Michelle Walker
Encyclopedia
Career
Michelle Walker is a jazz vocalist, song writer and arranger based in New York city. She started her music career in the Washington, DC area were she was nominated numerous times for a WAMA award (Washington Area Music AssociationWashington Area Music Association
The Washington Area Music Association is a regional music industry not-for-profit organization based in Washington, D.C.. WAMA's activity centers around highlighting the area's cultural contribution by assisting regional musicians with becoming recognized on a national scale.The organization...
) for best jazz vocalist, best debut album of the year and best jazz group. She has toured in concert in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
and The Netherlands. She has performed in concert, most notably with Mark Murphy
Mark Murphy (singer)
Mark Murphy is an American jazz singer based in New York. He is most noted for his definitive and unique vocalese and vocal improvisations with both melody and lyrics...
. She has performed in a number of jazz festivals either sharing the stage or opening in concert for vocalist Rene Marie, Carol Sloane
Carol Sloane
Carol Sloane is an American jazz singer born in Providence, Rhode Island, who has been singing professionally since she was 14, although for a time in the 1970s she worked as a legal secretary in Raleigh, North Carolina. She currently lives in Stoneham, Massachusetts.One of her early efforts was...
, Winton Marsalis, Chris Botti
Chris Botti
Christopher Stephen "Chris" Botti , is an American trumpeter and composer. In 2007, Botti was nominated for two Grammy Awards including Best Pop Instrumental Album. On December 4, 2009, he was nominated for three more Grammy Awards including Best Pop Instrumental Album and Best Long Form Music Video...
, George Benson
George Benson
George Benson is a ten Grammy Award winning American musician, whose production career began at the age of twenty-one as a jazz guitarist....
and Spyro Gyra
Spyro Gyra
Spyro Gyra is an American jazz fusion band that was originally formed in the mid-1970s in Buffalo, New York, USA. With over 25 albums released and 10 million copies sold, they are among the most prolific as well as commercially successful groups of the genre...
. Michelle has been described by the Washington Post as a "...sultry and seductive singer"
Early years
Walker was born in BaumholderBaumholder
Baumholder is a town in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, in the Westrich, an historic region that encompasses areas in both Germany and France...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
the fifth of six children to Captain Adolphus Walker, Jr. (US ARMY) and Linnie Mae Bardwell. Walker attended a specialized school for the arts, studying music, dance and theater. At the age of sixteen, she moved to Washington, DC where she remained studying classical voice and jazz vocal performance at the University of Maryland, College Park
University of Maryland, College Park
The University of Maryland, College Park is a top-ranked public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C...
until she moved to New York City in 2007. Walker also studied voice privately and through master classes taught by Betty Carter
Betty Carter
Betty Carter was an American jazz singer renowned for her improvisational technique and idiosyncratic vocal style...
, Mark Murphy
Mark Murphy (singer)
Mark Murphy is an American jazz singer based in New York. He is most noted for his definitive and unique vocalese and vocal improvisations with both melody and lyrics...
, Jay Clayton
Jay Clayton
Jay Clayton is an internationally acclaimed avant-garde vocalist and jazz educator.- Early years :...
and Jon Hendricks
Jon Hendricks
Jon Hendricks is an American jazz lyricist and singer. He is considered one of the originators of vocalese, which adds lyrics to existing instrumental songs and replaces many instruments with vocalists...
. Walker has also studied jazz voice at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
and the Conservatorium van Amsterdam
Conservatorium van Amsterdam
The Conservatorium van Amsterdam is a Dutch academy of music located in Amsterdam. This school is the music division of the Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten, the city's vocational university of arts...
in Holland under teachers Madeline Eastman, Nancy Marano, Christian McBride
Christian McBride
Christian McBride is an American jazz bassist. His father, Lee Smith, and his great uncle, Howard Cooper, are well known Philadelphia bassists who served as McBride's early mentors...
, Jeff Clayton
Jeff Clayton
Jeff Clayton is an American jazz alto saxophonist and flautist.Clayton studied oboe at California State University and undertook a tour with Stevie Wonder. Following this he recorded with Gladys Knight, Kenny Rogers, Michael Jackson, Patti Labelle, and Madonna...
, Benny Green (pianist)
Benny Green (pianist)
Benny Green is a hard bop jazz pianist who was a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. He has been compared to Bud Powell in style and counts him as an influence. As a boy he grew up in Berkeley, California and studied classical piano from the age of seven...
, Steve Davis (trombonist)
Steve Davis (trombonist)
Steve Davis is an American jazz trombonist who plays hard bop, post-bop, and standards. His primary influences are J. J. Johnson, Curtis Fuller, Slide Hampton, Jackie McLean, Freddie Hubbard, Dexter Gordon, Miles Davis, Hank Jones, Cedar Walton, McCoy Tyner and John Coltrane.Davis was raised in...
and Sam Rivers
Sam Rivers
Samuel Carthorne Rivers , is an American jazz musician and composer. He performs on soprano and tenor saxophones, bass clarinet, flute, harmonica and piano....
.
External links
Official sitesDiscography
| Year | Artist | Album | Label | Charts/Sales Info |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | Michelle Walker | Slow Down | JGP Records |