Rashida Jones, The Happy Mondays, and Ariel Pink) and masterfully produced by Stewart Levine. (Minnie Ripperton, Simply Red, Jamie Cullum, Killing Joke, Joe Cocker, Sly Stone.) and Sunny Levine. Listen to the first track, “Working For the Dreamers” (HERE).

Grace is currently on tour, including a stop at the famous Newport Jazz Festival where she’ll play with the legendary composer and saxophonist, Lee Konitz who is the only musician on the bill who also appeared at the FIRST Newport Jazz 60 years ago!

DATES

August 23                    Spaghettini                              Seal Beach, CA

September 18              Indy Jazz Fest                        Indianapolis, IN

September 19              Detroit Institute of Arts            Detroit, MI

September 26              Tuckerman Hall                      Worcester, MA

September 28              Tupelo Music Hall                 Londonderry, NH

October 17                  Grand Annex                           San Pedro, CA