Greta Matassa

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Greta Matassa (* in Seattle ) is an American jazz singer who works mainly in the Pacific Northwest of the USA.

Live and act

Matassa's family moved frequently during her childhood; so she grew u. a. on Bainbridge Island in Puget Sound near Seattle. Her father's jazz records had early influences, such as Rita Reys . Anita O'Day is one of her greatest influences . After leaving high school early, she worked in Salem, Oregon with pianist and singer Tim Clark. In Seattle she sang in rock and jazz bands in the 1980s, a. a. with guitarist Michael Powers (1985) and in Jim Rasmussen's Jazz Police Big Band . In 1989 she worked as a replacement for Ernestine Anderson in a Kurt Weill program, which ran for a total of ten years and made her known in Seattle. In 1994 she made her record debut with If The Moon Turns Green ; after that she temporarily interrupted her career, married and raised two children.

After her divorce, she continued her career in the early 2000s; In 2001 she made a comeback with the album All This and Heaven Too: Live at Bake's Place on Origin Records . Matassa prefers song material from the Great American Songbook by Harold Arlen , Irving Berlin , Rodgers and Hart , Jimmy Van Heusen , Kurt Weill, George Gershwin , Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington ; she improvises in a contemporary scat style. She mostly works with bassist Clipper Anderson , pianist Randy Halberstadt , drummer Mark Ivester and vibraphonist Susan Pascal. She has also collaborated with various theater and music projects in Seattle, including the Spectrum Dance Theater , Pacific Northwest Ballet , Teatro ZinZanni , the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra and the Seattle Men's Chorus .

Awards

The Seattle jazz magazine Earshot voted her the best jazz vocalist in the northwest four times .

Discographic notes

  • 2001 - All This and Heaven Too: Live at Bake's Place (Origin) with Randy Halberstadt
  • 2002 - Live At Tula's (Jazz Stream, ed. 2011)
  • 2003 - Two for the Road (Origin) with Mimi Fox
  • 2005 - Favorites from a Long Walk (Origin)
  • 2007 - The Smiling Hour (Origin)
  • 2009 - I Wanna Be Loved (Resonance)
  • 2009 - And to All a Good Night (Origin) with Clipper Anderson
  • 2011 - Favorites From A Long Walk (Origin)
  • 2019 - Portrait (Origin), with Alexey Nikolaev, Clipper Anderson, Mark Ivester, Darin Clendenin

Web link

Greta Matassa at Discogs (English)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ website
  2. ↑ a b Gretta Matassa on Allmusic (English)
  3. ↑ a b portrait at Origin Records
personal data
SURNAME Matassa, Greta
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz singer
DATE OF BIRTH 20th century
PLACE OF BIRTH Seattle