Giacomo Gates

Giacomo Gates (2009)

Giacomo Gates (* 1950 in Connecticut ) is an American jazz singer and pianist.

Live and act

Giacomo Gates takes up the vocalese technique in his singing , which u. a. was introduced by Eddie Jefferson in the early 1960s while singing bebop solos. He started performing publicly at the age of six, had tap dance lessons , learned to play the guitar at the age of eight, and sang the songs of the Great American Songbook at weddings . After high school, he attended college for a year, then an engineering school. He began his professional career as an assembly worker, u. a. on pipelines in Alaska; he then lived in Washington State and Arizona for twelve years. When Sarah Vaughan encouraged him to return to singing at a workshop in Fairbanks , he eventually returned to his home state of Connecticut and performed in the New York area. Under the influence of classic jazz recordings, he developed a style of singing similar to instruments in the early 1990s, which followed his role models Eddie Jefferson, Lambert , Hendricks & Ross , Mose Allison , Joe Williams , Al Hibbler , Babs Gonzales and others. Helen Keane then produced his first album in 1995, on which he was accompanied by a rhythm group made up of Harold Danko , Rufus Reid and Akira Tana . In 2002 he worked on the Eddie Landsberg directed tribute album Remembering Eddie Jefferson . In New York he appeared accompanied by bassist Steve LaSpina .

In 2012 he received the Rising Star Award from Down Beat's Critics Poll .

Discographic notes

Blue Skies (DMP, 1995)
Fly Rite (Sharp Nine, 1998)
Centerpiece ( Origin , 2004)
Luminosity (AAO, 2008)
The Revolution Will Be Jazz: The Songs of Gil Scott-Heron (2011)
What time is it? (Savant, 2017)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Gates, Giacomo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American jazz singer
DATE OF BIRTH	1950
PLACE OF BIRTH	Connecticut